NGC Journals

coinsandmedals's Journal

Yet another positive NGC experience!

With submission turnaround times increasing by the day, it is often easy to focus on the bad while taking the good for granted. That said, I would like to share a recent positive experience with NGC customer service. I submitted a proof 1775 Irish Halfpenny in February of last year, but I did not find the time to inspect the coins until early last month. I know it is ridiculous that it took me that long to enjoy my coins, but I have very little time to kill. Now that things are starting to slow
My World Crown Affair

Like a Box of Chocolates

To paraphrase Forest Gump, coin collecting is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna find.  I find this especially true of the Heritage weekly world coin auctions.  Sorting out all of the consignments that Heritage gets into their various auction formats must take quite a bit of time and when it comes to world coins, I doubt if all the people involved are experts in all coins across all of coin minting history.  Still, I am surprised to find the occasional scarce variety pop
jgenn

jgenn in 1684 ducato of Naples

3
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

And, I think we’ve picked the winners. Together. :)

Shandy and I have picked (from amongst the coins I have so far) the ones we think are the best and these will be among the ones I send in a few months from now. I am looking to make a couple more purchases of raw Zimbabwean coins between now and when these go out to NGC to try to get examples of the last few types I will need and maybe get better examples of some of these, so some of these may get bumped out of the submission if I find better – more on that in a couple of weeks probably.
Collecting world coins

Finally made it to Rome

During the Napoleonic period Italy was not the single country we know today and as such had multiple, sometimes, short-lived territories each with their own coinage. The gold 20 and 40 Lire issues were only struck at Milan (mint mark M) with the smaller denominations also being issued by the mints at Bologna and Venice (mint marks B and V), the Italians seem to have had a much greater need than the French for small change - Napoleon only had a single copper issue struck for the French, the 18
Coinbuf's Journal

Top ten goal made, is top five possible or not

This year I have been slowly adding Lincoln memorial coins to my collection and was able to move the memorial set into the top ten slot.   I think I could over the next few years move up a few slots but I do not know if a top five set is in the cards for me.   Anyway here is a snapshot just for posterity sake as I could just as easily be pushed out of the top ten soon too.  
Coinbuf

Coinbuf in Coinbufs journal

6
coinsandmedals's Journal

A much-needed break!

As some of you may know, I am a Ph.D. student. Graduate school often entails a mind-numbing amount of work on very short deadlines, which continue to escalate as you get closer to finishing your degree. Earlier this month, I defended my dissertation prospectus without changing my experimental design, which gave me the green light to start data collection. After finishing all the paperwork, I started collecting data the same day. So far, it is going way faster than I anticipated, and I am already
coinsandmedals's Journal

Two more invoices were shipped!

Recap: I submitted a very complex order to NGC that spanned several invoices and numerous special requests. You can read about it here. Due to a clerical error, I received the grades back on one of the submissions early, which I detail here. Almost immediately after posting my last journal, I checked my email to find another shipment notification from NGC. I was somewhat confused as I thought I got this worked out when I talked with NGC yesterday, but I assume that these were already in the
coinsandmedals's Journal

World economy submission – The grades are in!

Recap: I submitted a very complex order to NGC that spanned six invoices and several special requests. You can read about it here. Much to my surprise, the world economy submission is already on its way back to me, but this was not by design. When I submitted these coins, I requested combined shipping to save on the return shipping charge. For whatever reason, NGC accidentally mailed out the world economy submission on 11-19.  I didn’t notice until I received the shipment notification from
Coinbuf's Journal

Another registry year comes to a close

Wow hard to believe that the registry cutoff is just a week away, this year has certainly gone by quickly.   As I look back I had no specific goals other than to try and add or upgrade to my existing sets in order to hold onto as many of my first place awards as possible.    Looking at my sets now it seems like I have actually lost some ground in that regard and will have fewer awards for 2021 than I did in 2020.   Partly because I spent some time and money adding some memorial and shield Lincol
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

The things that change while we're not paying attention...

About a month ago I was surprised to see that all the coins in my Presidential dollar set had been removed from the set and the score had gone to Zero. When I looked into it, I saw that there was a new category for "First Day of Issue" dollars and my coins weren't eligible for the set / category they had been in before. I also saw there was a lot of screaming and bemoaning the unfairness of it all. For me, it was no big deal - I deleted the old set and started a new one. That set had never
Revenant

Revenant in NCLT

11
My World Crown Affair

A Hard Year, A Great Year

No, I'm not talking about this year which I can only call another strange year, but rather, the year 1860.  In trying to broaden my Silver Dollars of '60 custom set, I researched the silver dollar-like coins issued from European nations in 1860 and I believe there are only two.  By this time, thalers had shrunk to 33mm and 18.52g so they no longer fit my definition of silver dollar size!  Having already acquired a nice 20 reales of Spain (38mm, 26.291g), I was stuck with finding the 5 lire of th
jgenn

jgenn in 1860 5 Lire

6
Collecting world coins

That was a good idea while it lasted!

