Just to give you an idea what my pictures show, I had to take a picture of this coin just to see why it was not a 67 or 68. I do not use a 10X lens (6X, I think), but the marks just do not show in hand. I had to twist it every way from Sunday to see any nicks. I still cannot find all those "nicks" by the end of his bow tie - just the one. Even then, most of what I am seeing are planchet marks. The only thing I can see to keep this down to 66 are the spots.
What you are seeing is the slab. I can just find 2 nicks on the reverse (the "E" and something below "AMERICA". The rest is only the slab.
Now that I look again I think you're right! AARRRGGGG Hey, I'm trying to 7 second speed grade like they do. LOL That's probably why I'm down at the bottom of the pile.
I bet even they could not speed grade from pictures. I try to do it at one glance of both sides - but not 3 seconds per side.
This must be my lucky day. That is the second one of those today. (Actually, a third, but the third chap will never admit it.) Just how are you rotating them like "they" do?
FWIW, I grade these coins in about 5 seconds, looking only at the obverse, and I move back about 5' from the monitor.
I have this happen all the time too. Marks that I can barely spot with 30X show up in the photos like sore thumbs. Makes me wondering if the imaging software in digital cameras isn't set to sharpen the heck out of minute details.
Jallen, It is not uncommon for cameras to sharpen photos. Often it's a setting called "sharpness". Personally, I prefer to turn OFF all these types of features, and deal with it in post-processing where you have much more control over the application of, in the case of sharpening, something like unsharp mask.
That's just it....it's almost impossible to photograde at 66+ because we cannot see the luster properly. It's all about the flash and if we can't see it, we can't accurately grade it. It truly becomes a guess.
