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NGC Journals

When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Belated Presents and getting the bug again.

I got some belated birthday presents from my wife’s family this weekend and I finally got to find out what my wife said when she said she’d given her mother her “other idea.” My MIL gave me an NGC MS70 2013 Koala. I had not been looking at these in a while and they weren’t on my wish list on eBay. She went into my registry sets and found a coin I didn’t have for a set and went on eBay and found it, in the right grade. The rest of the set up to this point has been all MS70s and they got an M
Revenant

Revenant in Family

0
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

A bit of family history emerges.

A couple of weeks ago I reached out to my Mom to ask her about the date ranges for the time when they were in Argentina, where they were, etc. I wanted to have a little more information so I could incorporate this into the set description for my Austral set: The coins I had gotten came mostly from my grandmother, giving me coins my grandfather had kept. However, apparently, not long after I reached out to my mother, my sister found this in a bunch of papers and other things
Revenant

Revenant in Argentinian Coin Sets

0
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

I guess that's all over except the crying.

So, I've always thought the expression "It's all over but the crying" was a funny one, in part because when something is over people can be crying because they're happy or because they're sad. You see it on awards shows all the time with the happy cry, but, given that televised award shows are often for TV and movie stars who are, after all, professional pretenders, it does make you wonder sometimes how much of the happy crying is genuine.   What I never knew, however, but what a little bit
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

4
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

So... There's a 2 Lire coin, you say?

Some of you may recall that, when I started buying graded Modern Italian coins in late-2021 to build sets for / to celebrate / in honor of my wife, one of my initial wants / goals was as 1986 Mint set for Italian coins.  I haven't talked about it much recently because... it just came together quickly and I completed it easily and... it was built but doomed to rot in the purgatory that is the custom set feature in the old registry.   Seriously though, how do you even brag up a cus
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

4
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Birthdays and Battles in the Registry Backwater

The family and I celebrate my birthday this week / this weekend, and, this year, unlike last year, neither kid is in the hospital, currently - and I'll take the win. However, we do now know that Sam's in-patient time is going to start on November the 13th. So there's that to "look forward" to. I now have my historical blurb sections on 4 of my 8 Austral coins written or at least mostly written - these things tend to go through revisions over time and I'm still very much working on them.
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

6
The FNG

The DIY Copy-Stand

Welcome to my first Journal Entry!  I've been wanting to do this for a long time now but didn't know what to put. I know that's what journals are for in the first place is just to write, a way to get stuff off that wet pink ball of noodles in your head.  Maybe I should've been here way earlier?  Either way, here we are now let's get to the meat and potatoes of why we are here now! So I may tend to hyper fixate onto new things every now and then. I have always been an artist, as a young
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

The Australs set coming together...

I am now happy to say that pictures are up for both the Austral coins and the Peso Convertible coins.  I'm very happy with how these came out... But I'm thrilled to say I have a banner image now:   I always try to be mindful of how these look on the PC and my phone... One thing that was important to me was having a prominent placement for the obverse of the 10C coin, which features the national Coat of Arms. I've even gotten my historical write-ups done
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

0
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

This is where the fun begins…

Be honest – how many of you remember that line from the start of Star Wars: Episode 3? I have bemoaned several times over the last few months that it is hard to get excited or get motivated about building a registry set when you… don’t… have coins… But! I find that it is much easier to get excited about researching and writing about coins for a registry set when you… have coins… and have pictures to go with "da wordy bits." I also gotta say - even feeling slightly disappointed at some
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

3
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

The heat is on...

I managed to make a little progress on my goals this weekend, which is pretty solid in light of the fact that the coins hadn’t been physically delivered yet and 3 of my remaining 4 points relate to imaging and editing shots of the new coins… 1) Getting the coins programmed in and in the slots, (Except for the Austral coins) 2) Getting my pre-written descriptions posted on the coins (for the new $10 Zimbabwe coin, 500L set, Argentinian Set, and Venezuelan coins) 3) Getting pictures
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

0
Michael Garrity

NGCX

I fail to see the appeal that this grading system for Morgan and Peace dollars will have. Wasn't the current Sheldon system good enough?
Legionary1

Legionary1 in NGCX

5
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Well, that is mildly disappointing… but I have grades!

