First photo posting, First "Hobo" Nickels

[Doc Mark]

Hopefully, I will finally understand the magic needed to take digital photos and get them sized correctly for posting! I've been struggling all night taking these photos and then cropping them and trying to understand how to reduce them to less than 800 x 800 pixels for posting. Let's see if it works!

These are my first attempts at coin carving. The first one is just a new nickel I experimented with. I carved it too shallow, but I was still trying to figure out how to do it. The second "Johnny Reb" was done on a "legitimate" Buffalo Nickel. Not a "full horn" but pretty good quality coin.

Please evaluate and critique at will, I know I've got a lot to learn as a Newbie!


Mark

 

[Ray Cover]

For a first try I'm impressed.

Doc,

I have seen guys who have been carving for a while not turn out that quality. I like them.

Ray

 

[Billzach]

If this is your first two hobo nickel carvings, I can,t wait to see your next carved coin..After viewing these carvings, i feel i should be asking you for engraving tips....I see right now i,m going to have to step up my carving skills or get left behind on carving coins..

 

[Mike Cirelli]

Wow Mark
Excellent job.
The detail and background are superb especially on Johnny Reb. If these are your first two I can't wait to see what you'll be doing a year from now.
Keep up the good work
Mike

 

[ihsfab]

Mark that is some nice coins

 

[Marrinan]

Positively what they said-Fred

 

[allan621]

I love looking at hobo nickels, they are truly minature masterpieces. I got hooked when I took a class with Sam Alfano at GRS and looked through a portfolio he brought with him. Billzach was in that class and if I knew he was who he is now I would have spent most of the class looking over his shoulder.

Yours don't look anything like someone who is just starting out. The first one looks great but I'm not sure what you mean by too shallow, it looks pretty right to me. I don't do nickles and I wouldn't know how to begin. The only thing I do that comes close are coats of arms signets and the really great artists in that field are the ones who create the illusion of depth without actually going overly deep once they reach impresson depth. I would assume its the same in nickle carving.
And now here comes my one criticism, and bear in mind I really don't have any real knowledge of nickle carving. Its with the second piece. Its a fine piece of work but without the rim being visible there isn't enough to really identify that it was originally a nickle. To me, just the date banner isn't enough. It really needs that border and carrying the portrait past the rim to the edge, I just think its a mistake. And keep in mind I'm not criticizing the artwork, its great, just the context into which it is placed.

From the looks of the nickle it looks like the rim was pretty worn to begin with but your carving is too good not to be more careful with the material you choose to work on.

Allan

 

[Marcus Hunt]

WOW! Excellent carvings, I especially like Johnny Reb. If these are your first carvings then I'm totally blown away. My first attempts were nowhere near this quality. Well done.

 

[Shamey]

Doc,
Very impressive for your first attempt. It is far better than the average. A lot of collectors would love to have this first coin! I will be anxiously waiting to see more of your work. Thank you for sharing those photos with us. Thank you Sam for this great gathering of talent. Your forum and their participants are top notch! It is a wonderful source of VERY useful information.

 

[Sam]

Doc: Those are absolutely GREAT carvings! Wow...Johnny Reb's my favorite, and my only critique on the 2nd one is to keep the edge of the coin as crisp and sharp as you can.

The photography is good! You might adjust your white balance and/or adjust color in Photoshop. With nickels it's often easier to simply lower the saturation slider to bring the coin back to a nickel color.

I'm really impressed with your nickels!! / ~Sam

 

[Doc Mark]

Thanks guys for all the positive comments. Billzack, yeah, sure, that will be the day, when YOU need help from me in coin carving! Your coins are always stunning!

Allan and Sam, yes you are correct in that the border rim of the coin looks better intact. That second picture is my first coin and I was uncertain how to smooth out the background without removing the rim. You were correct Allan, the rim was quite worn already so I just stoned it away. Won't do that again.

Sam, I'm still getting used to the photo software. It took me 2 hours just to get the photos down to managable size for the website. I set the parameters at 800 x 800 pixels as you stated in the sticky and yet they kept getting rejected as being too many bites! I guess I still don't have a handle on this digital language. But, we'll get there with all the help available on this forum! Next I'll work on the "saturation" as you suggested. That is if I can find it in my program. I'm using "Photo Impact Pro" software. It seems to have far more capabilities than I would ever use, but it takes a while to learn how to utilize them.

Anyway, as many of you have posted before, carving these coins can be addictive! I need to get back to practicing my "regular" engraving. I've finished my first engraved gold ring, and will post it soon.

Mark

 

[Steve Adams]

That is great work , and the first time! Wow !

 

[Sam]

Doc: I'm not familiar with Photo Impact, but photos for the web not only need to be scaled to the correct size in pixels, but should be 'optimized' as well. What this means is that the JPG quality setting can be lowered (while maintaining quality) which lowers the byte size of the image for fast loading on websites and forums. If the image is used strictly for printing and/or viewing on your computer (and not via the web), then optimizing is not necessary or desired. Check your help file for optimization as it's the last hoop you must jump through to ready your images for the web. / ~Sam

 

[John B.]

Congratulations! Wonderful work, Doc.
Best regards, Andrew and John B.

 

[coincutter]

Nothing like kicking butt right out of the chute!
Great job.

 

[Keith]

Great job for your first ones.Definately some eye candy there.
I cant wait to see more.

 

[ddushane]

Man! Those are too sweet! Dwayne

 

[JamesO]

RREEMMAARRKKAABBLLEE!!! (remarkable) When you got IT you got IT!