Paul616

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

I only popped onto the forum to enter the 10 year prize draw and have been sucked down this rabbit hole! Such a shame that someone would be this stupid. Hopefully they will man up and sort it out sharpish. I always point any friends and family I talk to to about metals to the forum. A great place to trade. 

Love these 😊

Well done. That didn’t take long! I now know more than I did. I knew the Ove Arup connection as it was my father in law’s. He indeed received it fir ten years service. He did over three decades more with them. Ove Arup now called Arup we’re responsible for making sure the architect’s dreams became a reality with the Sydney Opera House. They were also brought in to solve the Millennium “wobbly” bridge.
Back to the bar, I thought he said it was Tiffany but it was years ago that we spoke about it. Maybe there’s another one hidden somewhere!

Well done. That didn’t take long! I now know more than I did. I knew the Ove Arup connection as it was my father in law’s. He indeed received it fir ten years service. He did over three decades more with them. Ove Arup now called Arup we’re responsible for making sure the architect’s dreams became a reality with the Sydney Opera House. They were also brought in to solve the Millennium “wobbly” bridge.
Back to the bar, I thought he said it was Tiffany but it was years ago that we spoke about it. Maybe there’s another one hidden somewhere!

Interesting history ... and nice that its for 10 years service, just giving an oap one when you retire would seem a bit harsh.

It does. It used to live on their mantle piece. It was much shinier when it was left out. Presumably because my mother in law used to polish it!

Well done. That didn’t take long! I now know more than I did. I knew the Ove Arup connection as it was my father in law’s. He indeed received it fir ten years service. He did over three decades more with them. Ove Arup now called Arup we’re responsible for making sure the architect’s dreams became a reality with the Sydney Opera House. They were also brought in to solve the Millennium “wobbly” bridge.
Back to the bar, I thought he said it was Tiffany but it was years ago that we spoke about it. Maybe there’s another one hidden somewhere!

Well done. That didn’t take long! I now know more than I did. I knew the Ove Arup connection as it was my father in law’s. He indeed received it fir ten years service. He did over three decades more with them. Ove Arup now called Arup we’re responsible for making sure the architect’s dreams became a reality with the Sydney Opera House. They were also brought in to solve the Millennium “wobbly” bridge.
Back to the bar, I thought he said it was Tiffany but it was years ago that we spoke about it. Maybe there’s another one hidden somewhere!

Thought you might find this interesting. I have no idea if you will know what this is or not. I know but will wait to see if it’s a known bar in the silver stacker universe. 
 
It’s not for sale by the way!

Thought you might find this interesting. I have no idea if you will know what this is or not. I know but will wait to see if it’s a known bar in the silver stacker universe. 
 
It’s not for sale by the way!

I do prefer the glint of “pure” gold. CGT could be an issue with Kruger although I hope to just pass the majority of my coins on to my kids. Everyone needs a Krug in their stack though!

You know the medical emergency where the death tolls were no worse than a bad flu, where they changed the definition of just about everything to give the narrative legs and everyone was coherced into taking an experimental medical procedure the effects of which are still unfolding.

I got a nice 1877 shield in AboutEF condition or thereabouts for a little over £370 a couple of months ago.  It was a nice surprise as I didn't actually order a shield, just a young vic.  There are also some coins from Germania, which I haven't finished taking photos of.

 

Although a sovereign man at heart, this coin is incredible and I think I would call it my best for 2022. The silky satin toning, in very deep blues and purples at the rim of the coin grading across the fields to the soft greys, pinks and gold tinge of the cameo’s, particularly on the Victoria side are very satisfying
 
Happy New Year everyone.

I do prefer the glint of “pure” gold. CGT could be an issue with Kruger although I hope to just pass the majority of my coins on to my kids. Everyone needs a Krug in their stack though!

Also in the early days a Krugerrand could be bought over the counter at your local bank, I believe, before the rise of the big-time bullion dealers!  This is an original container from Barclays Bank….
 

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
 

My mind is blown 😳 
Isn't a black light an oxymoron?