I am working on building a set of classic commemoratives and recently purchased this beauty, or so I thought. Here are the images from eBay, and then here are mine after it just arrived. I paid a fair bit above market value for it because it looked like a superb example of a Monroe half, which is uncommon. Has this ever happened to you? do you think its a big difference between the two? Frustrating...
Looks like the seller had the coin so the lighting didn't show those smudges as much. You can kind of make them out in the seller's pics after seeing your pictures.
For what it's worth, the barcode checks out. Looks like skillful glamour photography on the seller's side.
Oof.... Yes it did. I purchased an MS65 SLQ. The photo was a stunner. It arrived and had a black fugly toning scuzz all around the perimeter. The photo hid that schmutz superbly. I called the lady and pegged her on it. She explained that the toning highlighted the devices.... Yeah, right..... Yes I think the photography on your purchase was misleading.
It doesn't seem like one of those sellers, its an LCS out of Florida. I'll definitely be returning it though. Sometimes things like this make me feel picky, but I go out of my way to pick out the nicest of the coin I want and then pay good money for it. Guess its just another downside to buying online.
Yeah, there are definitely ways to make a coin look better in a photo, and I'm all for making the coin you are selling look nice, but there is a limit to how nice you can make it look before you are altering reality and disappointing the buyer when they receive it.
Hello Halfscrub, I don't think anyone should have to apologize for wanting the best for their collection. I use to Q.C. O-rings for the seismic industry and was congratulated for being extremely 'picky' in letting parts pass inspection. That has carried over into my collecting, if you pay for excellence, you should receive excellence. Return that bad-boy! My excellent MS-65 2¢ worth, J.T.
I'm seeing luster in the ebay pic's (reverse) and none on the op's pics (reverse). OP's pics seem fuzzy and out of focus to me........That said, anytime you buy online you're taking a chance. I agree that the photos can be manipulated but I don't think the ebay guy did all that bad with his photogs. They were in focus.
I've never had that happen. I think you may have got a bad deal. I did get a Monroe Doctrine in change in the way back days.
I once bought a trade dollar, only to discover that the seller had actually photoshopped out a distracting mark in the obverse field! Incredible. back it went!
You don't have to "alter reality", all ya have to do is get the angles of the camera and lighting right. In other words, no photo-shopping or editing of the picture is required - if you get the angles right. You're a new member so you likely haven't ever seen these pics, but I've posted them many times for many others to illustrate the same thing I'm telling you. Take a look - Now I took both sets of those pictures within a minute of each other, it's the exact same coin in both sets. And I didn't change the camera settings in any way. All I did was change the angle of the lighting by a quarter of an inch. And that was the result. Now I don't know what the seller of your coin did, or if he did anything at all. The only thing I do know is what I'm showing you above. The seller may be completely innocent of any wrongdoing, or he may be guilty as sin - I don't know. My point is, neither you nor anybody else does either - because of what I'm showing you above. And sometimes it's important to realize that. In the end, you don't like the coin, so you should return it, and I strongly encourage you to do so.
