Does anyone know of any black-and-white coin prints, taken in the 19th century, that were hand-coloured? Hand-colouring was all the rage in regular photography; everyone's seen an example, but I can't find any trace in numismatic photography. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any, but you'd think someone would have done it. Also, speaking of colour coin photos, does anyone know the publication—a magazine, catalogue, or other such place— where the first colour photographs of coins were printed?
I’ve never seen nor heard of such but it sounds reasonable. Then again, when did coins start to get slabbed and graded? I doubt any photos were taken of coins before slabs started.
It's been a lot longer than that. Researching the 1652 NE threepence that surfaced 5-6 years ago, I recall finding photos of someone's coins from I think 1875. I think it was photos of the threepence in the Massachusetts Historical Society collection. I'll have to dig deep to find where I put the reference though; maybe tomorrow.
The first coin photo was taken in 1849; like all photos of the day, it was black and white. I'm looking for a hand-coloured, by which I mean hand-painted, black-and-white image of a coin. Hand colouring prints were very popular in the day, and a skilled artist could make them look great. Did a deep-pocketed coin collector do that for any beautifully toned coins in their own collection? Then again, in that era, were toned coins less desirable?
The early photographs I referenced above were from The Early Coins of America, Sylvester S. Crosby 1875. Just thought I would follow up. From the note at the bottom it appears that these were heliotypes, an early type of photography. Finding early colorized coin images is a frustrating search since it pulls up modern colorized coins, but I did find this, a brief summary of early coin imaging to the present. https://archive.org/details/eckbergdigitalimaging/mode/2up I didn't read it thoroughly. It seems to cover early ways of printing color images, but not colorizing the images themselves.
Thanks for the link. I hadn't seen that compilation before. Unfortunately, it doesn't touch on hand-colouring any of those early prints. My search continues.
For antique photos we called them “Hand Tinted” photos. You may want to try that term to see if it improves your searching.
