Category: Guest Contributors

Tom’s World – 20NOV2024 – Gold and Silver Coins

photog Guest Contributors, Photography, TomD , ,

Tom | Flickr

TomD

Gold and Silver Coins

I’ve been acquiring/collecting gold and silver for the past 21 years. My motivation initially was to keep a store of PM (precious metals) as a hedge against economic “problems” but I quickly discovered that there was an aesthetic component to some of the coins. My 1st purchases were 100 and 1000 oz silver bars (in 2003 cheap) but they were as photogenic as bricks. When I discovered the offerings from some of the major mints around the work, it was a “Whoa” moment. So I started to photo them. It worked out that 2003 was right about the time digital cameras were becoming capable instruments.

Amusing that the owner of APMEX (American Precious Metals Exchange), the largest online seller of PM’s sent me an email in around 2006 asking if I would do all his product photography for him. I was happy for the recognition but I was a 50 something year old Civil Engineer at the time and I appreciate the offer but——

 

 

4 Ducat-  This is a restrike of a 1915 4 Ducat Austrian gold coin featuring Emperor Franz Joseph. The coin contains .44 oz (net) of gold. I’ve got a number of European gold fractionals (fractional oz) and some are quite nice if you manage to get one in good shape after 100-140 years. This coin is from the Austrian Mint

 

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2011 Kookaburra- From the Australian National Mint. The Kookaburra is just 1 of several yearly silver coin offerings from the Mint. All of them are incredibly nice and popular. This series started in 1993, different images each year, 1 oz of silver. As an aside, when I say one oz in the context of PM’s, I’m talking about Troy oz, not standard oz., the difference is 28.35 grams per standard oz vs 31.13 per Troy.

 

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ATB Florida- US Mint, ATB stands for America the Beautiful as in the state quarters  issued for several years. This isn’t a standard issue quarter but a 5 oz silver replica but still minted by the US Mint.  Some of the designs, like this Florida one, are quite nice, but others not so much.

 

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Britannia- By the British National Mint, one oz 24 kt gold. Britannia is the British equivalent of Uncle Sam. The coins were issued yearly, most years of different designs, in both gold and silver. A lot of the coins from this series are spectacular.

 

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Azteca Calendario- This came in different weights up to a kilogram, this one is 5 oz. You can find all sorts of base metal knockoffs of this coin but the real ones from the Casa De Moneda De México (Mexican National Mint) are fairly rare. I had a Mexican contact and we swapped  coins with each other for years. The Casa has  some beautiful coins and popular coins in its catalogue.

 

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Eagles- Silver American Eagles that is, from the US Mint. Probably the most popular, recognizable, desired and produced coins in the world. If you’re going to buy limited silver, get this one. Recognized everywhere and easily traded for cash. When I first started buying these, I paid $5 each, now they’re pushing $40.

 

GAE- As in Gold American Eagle. Ditto everything about the silver eagles. They are in 22 kt gold or 91% but the weight of gold is one full oz. I like that alloy, I’ve got 24 kt gold but it is too soft. I dropped a 24 kt coin once and it dented the he** out of it. Luckily, that particular coin had little numismatic premium and it was still 1 oz of gold after the drop.

 

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Maple Gold- This is the Canadian version of the GAE. These are .9999 gold. It was one of these that I dropped. This is a fairly early one and the image of the Queen is what is known as the “Hottie” Queen. The image was updated as the years went on to reflect the aging queen.

 

Of all these coins shown, only the Kookaburra and Calendario have any premium attached. All the rest, you could buy for close to spot price. For some reason, some years of SAE’s are rarer and the coins can cost you more. But just skip these years.

I might do another coin photo post down the line but I’ve got thousands of shots of beautiful coins and I don’t think that is the direction Photog wants his site to go in. But there are some incredibly beautiful coins series out there, Chinese Pandas, a number of private mint series, Britannias, ATB’s, Australian Lunar series, Australian Kangaroos, Canadian Predator series, Mexican, European coin types beyond count.

I was extremely lucky, one particular friend (now departed unfortunately), influenced me and got me started when I could accumulate most of this when PM’s were a fraction of current cost. I paid $250 for my 1st oz of gold.

