Yes I have been very very quiet but for a good reason. I've been hinting that this was in the works and it's finally complete. This is a digital coin album that I designed for Japan type set (1870 - Present). I've based the design off the Dansco album 7460. Original Dansco album can be seen here: http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/japan_dansco_type_set_1870 I guess the main reason why I've done this is because the original Dansco album has not been updated for nearly fifty years!!! The last coin in it was dated 1970. Many new commemorative coins have been added as well as a new era. Another reason that I've decided to go ahead is also because I disagreed over the layout and I believe the way I present it should make more sense. The new digital coin album can be seen here: http://issuu.com/gxseries/docs/japan_type_set_1870_current Some of the challenges that I have experienced - 1) The format that I designed previously were at A4 size which would have made the album too bulky. This has been designed to exact specification and color. That meant that I took my albums out and measured them. It also means that if I wanted to print them, I should be able to print to scale and it would match. 2) Original photos that were taken more than five years ago were not the best photos. I do not claim to be a good photographer and those were taken with an older camera. I still have to learn how to take better photos. In particular I struggled to take decent photos of coins that are aUNC with some toning. 3) Layout of the coins. This was actually a lot harder than I thought! I was not aware of the history of the coins in particular the gin countermark. These were actually countermarked officially by the mints during the time where silver yen were no longer legal tender in Japan. An overlap of various denomination at certain era also made the presentation very difficult to be presented. Most certainly it would have been very easy if I arranged by denomination only instead of grouping by era. 4) Translucent feature - I nearly lost my head over this! If you own a Dansco album - take a look at the hole. You should be able to see some features of the next page or the previous page through the hole. I decided that this got too difficult and gave up. Maybe in the next version. The planning and design aspect took well over a month to plan and execute. I was overwhelmed over how many size variation each coin had. I guess the file size of the entire project went well over 1Gb reflects how much work went in it. The dragon featured on the front page also took me a few hours to be cut and corrected to my satisfaction. Somewhere along the lines, it would be helpful if I am a better photographer and knew more about photoshop. That said, I'm certain put all my best effort in it. At the same time, you got to step back and think how Dansco have created this fifty years ago - the era without photoshop, computers, photography etc. It still amazes me to this day and whoever did the design deserves credit. Now I think I'll take a break away from the computer before I set off to the next challenge. Staring at the computer for so many hours can't be too great for the eyes!
You know, I think gx should be selling this kind of work as a service to other coin collectors who want their coins presented this way...
