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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SuperDave, post: 2678072, member: 1892&quot;]You bet it is, and it reflects great credit upon you that in your time of mourning you&#039;re able to make dispassionate decisions about the wise way to move forward. </p><p><br /></p><p>As has already been mentioned, we can only help you to the extent that we can see clearly the condition of your coins. Your first step should be to create an inventory list of denomination, date, mint mark and whether or not (to your eye) they have circulated. You don&#039;t need to be a skilled grader immediately; this list is only to weed out the coins whose value will likely just track their metal melt value plus some small numismatic premium, from those whose potential requires closer investigation. Publish that here. No need to individually list multiples of the same coin/condition, except to indicate a quantity if applicable; that&#039;s relevant because there may be some financial advantage to you in certain circumstances to sell some things as a lot. This will save you a lot of work down the road.</p><p><br /></p><p>As regards imaging: A scanner is a quick, easy way to record technical detail, but they show nothing (and are sometimes quite deceptive) about surface originality, luster and coloring. All are factors which could greatly enhance, or greatly diminish, the value of the coin. With your camera, you&#039;ve already intuited that you should be looking straight down at the coin (it&#039;s<b> very </b>important to get coin and camera nice and square; a tilted image messes up perspective and makes evaluating details far more difficult). You can do this by using the corner of a table - the tripod should be able to put that corner between its&#039; legs and &quot;view&quot; a surface large enough to safely place the coin. If not, you can weight the end of a small (6&quot;-12&quot; wide board and dangle the other end off the side of a table, between the tripod legs.</p><p><br /></p><p>To ensure you&#039;re square with the shooting surface, just place a small mirror on the spot where the coin will go, and arrange the camera so it sees its&#039; own lens in the exact center of the viewfinder. When the center of the lens is in the center of the image, you&#039;re square to the coin.</p><p><br /></p><p>Shoot on a monochrome surface - black, white, grey. This adds the least distraction to the viewer, and makes color correction easiest for the camera. </p><p><br /></p><p>Your images should be cropped to just a single coin alone, and be careful to arrange it vertically, just as you&#039;d like to look at it in-hand, like so:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]597940[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>This makes things a ton easier on the brains of the observer. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>What do you have for lenses? Your camera is <b>more</b> than good enough to shoot images of a quality similar to the one I just posted, but not all lenses lend themselves to this technique. They&#039;re designed to shoot things farther away, and lack the close focusing capability (and magnification level) required for accurate macro shooting. For your camera, your goal is to get an image sharply-focused that fills half of the camera&#039;s sensor (or more). If you let me know what you have for lenses, I&#039;ll be happy to evaluate them, recommend the best one for your needs and then we can get more specific regarding your best technique for shooting. That can be tailored to any level of photography and postprocessing knowledge; you&#039;d be far from the first who has gone from &quot;never touched a camera&quot; to &quot;pretty darn good coin photographer.&quot; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The advantage of a place like CoinTalk is that you&#039;ll find people knowledgeable in <b>every</b> aspect of numismatics, <b>every</b> issue, ready and willing to help. None of our advice will reach the level of putting the coins physically in the hands of someone qualified to evaluate them personally, but many of us are very well-qualified in our respective niches and equally-experienced in evaluating coins from images only. It&#039;s an inexact science, to be sure, because even the best of shots can drastically alter the perceived appearance of the coin due to variances in technique (there are immoral sellers who do this deliberately), but experience tells and once you&#039;ve looked at a few thousand images of similar coins, you can learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff.</p><p><br /></p><p>We&#039;re here to help. It&#039;s why we hang out at a place like this - well, in addition to the desire to brag about our own stuff. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> There are no stupid questions, and it&#039;s doubtful you could ask a question that <i>someone</i> can&#039;t answer. Do not hesitate.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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