It used to be very easy to take a better photo than Heritage, especially with regards to toned coins. But as of late (within the last year), the photos have gotten very good indeed. I am at the point where I can't seem to eclipse their quality no matter how hard I try. Here are a few photos for comparison. Heritage photos on the top and mine on the bottom. This is not to say that I can't scroll through and find a horrible photo every once and a while. I am just saying that the overall quality and consistency of Heritage photos has improved very much over the last year or two. What say you?
Neat! All that money and all those coins and they finally figured out how to use a Camera! About time too. BTW Mr Rainbow, check out the 67FH 28-S SLQ they have, nice color on it and it's a scarce die variety too.
Yeah, I saw it but I am not going to bid on it for two reasons. First, I have had a really bad month playing poker (down 5 figures) and second, that coin is over graded IMO. That is too many marks on right leg for MS67. If it was graded MS66, I would have put in a strong bid.
Same issue I have with it. I like the die state, that date break isn't that common and the MS ones show the die cracks that go with it nicely. And it's very colorful for an SLQ, borderline AT almost. What's keeping me off it is the so-so strike for that die pair, that and there's a 65 with the same die pair and a similar die state that's also in the sale that is going for MUCH less obviously. Big spreads when they get into 67 territory...
I will agree that Paul's pics make the coins "look" better. But that is not a good thing IMO. I would much prefer to see pics that clearly show marks & hits than I would see pics that don't show them.
Lehigh - I would disagree in the case of a recent purchase I made. The Heritage pics were not accurate. http://www.cointalk.com/forum/t46388/
And therein lies the crux of the problem. When a buyer purchases a coin based on pictures he has seen he expects the coin to look like the pictures. But when he receives the coin he often sees things in hand that he did not see in the pictures - and he is often unhappy about this. Of course it can go both ways, sometimes the buyer is ecstatic when he sees the coin because it looks much better than the pics did. So - that plays a rather large part in what a person thinks of or how he defines a quality picture. When looking to buy, people tend to want to see every little flaw a coin has. But when looking to share their new purchase, the coin flips to the other side and people tend to want to show pictures that are flattering to the coin. So before deciding what constitutes a quality picture, you first have to ask yourself which side of that fence you wish to stand on.
Now if we could only get Heritage to start lighting their pics from above rather than from below, we'd really be getting somewhere.
Doug - so true. BTW - just to clarify that in my previous post, I saw the coin first in hand and did not rely upon the poor picture to determine whether to purchase. In fact, I believe that the poor pictures were to my advantage in reducing the competition who did not see the coin in hand.
