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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

Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Making Progress and Hoping for Good News Soon.

I actually managed to get my box to the Post Office on 8/12 and, since I decided to chance it on a Priority Mail Flat Rate box and not pay for Registered Mail for such a low-value submission this time, NGC received the box on 8/15. The submission is still not showing in the system yet, but, based on currently advertised turnaround times, I'm hoping I'll have grades by around 09/09 or 09/16 (3 or 4 weeks from now to be generous on my expectations vs 13 business days).  We'll see. In any
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

"Would you like to know more?"

Borrowing the title from that line in "Starship Troopers." Anyone else remember that movie? I hear it's 25 years old now? Anyway... I feel like I teased this concept months and months ago - probably close to a year ago now - but I never really delivered on it: I feel like I very much survive on a kind of "one step at a time" incrementalism some days. I got the coins back, I got them in the set. I uploaded new descriptions a while after that. Got new pictures posted a couple
Random Nonsense

New Pictures are finally up for Zimbabwe and the 500L set.

I finally took some time and got new pictures taken and uploaded for the Zimbabwe and 500L sets that are at least consistent across the board even if I don't necessarily think these are in every case the best images I've gotten of each coin: Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Now that I have nice photos of the Zimbabwe bird in the yellow of the $2 coins I decided to use that to fill the gap in my banner image. I'
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

2
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

But those die cracks...

I took a little time to try to get a few shots of one of these Venezuelan coin that I think is showing die cracks / die wear issues and see what everyone thinks, both using the Nikon with the Micro lens and the new Coin Microscope. Looking at this (50 Bolivar) in person, and looking at it in the photo with the macro lens and this lighting, that line along the back of the neck definitely looks raised above the design and not cut into it and so I'm thinking more and more that this is a die cr
Italian Coins

The 1986 Italian Mint Set is going up...

Thursday of last week, when everything was going down with Sam, that MS68 1986 100L arrived in the mail and over the weekend I won an auction for an MS67 1986 20 Lire. That, with the MS68 1986 50L I got last year, gives me (or will soon give me) 3 of the 7 coins for an Italian 1986 Mint Set, so I've gone ahead and made a custom set for that and popped in what I have so far. 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Set - Custom Set (collectors-society.com) The MS67 20 Lire is the highest graded
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Family

It comes to a head: The 2nd revision

To borrow phrasing from my wife, Somethings have been odd with Samuel for a while. After getting a fast MRI (which had been delayed by him getting sick the day before the scan) the doctor wasn’t convinced by those results but was concerned by our observations of his behavior and wanted a CT. After getting a CT this morning, they told us to turn back around and come to the ER. We suspect a clog / slow failure – all four ventricle spaces have enlarged; some have nearly doubled. But they’re just go
Revenant

Revenant in Family

5
Italian Coins

It is possible they did me a favor on this one.

Earlier in the week I'd been watching a 1983 Italian 500L graded Ms65 by NGC. The staring bid was $10 + $5 shipping and it had no bids. When it was about 12 hours out from ending I bid $20 hoping to win it for roughly the cost of grading and keep it until and unless something better came along - maybe one I graded myself. Then, about 15 minutes before bidding ended, someone bid $15, then $16, then $17, then $20, then something over $20... I don't know if this was a shill or someone tha
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

2
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

What's this then... Oh! I thought this was never coming!

So yesterday there's a knock at the door and I see it's the mail carrier, and he has a small package. As I'm walking up I'm wondering what this is and thinking I'm not really expecting anything. When he gives it to me it's the 2nd set of 2002-2004 Venezuela coins from Ukraine! I had completely forgotten about these things. I've been busy and I hadn't thought about them or thought to check the tracking in weeks. The last tracking update I'd seen had them in Kiev on April 6th. Then, whil
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Constructing a Set and Narrative and Learning More as I go.

So, after many delays prompted by sickness and other things - in the 2nd half of this week is was my “turn” to be sick - and putting these on hold to look at 500 Lire coins, I’m finally starting to look at the Venezuelan coins to maybe pick out some for a submission and building out a registry set. But the thing that normally makes all the difference for me in building these sets is building a narrative around the set. Building out these descriptions, the research and the writing often cons
Family

The 500L lots and wanting to look at the gold

The other day over the weekend I decided to finally pull those 500 Lire coins I'd ordered out and look at them to see if I'd gotten anything good / promising. I'd been wanting to look at these for a while knowing it would be kind of shot-in-the-dark and I might have something good or I might have gotten nothing. I thought I'd sit down and look while Shandy napped with Sam and Ben watched TV. But, somewhat to my surprise, Ben took notice and wanted to look at them with me and was asking if t
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Italian Coins

So... She actually wants input on this?

So here's kind of a funny thing from the other day. I sent Shandy a message saying, "Hey, you care if I just go ahead and order these Italian sets?" and for me it's more, "do you care if I spend the money on this?" She's okay with it but she wants to know if she can look at the pictures first to see if she thinks it's a good one - generic pictures though so we aren't going to be able to make a quality judgement on individual coins like that, so just go ahead and we'll see. But aft
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

2
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

On to Venezuela?

The first of the packages of Venezuelan Coins from the Ukrainian dealer arrived. The box that came was the 2nd one shipped, containing the 2021 Digital Bolivar Coins. The first package is still showing it was last seen in Kiev. I guess we'll see on that one – but I’m mostly considering that one a lost cause after over a week with no updates. I’ll just be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong. But at least I already had some of those from a prior order and dollarwise what I got this weekend was the b
Family

The coins arrived!

