Beaver Coin

[BosnMate]

In 1849 there was very little money in Oregon, so those pioneers established the beaver coin to provide a standardized currency in Oregon Territory. The coins were minted in $5 and $10 denominations, using natural gold, as mined, not refined. These coins were illegal as far as the US Government was concerned, so when the San Francisco mint was established in 1854 the beaver coins were gathered up and melted. This coin is one of the rarest of American money. So here is a picture of one that I have, ----------- only I won it at a metal detecting club meeting, and it's a gold plated counterfit, but I figured it's a good subject for a practice use of my closeup lens. I did NOT mount the camera on a tripod, and it's almost impossible to get a sharp focus up that close and hand held. In fact the depth of focus is so narrow that on the side showing the beaver, note that the top of the coin is sharp, and the bottom is soft focus. Anyhow, if I wasn't so lazy I'd try using a tripod, but at this point I'm happy, the lens seems to work quite well.

 

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[Mackaydon]

Your lens works fine, and I appreciate the history lesson and the pic.
Don....

 

[tamrock]

Good close up...I wish I could find an old western territory gold piece of any kind. Any one of them can bring some big bucks. Here's a little further read on some others. https://www.whitman.com/RedBook/Coins/Chapter/Private-and-Territorial-Gold I wonder if any are still out there lost and waiting for some metal detector to come along a swing over it?.

 

[ronwoodcraft]

I have always dreamed of finding one of those.

About 15 years ago I saw one in the museum in Roseburg, OR

 

[BosnMate]

You and I both dream of finding one, but the most logical places where they could have been lost are under concrete now days. But ------------ The big BUT ------- what if some guy back in 1850 got dumped off a horse and lost his coins in the mud. There could be a 5 or a ten or both out there just waiting to be found, so I'm still looking and hoping.

 

[masterjedi]

Here is a real one...

1857: 1849 $5 Oregon Exchange Co. Five Dollar AU53 : Lot 1857

Gary from Oregon

 

[signal]

so tell us about that lens, make/model

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Shaky hands, so I picked up a Celestron Handheld Digital Microscope for around $30. Has a stand with it, and it flat works great. Perfect for taking coin or postage stamp pictures.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

I learned some history today, thank you for sharing!

 

[BosnMate]

so tell us about that lens, make/model

I have a Nikon 5100 camera, and it comes with the standard 18 to 55 lens it seems like every camera has. I'm not very knowledgeable about these newer cameras, but this one has an auto feature that includes auto focus, which works great for me and my tired old soft focus eyes. Within the auto focus workings of the camera, it has a close up feature that works great, and I could use that and work with the photo in the computer. But I wanted to be able to get really good, sharp closeups of coins, flowers etc. before putting the picture into the computer. So I purchased an after market close-up lens adapter, a Raynox Macroscoptic Lens model M-250. It has a plastic adapter that clips onto the front of the 18 to 55, and the auto focus feature still works. The reason the coin is sharp focus on top and soft on the bottom is it's sort of mounted in a really thin black sort of sponge stuff, about the thickness of the coin, but un-noticed to me at the time, the coin was in this thin mount at a slight angle, couldn't be much more than 1/100th of an inch, and that affected the focus. I like the lens, and will be playing with it some more. I bought lens new from a camera store in Florida, that was advertising on ebay, cost around 50 bucks with free postage.