Ancient Roman Coins: Great Christmas Gifts

Ancient Roman coins make great Christmas gifts and are readily available from many online sources. The coins can be very inexpensive and one can buy a 1700-year-old Roman coin for $25 or less. I have seen the price of common Roman coins increase by 400% and more during the past three years or so. Consequently, the coins make great gifts for youngsters.

Roman coins make great gifts for young and old alike. Be sure and consider an ancient coin for the historian in the family. I have recently bid on and won a near mint Severus Alexander denarius for less than $15. I did my homework and won the coin on eBay.

One other great thing about Roman coins is that the coins have such a multiplicity of reverses. I think one could find a great reverse for almost any occupation. Of course a bit of research and imagination would be required. I hope my suggestion helps and don’t forget to consider the ancient Roman coins for other gift occasions.

I think the coins would make great and inexpensive gifts for weddings, birthdays and almost any other occasion. Thank you for reading and I always enjoy feedback. Please bookmark my site and please drop by on occasion to see I have posted.. God Bless.. Jerry..

Photographing Ancient Greek And Roman Coins

I am continuing to work with my coin lighting and I am also working with what I think looks best in terms of presentation. I think we all will agree the potential buyer of one of our coins would prefer to see photographs that best represent the coin we have in hand.

The dolphin coin you see above was purchased just as you see it and I made the decision to leave the coin intact. A bit of dirt and all. I like what I see including the small flaws and the dirt. There is something esthetically nice about leaving the coin’s character intact. I am asking for feedback. I think this is a good topic for discussion.

If you have an opinion about the photograph or about the topic, please share. Thank you for looking and I must admit I feel I am making progress with my coin photography. Thanks for reading and if my blog is of any interest please bookmark and look in from time to time.. God Bless.. Jerry..

Ancient Coins: Photographing The "Ugly"

Ugly is actually a very poor word choice. Character is a more applicable word but ugly garners more attention. Those of you who follow my photography and coin cleaning articles know that I do search out what I consider to be beautiful. However, I think there is much to learn when photographing coins with character. Please take a look at the coins above and see if there is anything to be learned.

I chose one highly reflective coin, which is always a problem for the naive or new coin photographer. The other coins were chosen arbitrarily from one of my boxes of less than excellent coins. I did look for imperfections, a variety of textures and color anomalies. Each element possesses a potential learning experience for the coin photographer. Collectively there are many things to be learned from such an exercise.

When I was still in my college classroom it was not unusual for me to assign students the task of developing fifty drawings or a dozen designs of particular subject matter over a weekend.
I have been photographing coins most of the day and I suspect I have shot and looked at 40-50 coins by now. I may continue to explore this exercise for days and ultimately shoot and look at a couple hundred coin shots. I have done 200 drawings during many drawing sessions. Of course I would have to qualify what I was doing and I will not bore you with the details.

I highly recommend you jump aboard and perform such a photography exercise. Be sure to look for lighting adjustments and color balance as you work. You will encounter many elements and principles with which to deal and after shooting and studying one coin you will be a better coin photographer. After you do the same with 200 coins you will begin to master your craft.. thank you and God Bless.. Jerry.. PS: Feedback is nice..