The box came with the Zimbabwe and Italian coins yesterday. With the kids in bed and the chores handled we sat down together to take them out of the box. She joked about me and my hoard and how pleased I was, but I was surprised by how quickly the 500 L coins were pulled away and how happy she was to get to handle them and look at those. I went at one point and got the other 500L coins, the previous submission of Zimbabwe coins and a couple of empty boxes I have. I gave
Revenant

Revenant in Family

6
Italian Coins

The 500 Lire Grade Results

So here is the 2nd post about 1 submission, splitting off the 500L coins to give them their due, befitting a group of 7 coins (decent sized group in their own right by my submission standards) and a group of coins that represent their own, very important project. And here are the results - Shandy and I picked the ones to send together when we had more than one of a certain date, but we didn't play “guess the grade” on these because we didn't have a big selection of graded coins in different
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Zimbabwe Round 2 Grade Results are in!

TL:DR – The coins did great and I’m thrilled and freaking out a bit about some of these! XD So “Thank you, NGC” on the hard work and the much faster than expected turnaround.   I need to give major props to NGC, who have pulled off a major turnaround, brought turnaround times down and delivered me grades on these months sooner than I was thinking. It was only about 5-6 weeks ago that I was saying I might not have grades for another 4 months from now. I’m hoping this also means tha
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Signs of life and rays of hope.

I placed that order for the Venezuelan Coins from the Ukranian dealer about 2 weeks ago and hadn't heard a peep since.  At this point I'd mostly written if off, thinking it increasingly unlikely that anything would come of it and just wishing the dealer well. Today though, to my surprise, I got a shipment notice for 1 part of the order - the older 2002-2004 coins, but not the newer 2021 coins. I'm happy to see a sign of life from the dealer. I'm glad to see something indicating th
Gold

The new Challenger has stepped up... and I think he's serious!

A few months ago I posted about a new set appearing in the Netherlands 10G set that had a coveted MS64 example of the 1879/7. This left me with a lot of questions and now they've just given me a lot more information and a lot to think about. The member has added 5 more coins to the set, including all the rarer dates, including the 1885 and the 1886 I've long looked for... and they all have the same invoice number... numbered -001 to -005. They almost certainly submitted these themselve
Revenant

Revenant in Gold

5
Family

The Zoo reminding him of some things and renewing interest.

Ben has been off for Spring break all week and Shandy took him back to the zoo.  While he was there, he asked for this "gold" "tiger" (Lion) coin, which she got for him, and she said Ben was showing some interest in the penny crushers again, but she hadn't brought pennies and quarters so they couldn't do that. The elongated cent albums kind of dropped out a couple of years ago when COVID hit and we stopped going anywhere, including the zoo, so we weren't getting any pennies. I guess we'll n
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

So here a couple of recent threads / posts converge...

A month back I posted about starting to collect modern Venezuelan Coins and l.quintero shed some light / shared some information I didn't know including the fact that last year Venezuela released 3 coins and not 1, but the 1 Bolivar was the only one I'd seen get any press. I've been finding it hard before and since to find anyone selling even the 1 Bolivar online - much less full sets of all three coins. The sellers offering the 1 coin have been demanding $6-9 each for them even when buying
Random Nonsense

Do you ever wonder about your dealers?

So, I thought about tacking this onto the other post, or about delaying the other post to another day and talking about this, but this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately... and I felt like it deserved its own post and not being tacked onto the other. One of the dealers I've been using a lot, a dealer Mike and I have both liked using and discussed in the past, a dealer that has supplied several of the coins in my Zimbabwe coin set and has sold me many raw Venezuelan coins for
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

8
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 /
Italian Coins

A 1985 500 Lire - "Finest Known Worldwide"

I thought I'd take a minute and belatedly share some progress on the 500 Lire set. A few weeks ago I won (unopposed) an auction for an MS68 1985. It is the only one in the grade currently with none finer. The seller chose to highlight and play this up in a somewhat over-the-top way that gave Mike and I a laugh. This is the same seller that I got the 1982 MS68 from, but there is an MS69 1982, and 1982s are far more heavily graded and in high grade than the later years. Just someth
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Registry

NGC was fast on the plaques this year and I've completed my pair

I checked the mail Saturday, expecting to find something else and found a package from NGC that I immediately realized had to be the new award plaque. It turns out it included the coin too. We were outside with the boys and I showed the package to Shandy and she initially, seeing NGC, thought it might be the Zimbabwe and Italian coins.. somehow.  I don't know why. She's seen the boxes from NGC before when coins come back and this padded envelope looked nothing like that, but, as she p
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

9
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Moving along...

I thought it was worth an update to say, I got the email from NGC this week saying that they acknowledge the receipt of my 29 coin submission (22 Zimbabwe Coins, 7 Italian Coins). So the timeline so far is: 1/14 - Package Mailed 1/26 - Package Delivered 2/22 - Receipt Acknowledged and Submission entered as received by NGC 2/23 - Payment Acknowledged Looking at it, since I sent this box in, World Moderns have increased from the 71 business days they were at in Januar
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Modern Venezuelan (Hyperinflation) Coins

When I started down this road and started planning this entry in my head, I didn’t think I’d be posting this coming off a win with the Zimbabwe coin set, but... The thing you generally don't see with a hyperinflation collection is coins. Which is probably why it surprised and excited me so much when I realized that, with the release of the digital bolivar and the 3rd Venezuelan redenomination, they were releasing a 1 Bolivar coin with the 5 new banknotes. Then, when I went lookin
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