Rhoemetalkes I & Queen Pythodoris, Augustus, AE24, Client Kingdom of Thrace, circa 11 BC - 12 AD

Rhoemetalkes I & Queen Pythodoris, Augustus, AE24, Client Kingdom of Thrace, circa 11 BC - 12 AD, 8.6g, 24mm

OBV: BAΣIΛEΩΣ POIMHTAΛKOY, Jugate heads of King Rhoemetalkes & Queen Pythodoris right.

REV: KAIΣAPOΣ ΣEBAΣTOY, Bare head of Augustus right.

REF: RPC 1711, SNGCop 1190, SGI 5396

EX: Gerhard Rohde

I have recently posted this coin but that was before I received it in the mail. This is my own photo and attribution details.

Here is the dealer photo.



It's not a bad photo at all but it is brightly lit which makes the color look different than how it appears to me in hand. Who knows, I might write an article something along the lines of "Buy the coin not the photo" almost equivalent to "Buy the coin, not the slab" lol. That way it could explain the color differences and size. When I was new to collecting, I'd get a coin and it looked different than the photo. Kind of puzzling and I was kind of annoyed about it, to be honest.

 

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I do my best to capture all my coins in as true to life appearance as possible, but even then there will always be something the camera doesn't capture as well as an eye can. Unfortunately we can only do the best we can. I agreed that it is dissingenuous to touch up a picture or to make it try to look better than it looks in real life, and i certainly would report a dealer that did that. However, keep in mind no camera is perfect. It is something we must accept when buying things online.

I always try to take as accurate a picture as possible of my coins, even for my personal catalog, but no matter how hard I try the coin will always look a little bit different to the eye than through the lens of a camera.

 

That's very true and I think beginners should know this as soon as possible. Even with the photo I took of this coin, the color is right but the details of Queen Pythodoris looks obliterated in the photo but looks better to the naked eye. I have tried to compensate for that, but it wasn't going to happen.

 

Coins can look very different with various light sources. I like to photograph my coins in sunlight, because the sun gives you the complete spectrum. A coin photographed in the sun will look quite different when viewed in incandescent room light, however. Some sellers saturate their images, to be sure, but it's important to remember that most aren't trying to deceive, at least in my opinion. I learned long ago to more-or-less disregard the colors in an image and look for things like strike, surfaces, detail, etc.

 

Those are indeed very good points and ones that I think about as well. I do realize that dealers ain't necessarily trying to deceive. Some have cheap or old cameras, or they haven't figured out the settings of the camera. Especially older models of digital cameras can be difficult to figure out how to operate.

 

Sometimes I struggle with getting the accurate colors so I'll take the best photos I take of the coin and just slightly tweak the colors in PS to resemble what I see in hand. I did it recently with my Justinian solidus. I would never do any kind of photo alteration with intent to deceive.

 

Yeah, it can be difficult to get those photos right. I have purchased coins from you and they are pretty close to how they appeared to me to the naked eye. So, you do a good job for sure, VK.

 

When I take pictures I do my best to try and capture what the coin looks like. I've had the hardest time with highly reflective silver and glossy patinas.

I don't mind if the seller's photos are worse than the coin but if the photo is enhanced to hide problems or don't represent the coin accurately then there's a problem.

 

I have ran into a problem a few times with the coin looking a lot different and there was a problem for me.