Featured What is a "CircCam", you ask? Look and see! And post yours!

Some CircCams I don't think I have posted in this thread before:

1825 10C DIME - CAPPED BUST, TYPE 1, LARGE DENTILS PCGS VG10 CAC






1818 25C QUARTER DOLLAR - CAPPED BUST, TYPE 1, LARGE SIZE PCGS G6 CAC




1873 50C HALF DOLLAR - SEATED LIBERTY, TYPE 6, MOTTO, ARROWS AT DATE PCGS VG10 (not arrived yet)

 

These I consider "borderline" CirCams. Sometime I think they fit the bill, and sometimes not:

1831 10C DIME - CAPPED BUST, TYPE 2, SMALL DENTILS PCGS F12 CAC

Reverse looks good, but Obverse is so-so. What do you think?






1914 S 25C QUARTER DOLLAR - BARBER LIBERTY HEAD PCGS VG10 CAC

Again, Obverse looks so-so to me.




1911 S 50C HALF DOLLAR - BARBER LIBERTY HEAD PCGS F12 CAC

not sure...

 

Love ‘em!

I usually refer to those “borderline” CircCams as “crusty”.

I think the 1831 dime qualifies as a CircCam.

 

That’s a rather extreme example, but not far off. Except coins hit with a buffer are problem coins. I would imagine they’d be overpolished on the high points.

My idea of a CircCam is one that got rubbed on the high points naturally, as a result of normal circulation, rather than something deliberately created. A CircCam coin will still have wholly original patina on the lower points.

Could you take a darkly toned original coin and carefully rub the high points (not with a buffer or anything so extreme) to make it into a CircCam? I suppose you could, but I don’t really foresee anyone doing that.

 

It's all personal preference of course, a Chocolate vs. Vanilla type of situation.

If I were to describe why I personally love the look of a "CircCam" its because I like to collect circulated grades. In the lower circulated grades, a coin mostly loses some of what makes a coin special. For instance, intricate details and bright shiny luster is gone, and in many cases it has lost any colorful toning it could have once had.

So, what we have now is a coin lacking fine details, lacking luster, lacking toning, lacking high relief, likely has crud and dirt and scrapes and dings. Now, if the coin in monotone in color, lacks contrast between the devices and fields, well, a coin can just plain look "flat".

Now comes along a coin, that still has is lacking fine details, lacking luster, lacking high relief between the fields and devices, is dark in appearance, BUT has a high contrast look to it. The dark fields contrasting against the lighter, almost white, devices with a pleasant smoothness to the wear. Suddenly the devices stand out again, replacing "details" and luster with a clean delineation based on color, black and white. You can "see" the design again, though mostly worn away, through sort of an "outline" effect based on contrast, which highlights and make the devices stand out. The "cameo" effect is similar to how proof coins, held at the right angle, show the fields as inky black contrasting sharply with the frosty whiteish devices.

For me, coins with this simulated cameo effect have something "special" about them that separates them from the pack of coins that otherwise are the same type, have the same numeric grade, etc. The term, when applied to appropriate coins, is not mere marking fluff. It describes an actual appearance a coin possesses.

Again, totally a Chocolate vs Vanilla thing, I totally get why some people would not care or even dislike "CircCams". I do think that the effect/look is aptly named, as "Circulated Cameo" to me perfectly describes how I see these coins.

I imagine its why some people still like black-and-white photography in a world dominated by color.