Features for CGO's VISUAL GUIDE to Cals of Periods 1, 2, & 3


	Visual Guide to Cals' Features Visual Guide's Main Page
	As a subscriber, you will gain immediate access to CGO's exclusive members only area. Rates are as low as $5! MAJOR NEW ADDITION!!! Visual Guide to Auction Prices for Certified Cals of Periods 1, 2 & 3 is now available! See its many exciting features here ! To subscribe, select either "'49er" or "Gold Miner" subscription package on the Registration page. To review the differences between "'49er" and "Gold Miner" subscription packages, see this page. NOTE: For those of you who are currently subscribing to *Visual Guide to Cals of Periods 1, 2 & 3, you can upgrade* your subscription to "Gold Miner" from Visual Guide to Cals' main page by entering any valid Period-1 BG number in its Auction Price field. CGO's unique Visual Guide to Cals of Periods 1, 2 & 3 offers its subscribers all the following benefits and features: A Great Time-Saver With over 600 varieties of California Fractional Gold (also called California Small Denomination Gold, or affectionately for short, Cals), it is often time-consuming to go through their pictures - one at a time - in order to figure out which variety it is for a Cal you have at hand. Visual Guide can certainly help you in that regard - simply click on one picture at a time until you arrive at the last picture that would identify your Cal. For all the varieties, it will take you, on average, less than 5 mouse clicks to identify your Cal! Large High-Resolution Color Pictures Nearly all of Visual Guide's pictures are displayed in vivid, living colors. The reference book, California Pioneer Fractional Gold, has only B/W photos, and they are all of smaller size and in grainy half-tone that sometimes makes it harder to identify your Cal(s). And, what's more, this book is out of print. Ease of Variety Comparison Pictures in Visual Guide are organized and displayed in a logical manner so that you can compare those Cal varieties that are very similar to each other side-by-side. In many cases, some additional information on the differences between these varieties will pop up automatically when you hold your mouse's cursor still over each of their pictures. Quick Look-Ups On Visual Guide's main (top-level) webpage, you will find a handy menu option called "Quick Look-Ups." In this way, if you already know the BG number for a particular Cal variety, you can enter it in its field and click on the Submit button. After submitting any valid BG number, you will be taken directly to this variety's picture webpage without having to click through Visual Guide from its top page. Built-in Magnifying Lens Once you have reached any webpage that displays a picture for a BG variety, a magnifying lens will automatically appear when you roll your mouse's cursor over the picture. You can use your keyboard's UP ARROW an DOWN ARROW keys to zoom in and out, respectively. Also, you can press LEFT ARROW and RIGHT ARROW keys to enlarge and reduce the size of the magnifying lens as well. Side-by-side Image Comparison Need to determine the BG number for a yet unidentified Cal whose picture is on an external webpage? Fret not! Visual Guide offers you a real convenient way to copy images of the Cal's obverse and reverse to Visual Guide's two small windows. You can resize these windows and zoom in and out as well as move them around on your display while using the Visual Guide. Goodbye to all the switching back and forth between Visual Guide and all external webpages! JRC Auction Prices & Grades In Visual Guide, you will find, above pictures on the left side, realized prices and grades for each Cal variety from the Jay Roe Collection, for which the auction took place on September 14, 2003. Want to see More Auction Prices? Fret not! Just click on the Auction Prices link below the image of a Cal (that shows up on your display screen at the end of your identification process), and you will then be taken directly to its associated line graph of auction prices in CGO's other Visual Guide. No more typing in the BG number twice - just enter it only once in either Visual Guide to Cals or Visual Guide to Auction Prices and you can go back and forth between these two guides with ease. [*Note:* This feature is available for "Gold Miner" subscribers only.] Rarity Values Three (3) rarity values are displayed above each variety's picture on the right side. The first (1st) value is taken from the first edition of California Pioneer Fractional Gold (published in 1983). The second (2nd) value is excerpted from the second edition of the same book, (2003). The third (3rd) value comes from Jack Totheroh's Auction Sales History (ASH). In this way, with a glance, you can gain a fairly good sense of each Cal variety's overall rarity. Back-Tracking In Visual Guide, you can go forward and backwards - one webpage at a time - with your mouse. You can even use Quick Look-Ups to jump to the "end" for any variety and click on "Go back 1-step." This feature can be helpful if you want to double-check on a particular variety where it might be easily confused with another variety. Quick Guide For those of you who are new to this field of numismatics, this menu option offers you a convenient diagnostic tool to quickly determine whether the coin you have at hand is likely a genuine Cal or a token. After using this Quick Guide menu option, you will soon learn how to tell apart between Cals and many non-Cal tokens that are out there. Flip It! At long last, with a mouse click, you can now create a coin-flip insert for each of your unslabbed Cals! At the top left corner of each insert, you will find its BG number. In this way, it makes it a breeze to locate a Cal in your coin-flip box. Next to the BG number, you will also find three Rarity Values (compiled from three different sources). An image of the Cal's obverse and reverse is printed in the middle of the insert - so you can double-check the enclosed Cal against that image! Of course, you can print your PDF-formated inserts either in B/W or in color! Even better yet, while you are on the same webpage, you can customize this coin-flip insert for your own collection or for your business! Simply replace the BG number with a different number for each of your other Cals. In lieu of the CGO's website address, replace it with your text, such as your own website address or something more personal like "Property of John Smith." Comprehensive & Informative Links On the bottom of Visual Guide, you will find a few helpful links, such as: About Visual Guide It presents a concise explanation on how Cals are classified and designated with a BG number and offers instructions on how to use Visual Guide. "Wanted: Raw or Slabbed" In the spirit of the old Wild West, this "poster" page proclaims there are a few Cals whose color pictures have 'escaped' or missing from Visual Guide and are presumably to be still at large until 'captured.' Everyone is encouraged to join our 'posse' as we hunt 'em down! Visual Guide Statistics This webpage displays the number of Cals for each group and other interesting details. Legend for Cal Rarity Values It lists and compares rarity values from three sources side-by-side. A Convenient Link to CGO's Other Visual Guide On the main page, there is a special field where you can enter and submit any valid BG variety number and it will immediately take you to CGO's *Visual Guide to Auction Prices for Certified Cals of Periods 1, 2 & 3.* This guide's database currently contains over 8,350 records!. [*Note:* This feature is available for "Gold Miner" subscribers only.] More Complete than the BG Book Visual Guide contains more pictures than California Pioneer Fractional Gold, which is often referred to as the BG book (after its two authors, Breen and Gillio). While there are many very rare Cals, quite a few of them share the same obverse or reverse designs of the more common Cals. Visual Guide takes advantage of this fact and offers composite pictures for these extremely rare Cals by using pictures of the other Cals' obverses and reverses. At this time of writing, out of over 600 known varieties, only nine (9) obverses and seven (7) reverses are missing! Portability & Convenience With thanks to the Internet, you can access Visual Guide from the four corners of the globe. Just first log in to www.calgoldonline.com and click on the link for Visual Guide. No more lugging the B[i]G book along with you! Online Availability - 24 / 7 / 365 CGO has been up 99.9% of the time since when it first came online on September 26, 2004.
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