Seller Pictures vs In-Hand

I saw this coin several weeks ago and it didn't sell for the listed price. It was relisted so I sent the seller an offer and it was accepted. I wasn't a huge fan of the color of the coin but I loved the design, I'm sure those of you know me will soon see why...

Anyways, the coin arrived in the mail today and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the envelope. Instead of a dull brown, it was a nice dark green patina. I'm not sure what set up the seller has but it really did not do the coin justice.

Let's see some of your seller vs in-hand surprises.

Seller Pics:



My pictures:

Elagabalus
218-222 AD
AE 25
Moesia Inferior, Nikopolis ad Istrum
Magistrate Rufus
Obverse: AV K M AVR ANTWNEINOC, laureate, draped, cuirassed bust right.
Reverse: VP NOBIOV ROVFOV NIKOPOLITWN PROC ICTRON, Nike advancing left,
holding wreath and palm

 

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i think both are purdy..the seller looks to have maybe used a filter...i often find that the sellers pics are not as good as the coin in hand...and i believe this might be a selling technic so that when the coin sells the buyer is expecting the item to look exactly like the pic and is very happy when its received and is 'much better in hand'

 

I find that Roma is guilty of overexposing their pics:

This Gallienus is not nearly as pink in-hand, and I am almost always pleasantly surprised with the actual color.



Mac and DI are not nearly as white.



Gordy and Tranqy are not nearly as washed out.




On the other side of the coin, AMCC is guilty of UNDERexposing their pictures. I prefer under to over exposed, but in either case I am still usually pleased with the actual appearance.

 

CNG in particular desaturates photos of bronzes for reasons I don't really understand, but it gives some of them a very unnatural look. This coin has a beautiful green patina that you only see a hint of from the CNG photo but it is a wonderful coin in-hand.


Roman Republic Æ As(27mm, 11.12g, 4h), D. Junius Silanus, moneyer, 91 BC, Rome mint. Laureate head of bearded Janus; I above/Prow of galley right; D•SILANVS•L•[F]. Below, ROMA. Crawford 337/5
Ex Andrew McCabe Collection, CNG E-Auction 436, 1/23/2019, ex Artemide Capodanno, 1/1/2010

 

Do you think it is a deliberate technique or do you think that perhaps they are just trying to take pictures as quickly as possible and don't really care?

 

For some coins, such as the Gordian/Tranquilina of mine above, their picture was simply inferior to the in-hand appearance. Had the pleasant green patina been visible, I'm certain it would have sold for more.

Since all Roma pictures seem to be uniformly overexposed, my guess is that they have their camera setup at static settings, something that they've found works well in the aggregate.

I don't blame them not adjusting settings for each individual coin when they've got hundreds to go through.

I bet - they have a camera with fixed settings and then assembly-line the pictures and uploads.

 

It's possible, in Photoshop, to manipulate color and lighting, including surface shadows and highlights. I think that is what was done by the seller to give the coin an "orichalcum" appearance, very different from the actual green patina.

Here are some photos from the seller of a recent purchase:





His images do capture the even color of the coin on both side, but the light source, which looks like outdoors, created very dark shadow contrasts. Also the coin is quite a bit darker, with less brownish tint than show in these images.

Here are my pictures of the same coin, taken indoors with natural light.



The shadows are not as prominent, and color and darkness, while not right on target with the coin in hand, are somewhat better.

 

I guess there are various reasons why an auction house's photos might not accurately reflect the color.

Heritage's catalogs tend to show bronzes as a brown/tan shade when in real life they look green. Here's an example taken while lot viewing their 2016 auction in Chicago. So you can't blame ambient lighting or my phone's default camera settings, I had the catalog open to this lot for comparison.



BTW, Mr. Furry... I have an obverse die match to your coin . I think it's interesting to find single-side die matches where the other side is a completely different style. Pretty sure I recall someone else on CT having an obverse die match to this coin with a different reverse but I can't recall which reverse. If it is yet a third reverse... that would really be something!



MOESIA INFERIOR. Nicopolis ad Istrum.
Elagabalus (218-222)
AE. 26 mm, 11.1 gm
Obv: AYT K M AYP ANTΩNEINOC.
Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
Rev: VΠ NOBIOV POVΦOV NIKOΠOΛITΩN ΠPOC ICTPON.
River-god reclining right, holding branch; prow at side.
Varbanov 4055.
ex Falter Collection, Nature Gods

 

That is excellent @TIF! I'm honored to be coin half-twins with you. I'd love to see if the other person with the different reverse show up.

The difference in the catalogue coin and the coin in hand is quite stark as well. Perhaps they thing that people expect bronze coins to be brown and then adjust their set up to make it look like that.

I prefer the green patina though.

 

That was me getting used to my new camera & editing setup for AMCC 3. Some of the photos were definitely underexposed. I'm glad you were happy with the coin anyway!

Also worth noting that there's no such thing as THE in-hand appearance. Lighting and surrounding context (e.g. white vs. black background) can make a big difference to in-hand appearance, not just photographic appearance. (The variation is less dramatic than in a photo due to the visual system's colour constancy mechanisms.)

 

No dig to you! Of the 5 coins I won all the pictures were better than if Roma did them. Philip was a bit dark but I honestly prefer that to a washed out pic like they do. I think you did a great job in accurately capturing the coins!

 

Found it! @Ancient Aussie has a fantastic architectural reverse with this obverse die. Posting his coin in this thread along with mine and FF's.

Ancient Aussie's:

FF's:


Mine:


@Jochen1, do you have any die studies that shed light on the frequency of sharing of dies among different types of coins of Nicopolis? Apologies if you've addressed this question elsewhere .

 

I am in very good company

 

I'm going through ACsearch to see if there are other reverse dies paired with this obverse (search terms nicolpolis elagabalus, 408 hits). Halfway through. Here's another:


https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=6365599

While doing so, I'm also checking to see if any of these reverses had different obverse dies. They're not plentiful but so far this obverse die is the only one I've seen with these reverses.

 

A 5th reverse!


https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3576859

 

A 6th reverse?! The others I assessed casually but this one I tried overlaying in Photoshop and I think it's a die match but am a little less certain.


https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?id=3246646

 

Here's the same general reverse type as above (same reverse iconography but slightly different legend) with a different obverse die:

 

I wonder how an obverse die could've been used so much? It seems a bit excessive, no?

 

Leu really overexposes their coins in their photos, too:



My photo:



Leu:



My photo:


Leu:


My photo:

 

Jochen can probably shed light more light on this than I can. It does seem unusual and explains the lackluster condition of the obverses (worn die). It also makes me marvel anew that any of these survived. I found only a few of each type shown above (2 or 3 examples in ACsearch). Comparatively speaking, there can't have been that many of each type. Makes me feel lucky to have one . Gotta love ancient coin collecting!