CollectForFun

You have got to love the ping test, many of the Gillick get contact marks on the high points especially QEII shoulder. Some 1958 & 1959 Gillick  I recently purchased from Chards.  Only very slight contact marks and I have not conserved this yet.   I will be slabbing this at the NGC soon just to see how they fair.   I will upload some better pictures of them once have done the conservation work on them. 
For me If I can buy good quality Gillicks at around the sovereign bullion price I will buy them over just standard bullion sovereigns, I prefer the finish of the coins they have a natural satin finish and far nicer on the eye than the new brown bullion sovereigns.
 
 

It's so satisfying to see the coins so neatly ordered in the grid with every coin sized the same, but... how about that bottom right corner?!? Need one more!

It's always such a pity when a rare old coin is damaged due to being used in jewellery.
On the other hand, some of those coins wouldn't perhaps otherwise be preserved to our times at all. So it is what it is. It is better to accept that a certain coin looks as it does, otherwise you will never really enjoy it in your collection and then it's maybe better to let it find a home at someone else...

Half sovereign listing with a Gillick portrait... These weren't made in half sovs by the Royal Mint 

It's always such a pity when a rare old coin is damaged due to being used in jewellery.
On the other hand, some of those coins wouldn't perhaps otherwise be preserved to our times at all. So it is what it is. It is better to accept that a certain coin looks as it does, otherwise you will never really enjoy it in your collection and then it's maybe better to let it find a home at someone else...

@Anteater very informative thank you for that
I guess there's would be a "local" preferences on coins like you mentioned above NA prefers Eagles, Buffalos etc.
indeed. I get tempted by old gold coins like Canadian 1 penny or the German 5 marks etc
sometimes i would think maybe get a silver coin in these rather than getting a gold coin just for the design of the coins. 
I went into several LCS the other day but no one seems to be too friendly around my area (i only got them through the internet before), just asking for some full sovereigns and particular date and no bulk prices being offer. not sure what should be the right approach to going into LCS. That was a steal with your recent collection! I am nowhere near proof Sovs as they are out of my budget for a Full. But in certain years they only issue proofs unfortunately
I think it is very difficult to buy gold coins through eBay at least not for myself because I am not sure what people I am dealing with and I am a rookie on gold. Not dare to touch ebay coins yet and yet eBay tends to have a higher prices than we have with larger renowned coin shops like the Chards/ ATS/ HGM
Fair point and the other risks are to get a reliable coin dealer in the locals. theres always doggy ones that might come across with
It is definitely! thank you so much for writing the articles and it is super helpful. Digesting them on the dayoff! 
I have bought once from the Perth Mint but that wasn't a gold coin, it's like a 2oz collectible coin or something similar that was released 2/3 years ago. I wasn't aware of the custom duties and VAT and I pay a lot on top.. well at least it's not a fake coin or got stolen but definitely a lesson on such 
Sounds like the proof is a level up of bullion. Do people grade their proof coins or it doesn't really matter for grading it? I mean does it add any value to item itself after grading since it's a proof coin... ?
 
 
thank you guys for contributing in this post, really something there to learn and very wise words! 

It's so satisfying to see the coins so neatly ordered in the grid with every coin sized the same, but... how about that bottom right corner?!? Need one more!

It's so satisfying to see the coins so neatly ordered in the grid with every coin sized the same, but... how about that bottom right corner?!? Need one more!

It's so satisfying to see the coins so neatly ordered in the grid with every coin sized the same, but... how about that bottom right corner?!? Need one more!

Not exactly a photo of my stack but a screen shot of explorer set to 'large icons' on a directory with pics of my sovereigns.

Very happy with the King's arrival in the colonies!
Only took 2 weeks! Can be 4-6 weeks sometimes.
Is the packaging slightly excessive? 5 boxes, like opening a Russian doll, or 'pass the parcel'!

Not really, but there may have been variations in the alloy content in the past. Don’t be fooled by @modofantasmas photo version - far too much yellow!🌝
Here’s a colour comparison photo of Kruger, a 2012 Sovereign and a 2017  1/4 QB, so judge for yourself.

You were spoiled by having a good-looking female monarch for way too many years... Welcome to the normal world of old/beardy/bald/big ears/big nose/whatever male monarchs the citizens of other monarchies had to put up with on their coins for centuries. Deal with it! ☺️

You were spoiled by having a good-looking female monarch for way too many years... Welcome to the normal world of old/beardy/bald/big ears/big nose/whatever male monarchs the citizens of other monarchies had to put up with on their coins for centuries. Deal with it! ☺️

You were spoiled by having a good-looking female monarch for way too many years... Welcome to the normal world of old/beardy/bald/big ears/big nose/whatever male monarchs the citizens of other monarchies had to put up with on their coins for centuries. Deal with it! ☺️

The Problem
Do you take photos of your lovely sovereigns, ¼oz Queen's Beasts, or (for the wealthier) 1oz gold bars and coins, only to find that they look like silver?  Where has all the yellow gone?  Why aren't my bargain coins selling?  Why am I not as rich as my wildest dreams indicated?

