My father died and left behind tons of work for me. One of them was to get all his coins appraised and looked at. I do have an old Nikon D70 camera, which I assume can take very large resolutions of all the coins, but is this a place to start off with? There are all sorts of coins and I want to start finding out what they are and their worth. Is this a place to start and post pictures of them? I have a small tripod for my camera, but wondering how to take a picture of a coin that lays flat so it comes out very clear. I do not trust any of those gold cash checking places at all. Could be holding a gem and not even know it. My father wasn't a man of means or money but he collected everything. Stamps as well. Is this the right place to start? Thanks, Mike
First thing I'd do is go out and buy a red book ( guide to coin prices). Sort the coins by type, all silver dollars together, all wheat cents together, etc. With the red book or other coin publication, you can sort out all the common coins leaving what potentially has value. All silver coins will be worth their weight in silver.
Welcome to CT! And like dwhiz wrote, do not use the red book for pricing. But if you have a coin with high value the red book will put you in the ball park.
First of all, I'm sorry for your loss. I pray you and your family are doing well and through or making it through the grieving process. This is absolutely the place to get informed on what you have, their values, and if there is anything notable in the collection. We don't need high resolution shots to begin with, just decent ones that let us see the whole coin and the dates. If you have tons of coins, take a group photo and we can tell you if we think anything should be further evaluated. PCGS has a priceguide that is way overpriced, but will at least signal when you have a gem. A few short tips: Don't clean anything! Don't even think about it. Don't touch the face of the coins, hold them on the rims. Don't drag coins across the table, put them on a towel/cloth and pick them up/set them down. Learn, learn, learn before you sell. The value of the coin goes up tremendously when you have the knowledge. Dealers and buyers rip people off so often because they have knowledge you do not. Knowledge is power, and in this case, money. Don't go telling the world what you have, or at least don't tell your neighbors and local grocery clerks. Word gets around, at least here, you can be anonymous. It would be a shame that you make yourself a target by telling a friend, who tells a friend what you have and then they try to take what's yours. Don't rush to decisions, haste makes waste. You will get honest advice from people here, but some of us can be a bit short and direct. Don't take it personally; your patience will be rewarded with knowledge. If you have any specific questions, I collect both US and World coins and have a plethora of websites for you to browse from depending on what you have for a collection. I also know dealers and friends who buy coins. Feel free to message me personally with any questions you have and I'll do my best to answer them.
Are the coins mostly US or mostly from the rest of the world? Assuming you are in the US (most people here seems to be) then it will be much easier to sell US coins. Unless you need to sell them for financial reasons I would recommend hanging on to all coins until you have had time to educate yourself as to what you have. Sometimes such collections are nothing more than relatively common coins and will bring little. At other times the collections can be worth a fortune and progressing slowly is the best way. It is impossible for us to tell until we see pictures. There is a thread here on CT which talks about how to take and post pictures.
Welcome to Coin Talk, Mike. Sorry for your loss. If you post photos of coin here, there are many very knowledgable member that can help you grade and value your coins. Give pointers on how to photoghraph them, and how to care for them. A most important thing is do not clean any of your coins. A coin book will be helpful in finding the Key Dates and ballpark values. Like most things coins have two values, one for the buyer and one for the seller. So yes this is a very good place to start.
So sorry for your loss. An easy way to take serviceable pictures is good lighting and with a newer cell phone. Even good daylight through a window and steadying the phone on an overturned glass will do a good enough job for quick IDs and rough ideas on value. You can also start with group shots and show what kind of storage he'd been using, which an give clues too. If there are some in holders with a special mark (think red dot or a star or something) that could be a clue to look for bigger values. Be very careful of handling the coins as noted above. Coin condition can make the difference between a one dollar coin and a hundred dollar (or more) coin. Good luck, take it slow, ask questions.
You may find it easier to use a scanner than a big Nikon. If so, do 9 coins per scan, 3 across and 3 coins down; that's plenty for us to digest at one time. Use a scan area of about 4 x 4 inches, at 600dpi. Do NOT use the entire scan glass area of 8½ x 11 inches and crop away the excess; that makes for poor-quality images. Do not make your scans too dark; even the cheapest scanners give you several varying levels of illumination. Tell us the mint marks, if any; initially, there's no particular reason to scan both sides. We can request that for specific items later; no reason to double your work. Images are our only real connection with the coin(s). If you are unable to scan, do the best you can with the camera. Here's an example of a useful scan (of a dime) although it's too small; twice this diameter would be better. I don't have many coin photographs archived to use as examples, but the contrast and tone are good on this one.
