Nick

Getting good photos of proof coins is notoriously difficult, especially if there is some iridescent toning that you want to capture. You may want to investigate and experiment (if you have time) with an axial lighting setup. As a quick (and dirty) experiment using a 1951 proof penny, I took two photos; one with a standard setup, the other with an axial lighting setup. The result (below) of the standard setup is singularly unimpressive.

My camera is tripod mounted directly above the coin and perpendicular to the work surface. The light source (a daylight compact fluorescent bulb) is mounted as close to the body of the lens so as to reduce the angle of the reflected light. The camera settings I use are: - Aperture priority mode with aperture F/10 or F/11 - Autofocus - White balance taken from a white sheet of paper - +0.3EV exposure compensation - Centre-weighted exposure metering These settings give a shutter speed in the range 1/40 to 1/20 of a second. If we are using a 1967 penny (which most of us will have) as a control sample here is a cropped example from my setup.

I'm not 100% certain, but I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. If you look at the muscle in George's neck, you will see the front edge is visible on both varieties. However, the rearward edge is only really visible on the 'shallow' neck variety ie you should see a slight depression forming a line from just above the BM on the truncation towards the bottom of the hairline.

What you say makes sense. I was just struggling to see the first letter as a G. It's late. That should have said I was struggling to see the first letter as a G without the second letter being an L.

What you say makes sense. I was just struggling to see the first letter as a G.

The 5 reverses all seem to show the same word and to me it looks like Elendry or Glendry. I wondered whether it could be a contracted form of Glendinings.

I'll contact the seller and see what he says. The seller replied that it's a type A6 (and thus not a type A4) because the die axis is inverted.

I need my glasses to see anything clearly these days. The I enclosed by single quotes certainly does look like a T. I'm not sure where the I of GRATIA is supposed to point, Davies uses the I of VICT to distinguish the two types. Either way, the second and third heads are quite different. The most obvious is at the end of the pony tail. The second head hair tapers away to a rounded end, whereas the third head ends in a hook-like ringlet of hair. The attached is an 1865 shilling obverse which is unambiguously S.3905.

That's odd, my copy of Davies doesn't mention that. Mine says for obverse 5: "I of Vict to space. 8 beads between A's. Short serifs in I's". Attached is the obverse from an 1868 shilling, which can only be S.3906A. I think it shows that the advertised 1867 is not of the same type.

I'll contact the seller and see what he says.

As far as I'm aware, all type A4 shillings are usually die axis inverted. I know that the 2011 Spink catalogue shows otherwise, although it was correct in the 2010 edition.

I know that 1867 shillings are pretty scarce, but this one seems a bit much. Especially as it is not the rare S.3906A that it claims to be. It is the more usual S.3905 type A4 second head. 1867 shilling Might be worth it if you knock a zero off the £1100 asking price.

It was him, but it wasn't with Joey Barton. His punch-up was with Lee Bowyer.

If you click on the down arrow in the top right hand corner of the screen (next to your login name) and select 'My Settings', then select the 'Profile' tab, you will see the options to 'Change Photo' and 'Change Avatar'.

Sadly no. Bigger coins, more surface area to get damaged. More momentum to damage others.

On the 'godless' 1849 florin, the WW is between the truncation and the date. On your picture, you can just about see the very top of the WW which has all but been obliterated by the line inside the beads. As luck would have it, the obliterated WW is the scarcer variety. Your other example is indeed 1855.

Thanks. To the naked eye, it is a stunner. Under magnification, some of the lace is not as crisp as it can be, but I guess it's a case of the better the coin, the harder you look for imperfections.

I had a search around the 'net and all of the 1887 proof florins with a discernible picture are of the same type as mine. I haven't found a single one that is Davies 1+A, which they are all supposed to be.

Unless I am mistaken, this is an obverse of Davies type 3 with the standard type A reverse (not shown). This die pairing isn't listed in Davies, which I guess makes it a scarcer piece. What order of premium might that attract in terms of value?

Unfortunately the camera or scanner has a far greater resolution than the human eye, so all manner of defects become obvious for all to see. Bagmarks, light wear and hairlines will exist on most circulation pieces, so you would have to be lucky to find one without any marks. Most buyers will also tolerate some marks, so showing a 'warts and all' scan is probably better than a blurry low resolution picture that shows little detail. The attached is the best 1887 shilling that I have. It was described as UNC in the auction catalogue, but you will still see it has some minor issues.

The autofocus feature on a digital camera works by trying to find the maximum contrast between adjacent pixels within the focus sensor. Metal objects aren't the best for providing that contrast and hence sometimes the autofocus is pants. If you have a point and shoot camera, your options are probably going to be limited, but you can try not placing the coin in the centre of the field of view. Most cameras will have several focus sensors and you will increase your chances of finding a focus if the subject is slightly off-centre. For DSLR cameras with a focus lock facility you can set the focus using something easy to focus on (eg a small piece of paper with printed type on it), then lock the focus, remove the paper and take the photo. And if that fails, there is always manual focus.

The obverse 3 that I referred to is the Davies obverse 3 that is used on florins from 1888-92. However, I see from your Coins and Medals 1970 that there were 3 obverses known about then. So there would appear to be at least 4 obverses. I'll have to hunt around to see if there any other references to an 1887 with 1888 obverse, rather than the 1888 with 1887 obverse which is a known variety.

I seem to be the lucky one. I downloaded it no problem, but you could also try RapidShare. Thanks, it looks to be an excellent reference.

Thanks for the info. I hadn't really thought about the process involved in sufficient detail, especially the fact that the previous character would have been filled before the new one was punched in. I guess that there must be many overdates that are almost undetectable due to the skill of the die worker.

I don't really see it either, but mine does have similar marks - despite me not seeing anything when I looked yesterday. If it were a 9/7, would you not expect to see some remnant of the lower edge of the horizontal bar of the 7 within the loop of the 9? Here's a picture of mine.