Simonz

A great haul from @Panda6Pack arrived this week.  Firstly, this amazing piece "The Vault":


 

Not a "double stamp" which suggests a minting issue but a genuine "R over R" engraver's error. Probably tried to correct an out of alignment R by re-punching it.
I suspect that is what you meant😊

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

What can I say….

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165885972646?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=HIDlU9giSJm&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=bYgKomkjQOW&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

1860 Victoria Young Head Sovereign
Very pleased with how this turned out.  Used an extra macro add-on lens to get about 3:2 magnification.  Also used a colour cube to get a very accurate reference for the white balance.  With the higher magnification, the height of the frame was effectively only about 20mm, so even a sovereign wouldn't fit.  I needed to stack the images, both panning and focusing.  The images are 7000x6000 pixels.

Set my alarm wrong and missed the Heritage auction today! Saved some $ though!

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Set my alarm wrong and missed the Heritage auction today! Saved some $ though!

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

This is a follow-up tutorial to:
This is for those with a little more time, who want to get accurate and visually satisfying results with their photographs
There are three main techniques here, which can be used independently or together.  None of them are expensive; in fact the third one is free; but they do take a little effort and knowledge.
1. Using grey cards (‘gray’ for Americans)
A ‘grey card’ is exactly that.  A piece of card that is grey.  A professionally produced photographic grey card, from a reputable vendor, will be fade-resistance and precisely calibrated to be a neutral colour, i.e. exactly balanced with no hue.  For coins and other precious metals, I would recommend a small card, maybe 2x4 inches or thereabouts.  Should definitely cost well below £10.
A white card will also do well, although grey cards are easier to use and are less likely to fade or discolour over time.  A piece of white paper may also help, but be wary as it is easy for the paper to be slightly off-white, and this will affect the colour balance significantly.
At the other end of the scale, you can take it further and buy colour cubes, colour reference targets, and specialist software to calibrate your photographs.  Those are beyond the scope of this tutorial - if you are in the market for those, I am not going to be teaching you anything here.
There are basically 2 ways to use a grey card: a) reference shot, or b) in shot.  Both have pros and cons.
a) Reference shot
Take photograph(s) of your coin(s) as normal, but just before or after, replace your coin with the grey card.  Put the card in the same place, and at the same angle, and photograph it.  This will provide you with a reference neutral colour, that you can then adjust to.
Using photo adjustment software, you would then measure the correct colour balance or adjustments using the reference shot, and apply exactly the same to the real shot(s).  There are too many different photography applications for me to cover exactly how to do this here, but you should find it under ‘white balance’.
Advantages: the coin photograph is unaffected, you don’t need to recompose or move anything, and you should be measuring the exact same conditions because the card is in the same place as the coin.
Disadvantage: takes a bit more time, needs post-processing software, should not be used when the lighting situation can change quickly, e.g. if you are using natural light, and a cloud covers the sun, it can make a dramatic difference.
b) In shot
Here, you include the grey card in the photograph with the coin.  The card needs to be at the same angle and under the same lighting as the coin.  Just widen the shot so that the card is in the frame.  Once taken, you can crop out the card before sharing your final image.
A variation of this is simply to use a white, lighter or grey background for the coin, but this is down to the desired aesthetics.
Advantages: quicker, may enable the auto white balance feature of the camera to make a better ‘guess’, useful when the lighting conditions may change between photographs.
Disadvantages: may be awkward to compose the image wider depending on space, should not be used if the lighting is very local, i.e. only the coin is lit, because the card would not be under the same conditions and the white balance may vary across the scene.
2. Photographic lighting
This falls into 2 main categories, flashes and monitor lights.  For the purposes of coin photography, flashes are unnecessary, difficult to use and expensive.  So for this tutorial, I will focus on monitor lights.
For between £50 and £150, depending on features and brand, you can buy a ‘monitor’, ‘video’ or panel light.  It should have a high CRI value (90+), which is a measure of its colour accuracy and how natural it is.  And it should either have a known fixed colour temperature, preferably around 5,600 Kelvin (daylight), or an adjustable temperature.  (White balance is measured in temperature Kelvin - don't worry about it - just know lower numbers are yellower and higher numbers are bluer. For this tutorial, it doesn't matter.)
Simply set it to a known value, set your camera’s white balance to the same value, and snap away.  This should be all you need to do.  A modification of this is to photograph in RAW mode, and then use software to set the white balance to the light’s known temperature afterwards - see below.  If you do not shoot using RAW, adjusting the white balance later will always be harder and a compromise.
