Photo 365 - Day 189 (Golden Baby)

Day 189 (January 8th, 2011)
Title: Golden Baby


For today's Coin Learnings, I'm going to touch on the part of coin collecting that causes the most twitching in coin folks - Coin Condition (also known as Mint Condition or Mint State).  In essence, a coins condition is a rating (from 1 to 70; with 1 being the lowest and 70 being the best) of how "perfect" the coin is.  By perfect, I mean how close is the coin in relation to the original design (die) that made the coin.  Generally, when you look at coins in your pocket, they are circulated and have a rating around 25-55 (very fine to about uncirculated).  Sometimes you'll see a old cent that's been beat up and it would have a rating of 8-12 (good to fine).  Other times you'll see a brand new dime that's shiny and bright with no scuff marks or dirt, that might have a rating of 55-60 (about uncirculated to uncirculated (mint)).  Even coins that aren't really coins anymore still have a rating, say a coin run over by a train or one that's had a hole drilled through it would still having a rating of 1-3 (cull to about good). 


The rating is probably the most critical element in what determines the value of a coin (the other major element is its rarity - or how many a certain coin was produced).  Generally, the higher the grade (score) the more the coin is worth.  When a coin gets to grade 60 or above, its considered Mint and has very few, if any mistakes on it.  Each grade above 60 the coin must be getting closer to perfect.  A grade 70 coin is extremely rare and are considered perfect examples of said coin.  As for cost, just to give you an example; a 1987 quarter in grade 70 sells for about $220.00.  Its the same as any normal 1987 quarter you'd pull out of your pocket and keep in mind, in 1987 over a billion of these quarters were made!  But out of that billion, less than .000001% (around 1000) will be perfect, which is why they cost so darn much! 


Oh, last little fyi about grade (keep in mind, there is a LOT more you can learn about grading coins - books worth if you are interested), never, EVER clean a coin!  If you clean it, no matter what it looks like after you clean it, because of the chemicals on it, it will be worth very little (certainly not worth anything near what you'd hope).  So, no cleaning!  An unaltered scruffy coin is always better than a cleaned one! 


This photo is of a 2010-S Sacagawea $1 coin.  It's grade is probably around 64-65. 



Enjoy

Photo 365 - Day 188 (Liberty)

Day 188 (January 7th, 2011)
Title: Liberty

Quick little "add-on" coin lesson for today.  Yesterday I talked about mints and what they do, but as a small addition to that information, is a subject that makes coin folks get a little twitchy - mint marks. 

Mint marks are little letters that each specific mint stamps on the coins they make so that way you know which mint it came from.  For example, if you look at a nickel, that nickel could have been made in one of three places, Denver, Philadelphia, or San Francisco.  They each make the coins to look exactly the same, with just that one little letter as a difference.  In the photo is a 2010 nickel with an "S" under the date.  That "S" means it was made in San Francisco.  The other mints are:

S - San Francisco
D - Denver
P - Philadelphia (or blank, as in the case with the cent)
W - West Point (Gold, Silver and Platinum only)

Some older mint marks from US mints that have closed down (which means, if you find a coin with one of these marks, its probably worth more than it's face value)

O - New Orleans
CC - Carson City
D - Dahlonega (before it became Denver - Gold and Silver coins only)
C - Charlotte

Just as an extra "note" to my note, is that all countries use this same method - multiple mints making the same coin design, just adding a letter to show where it came from.  So, they next time you are visiting another country, look at your pocket change and see if you can find that little letter. 

Enjoy

Photo 365 - Day 187 (Call Me Millard)

Day 187 (January 6th, 2011)
Title: Call Me Millard


Continuing with our "More Than I Really Needed To Know About Coins" lesson, we come to mints!  Mints are tiny things that make your breath better... oh... wait, wrong mints.  Mints buy a whole lot of metal (steel, copper, zinc, nickel, aluminum, etc), in huge rolls and run them into machines that punch out little "blanks" (basically its a 200 ton cookie cutter).  They take the blanks, wash them and prep them and then line them up to be "smooshed" (that's a technical "coin" term) into coins.  True, there's a bit more "technical" parts, but that's the Reader's Digest version. 

In the US, there are 4 operational mints, the two largest (and well known because you carry their coins in your pocket) are Philadelphia and Denver.  They make all of the circulated coins (coins that are made for public use).  San Francisco makes special "Proof" sets that are for collectors (they are sealed in plastic containers so they stay in uncirculated condition).  Lastly, is West Point, which only makes gold, silver and platinum coins for collectors. 


