Sorting my 70 year accumulation

I've sorted out some of my Wheats by date groups. I have some photos. The S Mint have not been sorted into date groupings yet. Now I need to sort further for the nicest one and any variations there might be. I also have many others that I had put into 2x2's years ago.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I've sorted out my S Mint Lincolns and have photos here. Now the job of looking for the nicest and potential errors.

 

Last night in my stash I found a 1960 P Jefferson with just about everything doubled. See the link https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-fun-piece-i-found-with-lots-of-doubling.333912/ for the details. Then, tonight I found another that could be the brother or sister. Just a fun little detail of collecting.

 

My original Lincoln Cents were stored in the Whitman Blue folders. These have been in there since the early to late 50's. The folders are falling apart. In my effort to re-organize my 70 years accumulation I am moving them to new albums. Here is a photo of the start of this project. All of these were found in circulation.

 

Here is a link to another thread the result of searching my 70 year accumulation.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/could-be-1950-s-cent-die-clash.334322/

 

I just dumped out another bunch of old wheat pennies from my accumulation. I found 2 1909 w/o VDB. See photo. Plus, some early S Mint cents. I also found a 1920 D with the Ghost (indirect design transfer) on the reverse. Actually awaiting confirmation from experts on the ghost. I'll show it here.

 

Here is a link to more fun things I found today in my stash of S Mint Wheat Cents. I found two more Ghost Pennies.
https://www.cointalk.com/posts/3397838/

 

I found a 1910 P Lincoln in my accumulation that has been plated silver. It looks like the plating was done a long time ago while it was still in circulation. I've probably had it since the early 50's. Any comments on the plating? Do you think it was in circulation as a plated coin?

 

See the attached link for an update. I found 4 1960 D Lincolns with identical die breaks in an uncirculated roll that I have had since 1960.
https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1960-d-obv-die-break-4-each-identical.336448/

 

It has been pointed out that what I called die cracks may be die scratches. @alurid @ken454

 

The Dansco is a nice choice for a Lincoln set.

 

I had my Lincolns (in fact all my collections) in Dansco albums for decades. When I took some out I found that some of the Dansco albums were made with the adhesive that holds the backing to the punched frame was exposed to the reverse of the coins. So, the dried adhesive, over a long time, left black streaks on the reverse. Some Dansco albums didn't have these feature. It seems that they had two processes. One process was to apply the adhesive to the entire backing, and one was to apply the adhesive to the punched frame only. The second method prevented the adhesive from contacting the coins. I initially made the choice to change because the albums were falling apart from age. Most of them were started in 1948.

 

New albums use plastic slips for both sides so you can see both sides of the coins as you turn the pages. If you're going to store loose coins Dansco or Intercept shield is the way to go. Anything less is long obsolete really.

 

Those nickles make me drool!

 

Yes! I didn't realize what I was getting myself into while, as a youngster, I was throwing much of my change in the coffee cans. I am finding things almost every day.

 

Attached is a link to the next project. Earlier I posted about some 1960 D cents that came from the same die. This new link is regarding some 1960 P cents that I feel came from the same die. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1960-p-with-identical-die-breaks.336488/

 

If you have the ability to adjust the white-balance of your camera, that would probably cure the "silvering" you're getting with the photos of the BU cents. Also, you may be slightly over-lighting the subject and blowing-out some of the color that way. Try moving the light source (or your photo-stage if the lights are fixed) a small distance farther from the light source. The intensity of the light varies inversely to the square of the distance between source and subject, so in a case of mild over-lighting, moving only a few inches farther away can make all the difference in color-accuracy without post-processing.

 

Thanks. I am using a digital microscope and I think I have to change to a camera. Would you have any idea what to switch to? Or, how to make better use of the microscope? Several members have given advise and I am experimenting with those suggestions.

 

What sort of camera you use is really up to you. Many phone cameras these days actually take reasonably good coin photos - although you'll want the ability to crop the raw images down to squares and be able to stitch two or more together and save them to files on a desktop or laptop.
Personally I'm a fan of a few "obsolete" cameras, more than a decade - some two or more decades - old, but they work for me. My #1 camera uses 1.44Mb "floppies" as its recording medium, for example - I've taken literally thousands of coin photos with it over the last decade. It has a great lens and the camera's internal software (firmware?) works very well for coins. It's a very "forgiving" set up.
If you go with a camera as a separate unit, almost anything of decent quality you feel confident using will be good.
What you need to do, no matter how you're capturing the image, is have a stand of some sort to keep the camera/phone/whatever from unnecessary movement and to have the images of your two sides of a coin or multiple photos of the same or similar coins all come out the same size without the need to adjust them in some post-process.
You need to have control of your lighting, although pretty much any sort of controllable lamps will do. If you have crane-style or goose-neck, movable and aim-able desk lamps, those are ideal. Also, be aware of your background - it can become a distraction to your image very easily if it's anything other than a matte, neutral color with no discernable pattern to it. Black, white or neutral 19% gray are probably the best, although solid colors like dark red or blue can be acceptable for various sorts of coins. Gold looks really good on blue, for example.

 

Great information @lehmansterms I will start working on a set up. And, thanks very much.