Gold ¼oz Eagle, incorrect White Balance
Well, it's because your camera* isn't as smart as you thought it was.
(*When I say camera, I am including phones, bridge cameras, digital SLRs and mirrorless cameras, for brevity.)
If you want a quick fix to this problem, and don't care why, scroll down to the end.  First, I am going to go into why this happens, which some people won't care about.
Disclaimer
This is not meant to be a detailed and accurate analysis of photography, colour balance, chromatography, or the psychology of colour perception.  The solutions presented are basic and will suffice for the majority of photographs; they are not perfect.  There are more advanced options that are out of scope.
Why does this happen?
I'm glad you asked.  It's because your eyes are amazing.  They do loads of things in the background that you don't notice.  For example, they automatically correct for the colour of light.  The light you get from an old-fashioned light bulb is very different from the light you get from an LED bulb, which is very different from the light you get from sunlight.  And even sunlight varies depending on whether it has gone through clouds, reflected off the sea, etc.
So, regardless of where you are, when you look at a gold coin, it looks lovely and golden.  Even though the light might be really blue or really orange.  Your eyes, and brain, just adjust and you don’t really know anything about it.
Unfortunately, although your camera is very clever, and does lots of things in the background you don’t know about, it’s not that clever.  In most ‘normal’ photos, like parties, holidays on the beach, pictures of mountains, the bright thing is the light source - the sky, or a light bulb on the ceiling.
But when photographing a coin, the light source is hardly ever visible in the picture.  
If you show it a picture of a coin on a table, it only has that information.  It does not know how it is lit.  So it guesses.  All it has to go on is a bright thing in the middle of a (usually) dark background.  So it takes the bright thing as the reference, and assumes that is the colour of the light source.  Then it adjusts the whole picture, so that the ‘light source’ is a neutral colour.
How does it adjust the picture?  Do you remember your colour wheel from school?

Gold is orange/yellow, and blue is opposite that.  So the camera makes everything in the picture more blue, in order to make the gold ‘light source’ more ‘white’.
How do I stop it happening?
The best option is to stop the camera ‘guessing’ what colour the light is, and tell it.  You should be able to change a setting on your camera called “White Balance”.  Move it from Auto to something approximating what you are using for light.  There are usually options for daylight, cloudy, old bulbs, LED, etc.  If there is a mixture, e.g. you are inside but near a window, then try Sunlight and then try LED, and see which is best.  Keep trying different options until you find one that produces nice golden golds.
There are more advanced ways of getting this exactly right, but those are beyond the scope of this tutorial.
Oh, and don’t forget to put it back to Auto if you plan to take photographs of other things later.  Otherwise, all your pictures of beaches and mountains will look terrible.
How do I fix pictures that are already wrong?
This is always going to be a bit of a compromise, but you can get good results with a tiny bit of effort.
If you are using a phone, it probably has some basic ‘filters’ built into the camera app.  Find one that reduces the blue.  It might be called “Warming” or something like that.
For cameras, there are lots of PC or Mac applications for basic editing of photos.  Again, look for warming filters.  If you have a slightly more advanced program, look for the ‘curves’ feature, select the blue channel, and drag it down to reduce the blue.
Summary
Silver sovereigns look ugly.  Now you have no excuses.

The same gold ¼ oz Eagle, corrected White Balance, aligned and cropped
 

Catawiki is gradually becoming the second eBay, as far as fake coin offers are concerned. They try to create an impression that the listings are checked by the experts, but I have personally reported 4-5 fake coins just in the previous few months and have serious doubts that their experts can really guarantee trouble-free listings. And some lots have not been even withdrawn after my reports!
If anyone was interested I can upload photos of some of the fakes their "experts" approved for sale. Some were absolutely laughable, if you know what to look at.
Regarding this sovereign, it does look a bit weird. The seller however regularly sells a lot of authentic gold coins and bullion so in his case I would say he's no scammer but genuinely someone who just got fooled by this coin, if it's indeed counterfeit. But it looks like that - does it even have reeded edge?
 

Catawiki is gradually becoming the second eBay, as far as fake coin offers are concerned. They try to create an impression that the listings are checked by the experts, but I have personally reported 4-5 fake coins just in the previous few months and have serious doubts that their experts can really guarantee trouble-free listings. And some lots have not been even withdrawn after my reports!
If anyone was interested I can upload photos of some of the fakes their "experts" approved for sale. Some were absolutely laughable, if you know what to look at.
Regarding this sovereign, it does look a bit weird. The seller however regularly sells a lot of authentic gold coins and bullion so in his case I would say he's no scammer but genuinely someone who just got fooled by this coin, if it's indeed counterfeit. But it looks like that - does it even have reeded edge?
 

Hello forum! 🖐️
It's been a long time since my last visit here and I 'm back again posting one more topic on (what else?) sovereigns.
Here is a listing of a sovereign on a well known website called catawiki.
URL: https://www.catawiki.com/en/l/65619887-australia-sovereign-1923-p-georg-v
Seeing St. George reminds me of Robocop...🤣
What do you think?
Cheers!
 

Think it's been mounted and cleaned, then hit with a hammer for the craic and possibly cast to begin with.

Ok, having now looked at the file names, are you sure you didn't mix-up the numbering, or the photographer the coins???

For the sake of not causing an embarassing confusion one day you could at least try writing "U" and "G" in AU and AG more differently..! 😃

Ok, having now looked at the file names, are you sure you didn't mix-up the numbering, or the photographer the coins???

For the sake of not causing an embarassing confusion one day you could at least try writing "U" and "G" in AU and AG more differently..! 😃

Ok, having now looked at the file names, are you sure you didn't mix-up the numbering, or the photographer the coins???