1/10/23 Report - Fluorescent Light Fail. Viewing 16th Century Treasure Coast Reale Under Varied Incandescent Light.

 

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

2022 Quarter Photographed Under Black Light.

I recently read an article in Numismatic News in which a coin expert and authenticator explained that he viewed coins with a stereoscopic microscope and fluorescent light.  I have found photography with fluorescent lighting useful for some things, for example corundum gemstones, calcite crystals, and certain types of glass, but never really tried to use it with coins.  So I gave it a try.

In the above photo, if you look closely at the area up around the Y, you will see that the flat surface is sort of bubbly or rough.  That is something I didn't see when I used incandescent lighting.  You can also see a few other things that were not apparent with incandescent lighting, but for me, that didn't mean much. 

Maybe if I had a better setup than my inexpensive monocular microscope and old black light from the 70s, it would have worked better, or it could be that I was not able to interpret what I was seeing like the professional authenticator that wrote the article.  Both factors probably played a roll.

I did take some photos of an 16th century encrusted dug reale, but the fluorescent lighting did not help at all with that.  During my experiments I did take some additional photos that illustrate the importance of lighting.  And for viewing old dug coins, sometimes the natural eye and light is best.

Here are a few examples of photos of the 16th century dug 2-reale which has not yet been cleaned.  I am not showing those photos that best show the coin.  I am showing the photos that illustrate the importance of lighting.  Once again, the fluorescent lighting with magnification on this coin was so didn't seem to help at all.  Big fail.  The encrustation, silver sulfide, or whatever did not photograph well with fluorescent lighting.

Below is the reverse and obverse of a Treasure Coast dug 16th century two-reale taken with a regular camera and natural lighting.

16th Century Uncleaned Two-Reale.

A number of these types of coins were found on the Treasure Coast in 2020 and 2022.  They are from the reign of Carlos and Juana (Anglicized: Charles and Joanna).  I won't get into details today, because my topic today is viewing and photographing.  This reale provides a tough example.  Some details can be seen, but it isn't easy.

Here is a larger image of the same coin.

Same Uncleaned 16th Century Two Real

The 16th cemtury reales from the Juana and Carlos period are more round and flat than most of the reales from the 1715 Fleet.  In fact, these reales are more coins rather than cobs.  There is a difference, although it seems the terminology isn't always used consistently.   The 1715 Fleet cobs were made quickly, and they have a vary in shape a lot.  That gives them a certain individuality and charm.  Nonetheless, there are a lot of different  types and subtypes of the Juana and Carlos reales. 

If you carefully look at the above photo you can see several important identifying features.  Most apparent are the two dots near the middle, which indicate the denomination.  On each side of the dots you can see two pillars.  If you follow the two pillars up, you can barely see the caps to the pillars.  And below the pillars are waves.  To the left of the left pillar you can see a fairly distinct "V" and in between the pillars you can see another less distinct "V."   Once you identify those, you can tell how the "PLV SVL TRA" is located across the coin.  That is an important diagnostic feature that distinguishes between coins of different periods.

Here is another photo of the same side of the same coin.  It is not nearly as revealing, even though it was taken with magnification and overhead LED lighting.

Same 16th Century Two Reale.

And below is another example using magnification, with the light coming from the left instead of overhead,

Same 16th Century Two Reale.

The light is held at a low angle shining across the coin from right to left.  You can see the shadow of the coin on the right.

The angle does help bring out some details.  You can see the V to the left of the left column very distinctly, for example.  Often by moving the direction of the lighting you can see things you missed before.  

If I used a video rather than a photo and moved the light around the coin, you would see different things being highlighted as the light moves. 

I started out intending to see if fluorescent lighting might help bring out obscure details that would help identify hard to read coins like the one shown above.  Fluorescent light might be helpful to an expert looking for minute features on a basically clean coin, but for inspecting uncleaned coins, I didn't find it helpful at all.  That experiment was a big fail for me.  

I veered off the original experiment when I saw it wasn't going anywhere and was able to illustrate the effect of varying magnification and the angle of incandescent lighting.  You definitely can see things that might have been difficult to see by changing the amount and angle of lighting.  That applies to photographs as well as personal viewing.

I plan to continue my discussion of 16th century reales like those found on the Treasure Coast beaches in the past few years.

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They say they want to finish beach renourishment before the turtle nesting season, but when they dump all that sand on the beaches and then the turtles lay their eggs in the renourishment sand, the eggs just get washed away with the renourishment sand.

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Source; MagicSeaWeed.com.

Looks like we could get some bigger surf by the next week.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net