This photo is of Millard "Original Gangsta'" Fillmore.  You do NOT want him on your bad side...


Enjoy

Photo 365 - Day 186 (Evil Presidential Eye)

Day 186 (January 5th, 2011)
Title: Evil Presidential Eye

For those of you who were unaware, I am a coin person.  I like coins, I collect coins, and I am even sick enough to go to coin shows.   One of the things I really love about coins, are their history - nearly every nation uses their currency as a medium for displaying some aspect of their history (and culture).  In the past, US coins were some of the most beautiful coins made, sadly, during the 1980s-1990s many of our coins lost their artistic elements and were just slabs of metal to most.  But, in 1999 the US Mint decided to go all 'crazy' and started using coins as form of both art and history with the State Quarters program.  Speaking on behalf of us 'coin folk', we were overjoyed.  It made people look at their coins again, it brought younger folks into the world of collecting and helped start a trend in modern coinage that is still continuing - frequent changes to our coins, with new and better art. 

One of the new series' that I am really excited about (really, I get actually excited about it - if you ever see me, just ask about it and I'll go all nuts explaining why the program is so great) is the Presidential Dollars program.  In a nutshell, starting in 2007, every year the US Mint is going to release 4 new $1 "gold" coins, each with a different president, starting with good ole George Washington and going till Gerald Ford (they can't go past that, because Jimmy Carter is still alive - they have rules about putting art of living people on coins - basically, they won't). And it's not just a face, but it has when they were president as well.  It's educational and fun! 

These coins are available at any bank or from the US Mint's website.  Buy them.  Lots of them.  They are nifty!

... except when Abraham Lincoln is starting at you... spooky!

Enjoy

Photo 365 - Day 50 (DNA kinda) and Weekly Hindsight

Day 50 (August 23rd, 2010)
Title: DNA Kinda

This is the last in my weekly "science" based photos and I know its not technically DNA, but there are three key factors that I took it:

1) The coin is really cool (its a 2003 British 2 Pound coin celebrating the discovery of DNA)
2) Its a whole lot cheaper than getting a mass spectrometer or other scientific thingy that can "see" DNA
3) Its my wife's favorite coin. 

Weekly Hindsight

This week was quite an experience!  When I first thought of doing a science week, I really didn't think it would be so difficult to pull off!  This is one of those times that I jumped into a project without really thinking out the details of how it was going to be accomplished. 

One of the biggest problems that I started out with, was what scientific concepts do I use?  I first asked many of my friends who are scientist what would be a good, simple, principle to show.  This was an epically bad idea.  Not the part about asking my friends, that was fine.  The problem was asking scientist about science!  As much as I appreciated some of their input (molecular bonds, genetic recoding and radioactivity), many of their suggestions were not really photograph-friendly and/or not "simple".  So, I took what ideas I could from them and tried to make them as simple as possible. 

Many of the photos came out quite a bit different than I had originally conceived of them, but in a good way.  I particularly liked the Evaporation (water drop) and Solubility (food coloring in water) photos, because without any context they are very surreal photos that really make you wonder. 

One little bit of advice I'm going to give this week: When you are taking shots in difficult lighting, I highly recommend using the RAW (+JPG) setting on your camera.  The JPG compression settings can really lose a lot of the detail/feel of the shot when the lighting is less than perfect.  With RAW, the camera just "dumps" all the data that it captured when the photo was taken and you can do whatever compression (via software like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom) you decide later.  Just remember, RAW takes up a lot more space than JPG and requires you to do a little bit more work before you are ready to share your work.  Keep in mind, even though RAW takes a little more room and time to get your perfect photo, its still a heck of a lot faster than developing your own prints in a darkroom. Having to mix all the chemicals, developing your film, making the print in the enlarger,then running the print through the chemicals, and then 40 min later realizing you are slightly out of focus on that print and you'll have to start again.  So, a little RAW tweaking isn't so bad. 

I have some more "weekly" ideas coming up, but I think I'll try and just shoot some random stuff this week to maybe spark some imagination.  It was also fun this week because as of Sunday, I've had 1500 visitors to the blog.  Either I've got one person who is stalking me, or I've actually gotten some folks reading this who aren't imaginary!