Let me say I have a very difficult time in understanding and even seeing the varieties shown by graders when the letters and numbers just look a little larger but no visible DD. If someone know an easy way please share it. I feel the attached coin is possibly a 1968D with the 1968D,1C,RPM. Thanks for any help.
Have a look at this link first. 1968d1mm001 Die Variety Information - coppercoins.com I'm not saying this is it, but it can help start this discussion.
Regarding photos: blurry and over pixelated make it hard to see anything. Relative to the equipment a person has, the aim is to get the clearest picture rather than the closest picture. Finding the perfect focal distance will help ensure that photos are a useful as they can be. Here's a quick setup or two that I use: Note that the chartreuse post it is a poor choice for a backing. It reflects too much light back at the camera. Blue worked better. Other colors work better with different colored coins. Find a flat backing...perhaps black. Use lighting from different directions: reduces shadows and by keeping the light away from the subject, reduces glare. Glare can be reduced using light filters, like a white plastic bag or thin white cloth. Or a coffee filter. Find a pedestal to set the optimal distance and only zoom in to fill the viewer without making things blurry. If you are blurry, then you won't take a good shot. The pedestal should be heavy so you can reduce vibration and movement of the camera. My silver/red can is filled with quarters.
Agreed better pictures are need,the RPM's for your coin are hard to spot without the proper equipment.If all you have is your phone it might be pretty difficult to get clear pictures but try. http://varietyvista.com/02b LC RPMs Vol 2/RPMs 1968D.htm
In post #5 above, notice on the example, that not only is the left side of the D is doubled to the left AND the inside right side is also doubled as the punch moved as a unit before the second hit. It is very rare to find a RPM that only shows one edge as the punch guy would have to have it at a drunken angle for the second hit. Of course when they started engraving it on the die, RPMs died. IMO, Jim
I was reasonably sure that it wasn't the one, but the RPM that seemed to have a stem that was as pronounced. As you know, a sharp photo helps with placement and discriminating details. Most of the time the photos present the biggest challenge we have to assist in a diagnostic/attribution.
It's MD Richard. The first step in identifying an RPM is to match its placement to the known examples. At this time the mint hand punched the MM. Their placement was slightly different from one set of working dies to the next. So, unless the placement matches it can't be an RPM-001
No problem Richard. As a variety hunter, taking pictures is as much a hobby. It improves with time. What is your approach to photographing your coins?
My approach is pretty much the same as described above. I raise my coin on about a 1" platform and put a black cover over the box then the coin. I place my Iphone 12 Plus which has no maco. Really makes me made it doesn't. So I bought a good quality phone magnifier which is 4.3x and attach it to my phone. I then lay my phone on a box or on my my portable magnifier which I can manually raise and lower with a knob. I still struggle getting definition and depth on an error close up.
@Richard Kennedy I think that you might want to pass on the magnifier. I bought one of those too. I was curious how it might work, but I found it difficult to get proper lighting to perfuse the area under the small santoprene skirt. My recommendation is to use a setup like I posted above. Lifting the specimen as you are doing is a good idea as it separates the subject from the backing. You can't tell in the shoebox setup, but I lift the coin about 1/4" off of the backing. That phone I'm using is an iPhone 5, so with a 12, you should be ahead of me on the technology. So, you might be better off than you think. Again, though, it takes time to master photo taking, but if you approach it as part of the hobby, you might be delighted to see your progression. As for a budget, I suppose that hasn't been a limiting factor for me. Instead, I rather like the challenge of taking solid pictures with simple techniques and creative setups. Folks here and elsewhere have offered tips and setups that I've leveraged well. And so can you. I really think that you might get superior photos using your iPhone 12 over the magnifier. But even with that said, you might find that with some experimentation that you can get more mileage out of your magnifier once you figure out the limits and limiting factors. Variety hunting is fun and can be productive. As you develop your eye, you'll need us less but in between, sharp photos will help us assist you. Here's how I get my close-ups when I need to. I use an AmScope (one of their cheapest) and shoot photos using my iPhone through one of the oculars.
Indeed. Plastic clip with slide adjusting. For macro photography using cellphone camera. Nice idea and slick design. Just wasn’t able to get light on the subject.
One of these days I will buy a scope. For now Richard you need to figure out your distance . Learnig a scope is gonna compound your problem. It can be a matter of a 1/4" and the focus will change. Try getting your camera and your lights at even distances, First find a capable depth of focus on the camera. Then remember that too much light washes out the details.
If you note, I redirect light on the AmScope and use multiple sources with the phone's camera. To soften the light, you can try the filters to reduce glare. Bouncing light can fool the eye.
Note my shoebox photo setup. I took a shoebox, placed a light at one end of it and a piece of glass from a broken picture frame. Using that grey/red can of mine, filled with quarters, I set the distance that is optimal for my iPhone 5. I use a small rubber knockout to raise the coin off the flat backing. Presently, my filter is some packing material, felt like (dryer sheet might be equivalent) on LED light I bought, but wasn't having great success with using. But it fits in the box and the filter diffuses the light. Positioning the glass at 45°, it redirects the light downward onto the subject coin. No shadows this way and only slight glare from the led light. Moving this back in the box might help to this regard. So, a box and packing material, repurposed instead of recycled. Picture frame glass too. The can came from a Christmas gift (maybe there was a watch in it?). Old iPhone when I decided not to trade it in and keep it for this specific purpose. Battery is shot...so it's purely a plug-in camera at this point. Easy to send pictures to my laptop for editing and posting. Some folks here have spent on some really nice setups. I was curious to see what I could do with leftover items...and it works pretty well. I see some of my earlier work and think that if I had the time, I could do them over and actually have something that represents what I have in hand...at least...a lot better than before.