TomD

Guest Contributor – TomD – 17NOV2024 – Photo – Focus Stacking Issues

photog Guest Contributors, Photo Study, Photography, TomD , ,

Tom | Flickr

TomD

Yesterday, I experimented some and found what I consider the Achilles heel of the method. This isn’t a factor for inanimate objects but outdoor nature photography becomes difficult to say the least. I was trying to shoot a clump of red berries in a bush and then a flower (this is Florida)> There was no detectable wind the the 1/4 mph (or whatever) was just enough to move the subject 1/8” to 1/16”, just barely. That would have had little to no effect in regular photography but it totally ruled out stacked images for any purpose. That + the sheer length of time the subject has to remain motionless is hard in the wild. For my initial experiments, I was doing just 25 images with a 2 sec interval. That’s a life time in some circumstances but a bunch of articles recommended 100!

This is different from the focus stacking that i learned when I was in a camera club about 15 years ago. Then the shooting formula was still on a tripod, you would focus the camera on the nearest point you wanted, then the furthest and then input the number of steps that you want. Typically, it was along the line of 5 to 10 intervals, max.

The major downside was that the camera had to be tethered to and controlled by a computer. And the software was expensive.

At any rate, it looks as if this latest technique is limited to purely static subjects. But so to is HDR but to a much lessor extent. The most images you need in HDR is 5 and my camera will whip those out in less than a second. So you have some latitude.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 09NOV2024 – Soyboy Replacement

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war pig

 

The only way to survive is to breed better people. The child they refuse to birth may, Indeed, turn out to be a tyrant or a murderer. But then, it could also turn out to be the next Edison or Carver or Turing or Salk or Florence Nightingale. Odds are better they will grow up to be average people and live a good life with children of their own. People went on having children during WWII when things were one hell of a lot worse than they are now. They even had children during the Great Depression. You can’t change the world unless you breed.

I interacted with one of the zero population idiots. He said we should stop breeding. I asked him what human population he thought was sustainable. He said zero. So I drew my 1911A1, took out the mag, loaded it with one round and handed it to him. “Why don’t you start with yourself, then. The safety is off, just put it to your temple and pull the trigger. You won’t even feel it. Show me you mean what you say.” Of course he declined and ran off, more or less. This was about 40 years ago, in Del Rio, Texas.

Without children there is no future, good or bad. But I bet Asian couples won’t play the stupid zero population game. As a result, we will be invaded and the invaders will breed plenty of children to replace stupid Caucasians.

At my age, I can go to the Philippines, find a cute, fecund woman half my age and bring forth three or four kids before I die or finally become infertile. She would be happy with the widow’s pension from the VA and social security when I’ve gone. We don’t need the weepy, sub-beta fools who won’t have children. Bringing children forth and raising them is not for sissies. Not if done right. Our forefathers and foremothers tamed a continent and created the greatest nation. We need those people, not soyboys and soygirls.

Trump will hopefully end the department of education. That is the first step. Since it’s inception, educational standards have only gone down. Local people pay the taxes so they should determine what their schools teach, NOT the feds, or even the state. In fact, I’d prefer home schooling as the norm.

Tom’s World – 07NOV2024 –

photog Guest Contributors, Photography, TomD , , , ,

Update:

I kicked this to the top of the site because I want it to get more views.  Tom has collected some wonderful photos of an iconic old military facility.  I especially like the shots of the interior masonry.  His use of HDR (high dynamic range) technique produces fascinating images.

 

Tom | Flickr

TomD

Ft Pickens is the site of a US National Park located at the mouth of Pensacola Bay into the Gulf of Mexico. Historically it has been the site of military defences to protect said bay from foreign intervention. Other than altercations between Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War, I’m not aware of any military confrontations between US and hostile foreign forces since the original fort was established in 1830. At least in one instance, WWII, I’m fairly sure that was because of the deterrence of the fort. Especially in the 1st couple of years of WWII, the Gulf was lousy with German submarines, and absent the fort there would have been little to deter the Germans from coming into the bay and shelling the deep water port facilities.

 

Fort Pickens was active as a military base from 1830 to its closing in 1947 and it has abandoned facilities and gun emplacements from all along that time frame. This is just a few pictures and doesn’t begin to encompass the buildings, emplacements and facilities there.

