0
  • entries
    440
  • comments
    1,314
  • views
    44,361

About this journal

This journal was originally to record my thoughts on collecting and building my Netherlands Wilhelm III Gold 10 Gulden Set and other projects like  my modern silver bullion NCLT sets. When it got started in the summer of 2007 I was single, in my early 20's, and working on my B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering. Starting in 2016, with my marriage and the birth of my first son, Benjamin, much of my writing has focused on raising my sons to have a love of collecting coins and exonumia and discussing how my collecting occurs in the context of my marriage and life overall.

Entries in this journal

Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

The Z Coins away, the 10Gs back home.

I finally took a minute, filled out the rest of the paperwork and printed the shipping label and the Z coins are scheduled for pick-up. Doing a bit of a deeper dive on this than I have in previous entries, I am sending in 13 coins: KM-1b: 1 cent KM-2: 5 Cent KM-8: 10 Cent KM-9: 20 Cent KM-10: 50 Cent KM-11: $1 KM-14: $10 KM-15: $25 KM-16: 1 Cent Bond Coin KM-17: 5 Cent Bond Coin KM-18: 10 Cent Bond Coin KM-19: 25 Cent Bond Coin
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

A (dirty?) 1980 Z Cent

So, it's a Sunday, morning at the time. Ben has had a friend over all weekend and the bickering has been constant all morning and we're both just short of the point of sending the kid home to just get some peace because they're driving us insane and we're tired. About a week prior I'd seen a 1980 Zimbabwean cent up for auction in "Mint State" with a $2.99 starting bid with $1.50 shipping. The seller's pictures weren't the best, but it looked promising at first glance. 1980-1989 cents f
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Mikes saves the day... and USPS ruins it a little.

So... continuing from the last journal posted about this… When I opened the box from the seller, I had 3 of the 8-coin sets that included later-date steel coins from mostly 2002 and only 1 of the 7-coin sets that had 1997 dated coins, including that 1997 $2 coin. To make things one step worse, the $2 coin in that set had a bad, deep scratch/ ding. Reached out to the seller, who quickly said I could keep the extra 8-coin set and they'd look for and send me another 1997 d
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

A 1980 Zimbabwe Proof Set

So, this entry is going to lack the length and the narrative of many of my more recent posts and just be little, “Look what I got.” But… I snagged a 1980 Zimbabwean proof set, in the original Royal Mint Packaging.   Mike had asked me a few months back if I’d considered getting into proof coins as I was getting the first round of grades back and ramping up my purchases of raw mint state coins. I’d initially just shrugged and said “Nah,” because I was focusing on the mint state /
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Not sure when or how, but the grades have posted at long last…

I was checking last night, and these still showed as being in quality control. This afternoon I opened my laptop, and the submission tracker page was open in a tab I left open last night when I shut the laptop. It auto updated / refreshed, and I saw “shipped” flash across my field of view as I was closing the tab, and then I frantically re-loaded the page, wondering if I had finally gone crazy. I’m guessing this is the result of some back-office people in the shipping department workin
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Well, Xan gave me my answer... or part of it anyway. lol

Xan Chamberlain must have gotten a box in the mail yesterday. This set popped up last night with just one coin and now the other 7 coins from that submission that got added to the census about 2 weeks ago have been added. It also looks like he has a $2 coin that popped up in the census the following week when my coins were added.But I'm not seeing in his set (yet, anyway) a 1999 10C in MS64 or an older-type $1 coin that popped up in the census the same week as my coins and that $2 coi
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

A charming looking group of coins, I think.

The Zimbabwe coin submission has arrived back from NGC. So, you people trying to ninja my brain and make me fret can just chill out. (Lookin at you, Mike! ) That said, I have been having an internal dialogue on this and “declared value” along the lines of “I’m wondering if I’m doing this wrong, which may bear further discussion. It is the last of the submissions mailed from the old house, the last of the submissions I had mailed back to my in-laws because of the move. So hopefully no m
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

A Bouquet of Flame Lilies

I had mentioned recently that I’d ordered a Rhodesian 3 Pence (1 1957 in MS66) to go with the Rhodesian Federation 6 pence my wife gave me for my Birthday. Shortly thereafter I saw that I seller I’ve used for a lot of my Rhodesian Federation coinage had a 1955 and a 1964 in MS66, so I put in some offers, which they accepted. After the coins spent a week in the Post Office, after the substitute carrier once again just put a slip of paper in the mailbox and didn’t come to the door, ring
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

This was a little late for April fools, and it's a little early for 4/20.

Well, I've been a bit quiet lately because I've been hoarding my cash and working on some other things, but I thought I'd pop in and check things out. I got quite a shock when I saw this: I've said before that I thought that set was strong enough that it had a good chance of holding up over time, so this immediately got my attention and then I see this: I've been aware that Xanno was trying to complete his set and he was rapidly filling his in, but how is it even
0