Please let me share one of my favorite proof half dollars with you. It is a proof 1884 Liberty Seated with some deep champagne color on the perimeter. It is in an NGC holder (slabbed between 1992 & 1997). Please take a shot at guessing the grade and designation. Let me also share my newly acquired proof coin photographic process. It was only necessary to take a total of four photos & invest only about 5 minutes to take the pictures in this post. I probably spent twice that long cutting & pasting them into the two collage photos posted here. I hope the following information is helpful to all the photographers at CT. I want to thank Lehigh & others for your past coin photography advice. All these photos were taken with the camera on a tripod viewing down on the coin at about a 5 degree angle. In the first photograph, light from a GE Reveal light bulb was aimed directly down onto the coin. A piece of translucent drafting paper was placed between the light source & the coin to help diffuse the point light source. This abundance of light directed onto the coin’s proof mirrors allowed the color on the mirror surface to be photographed. The blue background was later edited into the photos to enhance the coin’s deep champagne color toning. The second photograph was taken with the camera and coin at the same positions. However, a tube of rolled-up drafting paper was placed over the coin so that the camera was viewing the coin down the tube. Two GE Reveal bulbs were directed at the sides of the tube providing completely diffuse light from the sides. This lighting technique illuminates the coin’s devices but there is no light shining directly down onto the coin’s mirror surface so the mirrors appear dark. The camera used is a 4 year old Olympus Camedia Zoom D-560 set to 2048 x 1536 resolution. The macro lens feature was turned on and the flash was turned off. The lens optical zoom was set to maximum providing a working distance between the camera & coin of about 12 inches. The camera was mounted on a tripod & the timer was used to avoid any camera motion at the time the photo was taken. The photographs were edited using the Adobe PhotoDeluxe software supplied with the camera. Very best regards, Collect89 Date: 1884 Denomination: Half Dollar Type: Liberty Seated with Motto Manufacture: Proof Mintage: 875
This is what the photo looked like before the background color was changed to blue. Very best regards, collect89
Judging on that 2nd photo, it's a DCAM for sure. The numeric grade on these is extremely sensitive to hairlines which cannot be seen in photos. It could be anywhere PR60-70. So I'll just grade it "fabulous". My avatar is longingly gazing up at this coin...
baby hairlines (BH) There are some baby hairlines. They are random, quite tiny & light. They were probably put on the coin 100 years ago. On a scale of 1 to 10 of acceptable hairlines, this coin's hairlines would be something like a 2.5 Very best regards, collect89
I'd hope it was graded 64 if it has hairlines (even 2.5 out of 10 ), so that's what I'm going to guess. Gorgeous coin, BTW & thanks for sharing...Mike
PR-63 and might I say ZOWIE!!!! What color, I find that changing the backgrounds, you can bring out different colors in coins, I personally like using pink/purple backgrounds to photograph copper and blue/black for silver, and brown for gold.
Everyone at CT guessed the correct grade based upon the photos. Congratulations. This coin was passed around in an advanced grading class in 2007. With the coin in hand, everyone in the class basically agreed that it should make cameo. The individuals in the class graded it either 63CAM, 64CAM, or 65CAM. The majority rule was PF64CAM. It resides in the NGC PF63 holder with no cameo designation. Thanks for looking. Very best regards, collect89
Now that you make me think about it... It was never really high on my priority list to re-slab it because it was always just a beautiful coin in a quality white holder that matched my other NGC holders. It’s so obviously a cameo that I just never felt compelled to send it in. If I send it to NGC now, it would probably get put into the new slab & maybe not look so pretty with all the older NGC holders. The difference in money (PF63 vs. PF64CAM) is like 2x so I should probably get it re-slabbed. More importantly right now, I will put a note on the rear stating that it should be priced as a PF64 Cameo so my heirs don't err. I've put similar notes on other coins just so they are not sold at grey sheet prices & overlooked for a special feature but this one is just listed wrong on the holder. Thanks for making me think about it. Very best regards, collect89