You need to ensure that the monitor light is the only (or overwhelming) light in the scene.  Lights in the room, through the window, etc, will all influence the photograph, and change the final colour.  Also, lights will reflect off different surfaces of the coin, and produce odd colour patches.  Therefore, you may want to invest in a light box to cut out all the other light sources.  They are available for around £30 upwards, depending on size, or you can make one with a cardboard box and black cloth.
Another consideration is that having a single light source can lead to bright spots, or undesirable highlights on the subject.  This is especially a problem with precious metals that are prone to reflections.  You can easily solve this by diffusing the light using cooking parchment (greaseproof paper), net curtains or similar material, or photographic diffusion paper (a little more expensive, but a neutral colour).  Simply hang the diffusion material in front of the light, preferably making the light source bigger as a positive side effect.
3. Shoot RAW
(This has nothing to do with whether you wear clothes while photographing.  Although I strongly recommend it, as coins can be very reflective. 😁)
This one is a bit more technical, but is free to implement.  You just need some understanding of the principles.
All but the earliest of cameras and phones, have the ability to shoot in what is called RAW.  You can use free, 3rd-party camera apps, e.g. Open Camera, if necessary.
You are doubtless familiar with JPEG files, the ubiquitous image files used everywhere, and by default your camera will generate JPEG files.
However, JPEG files have several disadvantages.
Lossy compression.  Detail will be lost, and noise added, in order to compress the file to a smaller size.  Worse still, every time you load the file into an editor, make a change and save it, the image will get worse. Narrow dynamic range.  JPEG can store 8 bits (256 values) for each red, green and blue value in the image.  Your camera is capable of capturing at least 10 bits, and the latest cameras 12-14 bits.  So at best, three quarters of the possible range of values are thrown away, and possibly 98% is discarded. In-camera processing.  An image, displayable in all browsers and devices across the world, needs to be produced.  So certain safe, generic assumptions are made, and baked into the file.  These include white balance, colour gamut, etc. Ultimately, you need to turn your photograph into a universally acceptable format, for sharing online, and JPEG is a perfectly adequate choice.  You could use PNG, TIFF or numerous others.  So, if you need to use JPEG anyway, what’s the advantage in shooting RAW?
Firstly, for any work you need to do after the shot is taken but before sharing, i.e. post-processing, you should work in a format that does not degrade with each save, for obvious reasons.
Secondly, and most relevant to this tutorial, shooting in RAW does not apply white balancing to the image.  I will use a physical filter analogy.  Each time an image is changed from the original, it is like adding a coloured filter to a light.  You can’t take a filter away.  So you add a filter, but then you need to correct it slightly, so you add another filter.  And then you need to correct that, so you add another filter.
So the incorrect white balance applied by your camera, needs to be corrected with another filter, which inevitably won’t be a perfect solution, so should then be corrected, again, etc.
Instead, working with RAW files allows you to get everything right with the most original possible version of the image.  RAW files should be immutable - any changes can be undone, or are saved separately, so the original is always preserved.
Use a post-processing application (or phone app) to apply the right white balance to the image, get the exposure right, crop it, and when everything is right, save as JPEG and share.
Summary
Shoot in RAW if at all possible (top advice!).  It makes everything else easier. Use a grey card to get an accurate reference for the white balance of the scene, especially if you are not in control of an accurate light source. Limit the number of different light sources.  You may want to use a photographic light and/or a light box. Examples of colour calibrated photos of gold:

1881 Sydney mint Young Vic and 2002 shield from @Sh97if another 2002 shield from @SheepStacker and a couple of superbly well priced 1957 and 1959 Gillicks courtesy of Baird. Love weeks like this 👍🏼

Thanks to @Orpster for today's delivery of this gorgeous little gem. A 2003 1/10th 22ct Britannia, liberated from its original plastic home and placed into its new cushioned air-tite capsule. I think this one may take the 2021s place in my 10x 1/10th collection. All I need is its 1oz silver equivalent to pair it with. 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

Very happy with this 1774 G3, One of my few local finds. 
Some tiny 'haymarking'?
Do you think this would get an 'MS' grade?
 

😍 belter!

Starting to fill out my Elizabeth heads, this one from the Coin Cabinet, pre Xmas auction, they take a while on the slow boat to NZ!
In the bottom 1/6th of graded coins so a good candidate for de-slabbing...

Received this 2002 double sov proof today. Think most of the marks are on the capsule - haven't opened it to check yet! 
Came with a coa but no box.. :F

Starting to fill out my Elizabeth heads, this one from the Coin Cabinet, pre Xmas auction, they take a while on the slow boat to NZ!
In the bottom 1/6th of graded coins so a good candidate for de-slabbing...