You bet it is, and it reflects great credit upon you that in your time of mourning you're able to make dispassionate decisions about the wise way to move forward. As has already been mentioned, we can only help you to the extent that we can see clearly the condition of your coins. Your first step should be to create an inventory list of denomination, date, mint mark and whether or not (to your eye) they have circulated. You don't need to be a skilled grader immediately; this list is only to weed out the coins whose value will likely just track their metal melt value plus some small numismatic premium, from those whose potential requires closer investigation. Publish that here. No need to individually list multiples of the same coin/condition, except to indicate a quantity if applicable; that's relevant because there may be some financial advantage to you in certain circumstances to sell some things as a lot. This will save you a lot of work down the road. As regards imaging: A scanner is a quick, easy way to record technical detail, but they show nothing (and are sometimes quite deceptive) about surface originality, luster and coloring. All are factors which could greatly enhance, or greatly diminish, the value of the coin. With your camera, you've already intuited that you should be looking straight down at the coin (it's very important to get coin and camera nice and square; a tilted image messes up perspective and makes evaluating details far more difficult). You can do this by using the corner of a table - the tripod should be able to put that corner between its' legs and "view" a surface large enough to safely place the coin. If not, you can weight the end of a small (6"-12" wide board and dangle the other end off the side of a table, between the tripod legs. To ensure you're square with the shooting surface, just place a small mirror on the spot where the coin will go, and arrange the camera so it sees its' own lens in the exact center of the viewfinder. When the center of the lens is in the center of the image, you're square to the coin. Shoot on a monochrome surface - black, white, grey. This adds the least distraction to the viewer, and makes color correction easiest for the camera. Your images should be cropped to just a single coin alone, and be careful to arrange it vertically, just as you'd like to look at it in-hand, like so: This makes things a ton easier on the brains of the observer. What do you have for lenses? Your camera is more than good enough to shoot images of a quality similar to the one I just posted, but not all lenses lend themselves to this technique. They're designed to shoot things farther away, and lack the close focusing capability (and magnification level) required for accurate macro shooting. For your camera, your goal is to get an image sharply-focused that fills half of the camera's sensor (or more). If you let me know what you have for lenses, I'll be happy to evaluate them, recommend the best one for your needs and then we can get more specific regarding your best technique for shooting. That can be tailored to any level of photography and postprocessing knowledge; you'd be far from the first who has gone from "never touched a camera" to "pretty darn good coin photographer." The advantage of a place like CoinTalk is that you'll find people knowledgeable in every aspect of numismatics, every issue, ready and willing to help. None of our advice will reach the level of putting the coins physically in the hands of someone qualified to evaluate them personally, but many of us are very well-qualified in our respective niches and equally-experienced in evaluating coins from images only. It's an inexact science, to be sure, because even the best of shots can drastically alter the perceived appearance of the coin due to variances in technique (there are immoral sellers who do this deliberately), but experience tells and once you've looked at a few thousand images of similar coins, you can learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. We're here to help. It's why we hang out at a place like this - well, in addition to the desire to brag about our own stuff. There are no stupid questions, and it's doubtful you could ask a question that someone can't answer. Do not hesitate.
I like the suggestion from @doug444 of using the scanner, but as a starting point only. It allows for rapid identification of date / mintmark combinations and varieties which can quickly whittle down how much work you must do. By rapidly identifying those coins worth little of your time, and those worthy of the most, you can easily decide how to progress with the next step . . . photographing those worth the effort. Doubtless, you get many opinions on shooting photos . . . I'll leave that to others who are better photographers than I.
Very Sorry for your loss. We would be glad to help with ID and value. Some here might be able to help with Varietys also if the Pics are clear enough. This thread might help you with your Photo set up. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/post-your-coin-photography-set-up.229658/ Welcome to CT Mike
If you are going to use a cell phone camera, please go to the craft store and buy a piece of black foam as your background.
Welcome to CoinTalk. I'm sorry for the sad circumstances that brought you here, but glad you've found us. I'm glad you already know to avoid "Cash for Gold" and the like; those places have their uses, but this isn't one of them. I also hope you'll heed our advice not to try cleaning anything! There are plenty of great details flying around the thread already, but I'd like to ask a few more general questions: 1) How many coins are you talking about? Dozens, hundreds, thousands? There are different strategies that come into play depending on that answer. (For example, it's probably not worthwhile to start out by photographing and posting a hundred coins individually.) 2) Are the coins mostly in folders or individual holders, or are they in rolls and loose in bags? 3) Are most of the coins fairly recent (less than 50 years old), or are there many older ones? 4) Are they mostly US coins, or are there many foreign ones (assuming you're in the US)? There are plenty more questions, but the answers to these will help us figure out what to ask next.
Sorry for your loss. Sounds he kept no record of their value. Well, I find the easiest way to get value is eBay. I have all the books and Apps., but eBay gives a real life sell price.
I am also sorry for your loss. I have a few questions for you: Have you collected coins before? Do you plan on keeping any of the coins from your father? Are you in a hurry to sell some or all of the coins? As mentioned previously, the longer you take to analyze what you have and learn about your coins, the more you will be able to sell the coins for in the future. I look forward to seeing your photos, and finding out more about your coins. Best wishes for the future.
I talk "scanner" because it saves a lot of time and weeds out the common stuff; plenty of time for cameras later. Either way, the quality makes the difference, as many have pointed out.
People on here really can be helpful (if they're not being silly). As a first step, I would probably take a fairly big shot of some of the coins and post them here for further guidance. BTW, approximately how many and US or foreign?