Okay, so, after several rounds of going back and forth between “Grading/Quality Control,” “Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging,” and “Quality Control/Finalized,” the submission is finally finalized and shipped, and I have grades. On a few of them, all I can say is… Woof… For Italy… While these mostly are not great I can’t call most of these disappointments. Yeah… the 1995 is lower than I’d hoped for, but the 2000 and 2001 are better than I’d worried they might be. At the end of the day
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

2
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Well, it's the week for hell at work but this was good news...

This week has had emails from annoying clients every day right at the start of the day. Emails from clients that don't communicate internally so that your Point of Contact agrees to something but then never communicates that to the rest of their team, so you get questions about it for months. Clients that expect you to be at their beck and call and let them have meetings with you on 15 minutes notice. Clients that want meetings to discuss or clarify things that are clearly written in the report.
Revenant

Revenant in Turtle Coins

3
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Moving along...

So, starting with a small update on Sam... Two ER visits, a Neurosurgery follow up and 3 CT scans later... we're waiting and watching see when he has clinical signs of shunt failure before moving forward to surgery - probably an ETV to try to free him from shunt revisions. Two ER visits, a specialist appointment, and 3 scans later... we're right back where we started...  watching and waiting... for an indefinite and unknowable period of time... What the actual hell?!? So... I guess we'll se
Revenant

Revenant in Argentinian Coin Sets

0
USAuPzlBxBob's Journal

Keeping Records Provides Certainty

It has been 10 years since I purchased my first rare coin… And had I not kept records — mailing invoices, copies of written letters, NGC Submitter Copies — I would have scant recollection of what had transpired. This brings me back to my first rare coin — a rare gold coin — and I’ve always been bothered by my records not revealing if it really was the first rare gold coin I had ever seen or held. The mystery involves a tale between two dealers — Austin Rare Coins, Inc. and Thomas
USAuPzlBxBob

USAuPzlBxBob in First Rare Coin

3
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Coins with turtles

So.... This is long delayed, but I've been far busier at work than usual and we're having a lot of difficulties with Sam's health the last couple of weeks and months and so the journaling and the coin research is suffering. Sam has been in decline since June. We think he has Slit Ventricle System (SVS) and he's dealing with almost daily debilitating headaches that are making him cranky and, in some cases, frankly, violent. Which just makes things hard. We're probably going to have to cancel
Revenant

Revenant in Turtle Coins

2
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Back on Top? For Now? Oh... There's Drama!

So, I recently have been seeing some chatter on Facebook and elsewhere that CAC, no longer content to just deface PCGS and NGC slabs with oval stickers, is now going to be grading coins completely on their own, and putting them in slabs that look shockingly similar to PCGS slabs... I wonder how PCGS feels about that.  Then I come on here the other day and see the 7/24 announcement that NGC is taking away the points bonus for CAC stickered coins effective the next day. As I look on the board
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

6
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

The plot thickens...

I did manage this last week to print the label and mail off that large, mixed submission to NGC for grading. I decided just to use Priority Mail and let the carrier pick it up from my front door - hopefully they don't give me cause to regret that, but it seems unlikely. In the interim things have gotten a little more interesting and there's slightly more riding on that submission now. I noticed a week or so ago that a new set had knocked my Venezuelan type set down to #2 in the categor
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

I like learning... not homework...

When I was growing up my mother started (but failed to finish) a 2nd Master's degree. She would often make the joke that she "could have been a professional student" - meaning she loved being in classes and learning things like that - mostly about history. Having reached my mid-30s, having earned my PhD, my 3rd and terminal degree, and gone on to hobbies that involve a lot of reading and writing, I can honestly say that I like learning - but I do not like homework, and so I don't like being
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

2
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

Progress on the new set is going a bit slow...

Well, I wasn't planning to submit this batch of coins until my membership renewed and I got my additional $150 credit on June 12th... The problem with this is that not having coins graded that I can pop into a set and not having a public set I can actually build has proven ... demotivating... when it comes to my research and writing efforts. It simply isn't as fun or as satisfying to work on a Word file with no pictures. So I've found myself pulled in other directions recently. B
Revenant

Revenant in Family

2
When I’m Wiser and I’m Older

The Gold Bolivars and the New Argentine Set

I thought I'd post an update on the recent journal on the 20 Bolivar coin. I did ultimately decide to buy an MS65 1930 10 Bolivar coin to go with it and I got the coins imaged a while ago when I had them both in hand. The nice thing about these two is that they slot into that Reform coinage type set that ends at 2005, along with my pre-BsF Venezuelan coins. So I didn't have to make separate sets for one or both of these like I have for so many other small European gold coins I've colle