 

Photos:

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Light at the End of the Tunnel: This is one portion of one wing from the 1st facilities constructed, in 1830, completed just 8 years after Florida was ceded to the US by Spain. It was constructed of brick using slave labor.

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This is a spotting tower used to spot and correct the shell fire from the two 6” shield guns featured in later picts.

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Another location in another wing of the 1830 fortress.

One of the 6”. These guns were 6” shield guns in use from before to through WWII.  These guns threw a shell weighing probably around 90 pounds to a distance of around 17,000 yards. There’s a picture of the interior of the shield further down.

Here’s a “disappearing” gun from the WWI era. Seems to me that would be an effective defense strategy since, any adversary unless at an extreme range, would have a flat trajectory to its shell fire.

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This is the 2nd shield gun at that emplacement. This picture doesn’t reveal differences from the 1st but I just like the photo as a photo.

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A 3rd shot of another location from in the 1830 building

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One wing of the 1830 building. It connects to the remainder of the building on the left but not the right side due to a “little” hurricane some time in the past.

View from behind one of the shield guns showing the interior. These turrets were fully powered, as they would be on a ship. You’ll notice that the breech block has been removed. Spoil sports! They never let us have any fun, pot shots at fishing boats 10 miles out would be great sport.

 

You can see that the breech design is of the interrupted screw type (no jokes please). This design is prevalent with American canon types of the time as opposed to the falling block favored by many other nations. Since, the US Army at least seems to use the falling block.

Tom’s World – 30OCT2024 – Artist’s Choice

photog Guest Contributors, Photography, TomD ,

Tom | Flickr

TomD

The aircraft are, I fear, getting a little stale. So I’ll change the subject to—no subject, no theme. Just pictures that I think are interesting.

 

Fractal Symmetry, This photo was taken at a US Military Cemetery Near Canton, Ga.

 

Mardi Gras, Pensacola version. Don’t know her but she seems to be having a great time.

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Beach scene, In January way out on Ft Pickens.

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Early March, my front yard

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I’m not sure just what the hell was going on with the winds aloft but I don’t remember seeing the like either before or since. For my front yard.

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Oliver, one of my cats.

“Run you stick bastards!” Seen in a local parking lot.

Just stopped at a light somewhere. I thought close focus on the drops on the windshield with the background blurred out would make an interesting shot.

 

TomD

Guest Contributor – TomD – 26OCT2024 – Fascism

photog Current Events, Guest Contributors, TomD , , ,

Dims have been calling Republicans fascists and Hitler for most of my life. The really ironic part is they couldn’t define fascism if their little lives depended on it.

I’ve still got some of my Dad’s West Point Textbooks, mostly dating from the late 30’s to early 40’s. One, “The Governments of the Major Foreign Powers”, p 1941 looks to be what we would now call Political Science, a misnomer if there ever was one. The book spends about 50 pages per country with great detail. It should be required reading at Harvard, etc.

Few people know that Fascism is an offshoot or variation of socialism. It was originated by Benito Mussolini, who, up to that time was a functionary in the Italian Socialist Party. At the time of his takeover of Italy, he was widely applauded and acclaimed by the US left. He did, after all, make the trains run on time.

One of the biggest differences between socialism and fascism is that socialism wanted state ownership of industry whereas fascism was fine with private ownership but required state control. Does that remind you of anything?

 

It seems that it is common today to bandy about the  accusation of  “Fascist” without a clue as to what Facism is.

 

Attached are 3 pages from a 1941 West Point textbook titled, “The Governments of the Major Foreign Powers”. These 3 pages are excerpts from approx 40 pages on the Government of Italy. It should be noted that, since this book was published in 1941, the US had yet to have entered the war.

 

Frankly, after rereading the short chapter on Fascist Doctrine, I can see the origin of quite a bit of the DNA from today’s left.

 

Obviously, the book also covers Nazi Germany.

Guest Contributor – Nostradumbass – 25OCT2024 – Reaction to “Can Trump Win?”

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sometimes when I drop in, I feel like someone was reincarnated. The following two quotes seem to be appropriate for your discourse:

“Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right.”

“I don’t like ass kissers, flag wavers, or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you: ‘There is no I in team.’ What you should tell them is: ‘Maybe not. But there is an I in independence, individuality, and integrity.’” George Carlin