While the soft light is flattering to the old girl, those look like cuts on her in those NGC pics, Scott, I have to tell you.
I just need to spend more time on my photos and buy a macro lens. These are just cell phone pics. Next time I'll set up some some strobes and really work on the angles. The hit on the nose isn't so bad, just when I tried some high contrast, direct sun photos to try bring out the luster. Fwiw, I bought this coin because of the lack of bag marks compared to my other examples, but then again I don't have the budget some serious collectors do, so it's all relative, but this is definitely the cleanest Morgan I own. Also, slam away I take no offense, I'm here to learn and hopefully contribute some as well.
You don't need strobes. A couple of gooseneck table lamps that you can place in different positions around the subject will do just fine. You should take your photos from directly overhead. A macro lens for a conventional camera is fine for close-ups, but you really don't need one for full coin images of large coins like the Morgan. The problem with using direct sunlight is that it hits the object from all angles which makes it less likely that you can produce the cartwheel effect of luster. If you really want to improve your photo results, you might want to buy Mark Goodman's book......
Here's the revel.... Shout out to @potty dollar 1878 and @longshot . Thank you to everyone who participated and made this a learning experience.
I didn't put pluses in the poll bc I thought that would be too much. And you nailed it 15 seconds after I posted the coin, nice!!
Agreed. From those pictures, I just do not see a 64+. Either they are just really bad photos, or NGC got it wrong.
I think y'all were a bit hard on this one and I'm not sure why. This is a textbook 64. Light chatter in the field in front of Liberty's face along with her cheek, nothing too deep.
You think that is a “textbook 64” based on the OP’s pictures? Then, you don’t grade coins well from pictures. I was surprised to see it as a 64+, and I know the series extremely well.