You have encouraged me to have a play with some close up lenses I had for Christmas. I still need to think about the lighting more and if I used my tripod I could shut the apperture down a bit to increase the depth of field.
Photos of my Perrins - circa 1870 - was a 14 bore - now a 16 bore. They certainly went to a great deal of trouble adding detail that you could only see with a magnifying glass.
John