Photography at Coin Shows – Your Experiences?

That's convenient. Are your clients there for VSS, looking for images of their varieties, or for their coins in general? Hey, I just found your video on respectable coin photography on the NNP. I know what I'll be watching at lunch.

 

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At shows I just do photos of coins. The variety stuff is done afterward, since I need more equipment for that (microscope and printer). Sometimes people drop off variety stuff for me to keep their coins out of the hands of the USPS at least once. Enjoy the video. The technology is old, but the technique is still sound.

 

As promised these two are examples of John's excellent work!!

 

That was an interesting video. Is that the general setup you use at shows? Do you have any issues with the ambient light?

 

Sort of. I have a tripod rather than a copy stand for shows, but it's a nice one where I can reverse the mast and have the camera below the legs. Quite stable. Lamps are the same ones as those I used in the video, except with LEDs rather than CFLs. The camera is attached to a focusing rail rather than directly to the tripod.

Not usually. Once in a while I'm set up under an overhead light that I have to be careful to shade or it'll show up. The color of curtains separating booths can present an issue (FUN uses orange, CSNS yellow), so I just make sure there's not a lot of light shining on them or I cover them with something else. 1100 lumen bulbs a foot away from the subject far overpower most ambient light.

 

Very nice. Were they raw or certified? Is this how John provided the images to you or did you add the text and background?

 

@Denis Richard these two are raw as most of my collection is. I have a few that are in TPG's. I'll post those pics later today.

 

@Denis Richard These two John took for me.

 

John, I did a show over the weekend here in Canada, and I'd like to know how you handle people bringing you scratched and hazy slabs. Do you politely refuse them or charge more to clean up the mess? I had a dozen vintage slabs cross my table, and even with cleaning and a polish, they were terrible. Do your customers know to fix them before bringing them to you?

 

I have a bottle of PlastX with me, a rag, and a dropper bottle with unscented lamp oil. Usually a tiny bit of oil smeared on the slab takes care of scratches. When it doesn't, I get out the PlastX. I haven't charged more for this, but if I'm backed up I'm not going to spend a ton of time polishing them. I do let people know they need to polish their slabs if they're scratched. The thing is, I have no idea if polishing an old "collectible" slab is taboo. I have a feeling that for those who are actually interested in the coin inside the slab, it's not.

 

My first coin show in Canada, as an on-site coin photographer, was last weekend. Overall, it went well. Here are a few of the highlights from the weekend.

I had several ancients cross my table. This Pushkalavati Indo- Greek square coin caught my eye. Struck circa 185-165 BCE.





Below is a 1935 Canadian silver dollar. It was one of several I photographed in vintage PCGS cases.



Below, a unique bi-metallic Gallienus medallion from 253-268 CE. Sadly, the outer bronze ring, once bright, has lost much of its colour.




With the first show under my belt, my next is the Toronto Coin Expo in October.

 

I have the plastX, and used it over the weekend, but I'm not familiar with the lamp oil. Is there a specific product you like?

 

The collector that brought them in had no problem with my giving them a polish. I just made sure he approved in person, in front of witnesses. Is it wise to make a little form for that, to get a signature?

 

I have a bottle of Ultra-Pure Paraffin Lamp Oil. I also use it as valve oil. A quart bottle will probably last you the rest of your life (unless you use it in a lamp).

 

I should really check with vintage slab collectors, because I don't know if they'd rather have original scuff marks or a slab where you could see the coin. This would probably only be an issue for highly collectable slabs and not 99.9% of what you'll see.

 

This 1900 one-cent coin was brought to me at the National Show. I don't know if the owner was unaware that there were Trueviews already, or if it was his test. This coin is the kind that the slab's light direction limitations have less of a negative impact on shooting it. Other than the lustre, it is not as contrasted (a result of the indirect light angle necessary to shoot a slab), there are more or less the same. In this case, now that I've seen the two together, I could adjust the contrast in Photoshop.

 

One of the downsides of shooting at the show and editing after is not having the coin in front of me when editing.

 

Very nice. Did you add the gradient background and label or were the images suppled that way?

 

I take pictures of the slabs if people want them. If they want the label in the picture, I will at least shoot that. The compositing and gradient background are in post-processing using Imagemagick scripts.