Given earlier Journal entries it will be no surprise that I, not only, have an interest in die varieties but have also been looking at the Napoleonic coinage of Italy which is complex to say the least! It looks like I was not the only one attempting to resolve this dilemma as another collector has also been working on the gold 20 Lire issues and their collection came up for sale at the recent Gaduory auction in Monaco which took place on 22/23 October (see catalogue pages below and next pos
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Hindsight is 20/20… and really is quite painful some days…

So, I’ve received the new 10-coin sets of Zimbabwean coins and I’m torn between being very happy and more than a little frustrated. I haven’t closely examined all of these yet, but these new 10-coin sets are just significantly better than what I got last time buying from the other dealer. The 5C, 10C, $2, and even the $5 coins are vastly better even at first glance – Shandy even commented on how stark the contrast is. The ones from the new sets in some cases just straight up make the ones f
My World Crown Affair

Vietnam Dragon Dollar -- Cast or Milled?

By the end of the 19th Century, so many countries had issued silver world crowns that I generally need to focus on selecting just one example per country for my custom set, that I have playfully named "My World Crown Affair".  Chief among my criteria is that the coin was minted in the country.  If not locally minted, then a design element should be strongly representative of the country.  Quite a few examples of coins issued for colonies lack any flavor of the local culture and thus fail to inte
jgenn

jgenn in Vietnam 7 Tien

2
C'MON NOW!

NEXT YEAR?

With a turn around time (Modern) of 45 days, my submission will arrive next year. Between the Mint taking 2 weeks to ship, the Post Office taking almost 2 weeks to deliver(first class), First and Early releases can be forgotten. I see the times have been shortened by over a week....I'm hopeful.  I'd be happy with the coins, truthfully. Good Luck everyone!
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Revamping the 1986 mint set and a few others too… - new pics of the '86 set are up!

When it comes to building out registry sets, I find that I'm very much one of those people that needs to "begin with the end in mind." I find that when I don't have a clear vision for a set and an idea of what the finished project will look like I have a hard time making anything I'm happy with and I have a hard time making progress or even really starting. I've been wanting to build out the 1986 mint set for over a year and I just could never come up with an idea for how to build it out th
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

10
Why I like coins

Changing categories without notice... what next?!?

Recently I found that NGC changed one of the categories I'm in to another country. I was even told that they weren't going to change or remove that same category when I ask they just remove the category as another category had the same coins this year. Then all of the sudden, they change it. OK... that's fine.... I guess I have to work on that since two of the coins fit their new country. Then... this year.... they open a Silver $1 and a $1 Proof/MS categories for the Solomon Islands. I had
ChrisInJesup

ChrisInJesup in New

2
CoinsbyGary

Destination: Iceland

Whenever I visit a foreign country, I make it my practice to cherry-pick examples of that country’s coins from circulation. For an expensive visit to a foreign country, coins make an inexpensive souvenir that only costs you the exchange rate of your dollars. They also make a memorable keepsake of your visit and interesting conversation pieces with your numismatic buddies back home! Sometimes I save examples of the circulating paper money when I travel. However, paper money is convertible back to
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Going for another round. More 10-coin sets...

The seller I got more Bond coins from recently also has some 10-coin sets of the pre-hyperinflation coins for $8, but if you get 4+ they're $6.40 each. I think I had seen these back in April and passed them over - went with coins from a California dealer because he says the $5, $10, and $25 coins he has are "lightly circulated" where the other 7 denominations are uncirculated. Given what I paid for those others ($18 each) and how that turned out with the $2 and $5 brass coins, I feel more t
coinsandmedals's Journal

The medals of Soho near Birmingham - The assassination of King Gustavus III of Sweden

Here is another sneak peek of a new NGC custom registry set that I am working on. Please feel free to share anything related! This is one of the more interesting medals in my collection. In my opinion, the medal itself is rather attractive, and the reverse design is nothing short of stunning when considering the immense amount of detail throughout. As is usually the case, the historical context that gave rise to its existence also makes for a great story, but unlike the other pieces I have
My World Crown Affair

Anno 1790

Back before streaming became so popular, one of my local cable channels would broadcast a great selection of international television content in the original language with English subtitles.  My favorites were the detective shows such as Inspector Montalbano, Commissario Brunetti, Blood of the Vine (aka the Wine Detective), Beck and Wallander, all set in contemporary time, and the period shows Nicolas Le Floch and Anno 1790.  I highly recommend all of these, which can be streamed from various se
jgenn

jgenn in Sweden Riksdaler

1
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Venezuela returns to gold, at least in part.

I don’t know if I’ve discussed this here, in the NGC journal specifically, but those that follow my PMG writings will know I’ve been building a set of Venezuelan Hyper-Bolivars (Bolivares Fuerte, Bolivares Soberano and now Bolivares Digital) as a kind of sister set to the Zimbabwe Hyperinflation set, and I’ve been trying to follow what’s going on with that. And so. the other day an interesting article from Bloomberg popped up for me. In 2008/2009 the Zimbabwean economy “dollarized” even bef
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

The Old Man…

Yesterday Sam was finally feeling better – he is back at daycare today and we’re enjoying our 1 child-free work from home day of the week – so we got to go out with my in-laws so we could have a birthday celebration with them, and they could give me their present for me… and I finally got to find out what the big mystery was that my wife has been keeping. I laughed so hard and this and got a real kick out of it. I’m normally not very effusive when getting gifts but they said they think