These are my photos. I've always had problems with coin photography. However I made somewhat of a breakthrough today and these have improved from execrable to only slightly stinky. Both coins are ex-Harmer Rooke, NYC. Are they still around? I've seen their name from time to time when coin provenances are included. I have to work on coloration, but I made massive improvements insofar as focus today. My new photography station is a desk with an overhead lamp (has an adjustable elbow), and there's also a window overhead. Today is overcast so no window action. The quadrigatus is much more attractive than the photo. The stately gunmetal grey toning is uniform, satin, and much more attractive than shown here: Anonymous (225-215 BC) - AR Quadrigatus (6.27g.) Sear RCV 031 ex Harmer Rooke. The Thasos tetradrachm is brighter than the above coin. *Can anyone supply a reference number? I don't have any references for these. Thasos - after 148 BC - AR Tetradrachm (16.62g.) ex Harmer Rooke There were also low-grade stocking stuffers from the LCS. They're all dark. This is the only image I have ready. What I suspect happened was at some point long ago they were coated with Blue Ribbon or something similar. The A2 follis (I also don't have calipers yet) is circa 35 mm. and really thin. The photo actually shows much more detail than is seen with the naked eye. I have to look under magnification to ascertain what's up and what's down in person; the obverse especially is very faint. c. 35mm, 10.64g. Fair/Good. DOC number unknown (difficult to tell if there were any ornaments. Since the book/nimbus on the obverse is worn it'd be tough to guess in any case. Thin fabric. That was the 'best' of the stocking stuffers. Depending on how the images turn out I may have an ID question for the Nicaea provincial.
It seems that on this one https://www.corpus-nummorum.eu/coins/65571 the Monogram on reverse (position: at the bottom left) https://data.corpus-nummorum.eu/storage/Monograms/cn_controlmark_470.svg is not the same as yours which seems to be an M like on https://www.corpus-nummorum.eu/coins/6163
My new photography station provided me with a better workspace and more light. The above pics were actually large breakthroughs. I discovered that on my Samsung Note 20 Ultra's manual mode, the focus was still on auto. Changing it to manual helped. I get the photography terms mixed up. Is the 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, etc number the f-stop? I kept the ISO at 80, which is what I use on people, and for the very dark coins, I bumped up the exposure. In all cases the 0.4 number provided the best focus (the green highlights were the strongest and I could see that the preview was more in focus. I'm not sure if I have to manually fiddle with that every time to achieve focus, as a small provincial was fuzzy after I kept it on the smae number and didn't fiddle. A true breakthrough won't happen until I get a lightbox, but I'm not good at DIY. It'd also be expensive to get a macro lens for my Sony alpha 77, and although the camera takes pin-sharp detail, it's an old camera, and the next camera I'd get would be a canon or Nikon so I could use more lenses. As I don't acquire many unphotographed coins it doesn't make a lot of sense to invest a lot of money into it. Like with the junky coins, even the best photographer in the world couldn't make them look super-great. The obverse of the A2 is wayyy more faint in person. I've kind of missed the window for photography today. I only like to try (and I still wear gloves) when my hands are very dry, and that's only a small window of time. I'm less strict on AV and AR, but I don't like to handle AE's otherwise.
Nice. And the photos are serviceable. Not so bad, really. Like you, I have been bedeviled by my limitations as a coin photographer and prefer to hire out my stuff to the pros. But I can manage mediocre work at times, when I'm forced to be my own photographer.
