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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

Family

We may yet buy a house this month...

So we (finally) got an appraisal back on the house. It was supposed to be delivered Tuesday and we were assured it always comes in on or before the due date and... the appraiser missed due date... This ends a 3-week saga that led us to leave the lender we'd been planning to use for someone else local because they were not getting the appraisal scheduled, weren't interested in doing anything to move the process forward and we were in danger of missing our closing date over it. We'd been all
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Residue... Joy... But, forward with the Bond Coins! (... EDIT to add: Got my sale... maybe?)

Well, I got the notice from NGC/NCS today that they're recommending sending the 1975 Tobacco Dove coin to NCS to remove Residue... No idea how that happened unless it got on there from the OMP back in the day.  Anyway... I went ahead and told them to remove it and then try for a grade again. I suspect I'm going to end up regretting sending that in at all unless it comes back as a MS70 by some miracle. I got the Zimbabwe Bond Coins opened up and into flips. This process was more interesting
Family

"Hey, Dad. We should get a Penny sorter."

So Ben randomly pops up with the fact that he wants a "penny sorter," which my brain interprets to mean one of those automatic coin sorting and rolling machines. I hadn't thought of those in years probably but him saying this reminded me of the fact that I used to see those in Walgreens and other places as a kid. I always really wanted one and thought they would be so cool, but I could just never justify it (or talk my mom into it) and so I always just sorted, counted and rolled by hand. To
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Revenant in Family

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Family

It's worth WHAT?

As part of the planning our home purchase my wife asked me what the value of my coin collection was. I have rarely heard such shock in her voice or seen disbelief on her face when I 1) gave her an honest answer and 2) backed it up with hard numbers. The main driver of it is, of course, one small box of coins that I've recently referenced in another entry.    I had to remind Shandy that she let me purchase 2 new gold coins, which added about $1,100 to it, just a month or two ago. And she's
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Revenant in Family

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Random Nonsense

The New Journal Features

Having joined the Collector's Society and started this Journal in mid-2007 I definitely feel like I've witnessed the site and the journal feature of the site "evolve" over time but I've been enjoying 1 new feature lately now that I'm gaining an understanding of how it works... the new Category feature. When I first rejoined / became active again around 2016/2017 I had to get used to the new system but I very much remember being disappointed by the fact that the new system only let me have 1
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Family

We made an offer on a house on 4/20! ... and now we wait.

We put in an offer on a house on 4/20! We started negotiating on 4/19 but the seller didn't accept until 4/20 and that's when we put in the bid contract - which is the only thing that matters under Texas law. We're still waiting on confirmation that they have signed it to put the house under contract after most of yesterday was lost to hashing out a minor issue in the draft of the contract we signed and submitted on 4/20, so we re-signed and resubmitted yesterday and... fingers cr
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Revenant in Family

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Zimbabwean Coins Set and Traveler’s Check Sets

I said in a recent post that I’d be looking to buy some Zimbabwe coins from a dealer in the US that I’ve used a lot and get those submitted. Then, to my surprise, when I went to order, I found that they’d upped their prices and upped their minimum order from $50 to $100. Yeah, they offer free shipping, but, sheesh. Let me have the option to pay the shipping for a smaller order. I wanted to order 2 sets of coins and some notes for about $55. I had not wanted to or planned to spend $100 and buy 3-
Family

Some Updates… That escalated quickly... very quickly.

Sam’s intensive therapy is over. Yay! His last day was actually the Thursday I posted about getting the plaque in the mail. Three weeks of stress and crying and having a generally unhappy 2-year-old can end – but it was for his own good, and he did great. He’s supposed to continue to wear a cast and restrict his left hand one day a week and one meal a day to continue the development of motor skills with his right hand, but that hopefully won’t be as contentious. Shandy and I both got the fi
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Revenant in Family

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2020 Awards

Yesterday’s Delivery

So, unlike with the PMG plaque, which arrived on 2/27 - much to my shock – I can’t really call this one a surprise in the mail. I’d seen other’s posting about getting theirs on Monday and Tuesday, so I knew the arrival of this package was probably imminent. Still, it was great to get it. My home office and my windows sit almost directly above the front door to the house, so I heard the carrier scanning the barcodes and the beeping as it was dropped off and I wondered in that moment if that’
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Revenant in 2020 Awards

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Random Nonsense

An interesting thought on the concept of "insurance."

When I shipped my box of 10G coins (and a few others) last week I was pretty happy/ content to fork over an extra $26 for Registered mail. The box in question was worth about $5,000-6,000 dollars and contained 12 years of a collecting journey. I would have a hard time finding another 1880, 1887 and 1888 in Gem or near gem grades. I do not want to lose those. However, I'm hoping to queue up 2 more submissions soon - one to NGC and one to PMG, both related to my Zimbabwe collection, that are
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Gold

The 20 Mark and (Finally) Shipping the 10Gs

The 20 Mark coin arrived a while back and I was really happy with how the coin looked in hand. I’d been a little concerned about unattractive marks on an MS62, but I was very happy with the look of this one. There’s a significant number of scratches on the high points but nothing I consider too distracting or detracting from the look of the coin when I look at it in person (pictures can always be a bit hit or miss with how good or bad they make a coin look under high magnification). A
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Revenant in Gold

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European Pocket Change

The 500 Lire...

I'm still slowly working on getting my father-in-law's coins organized and set up the way I want but these got my attention in a good way - some Italian 500 lire coins. It has "500" in braille in the legend / along the rim. The Italian 500 Lire, from what I read, was the first bimetallic coin and the first coin to feature braille. Seeing this got me thinking about something I read years ago about the FED / BEP / the US government being sued on the basis that the currency in the U
Gold

The 20 Lire and Soon the 20 Marks.

The 1882 20L coin arrived recently and I'm very happy to have it. It's a great addition to my growing set of smaller European gold coins from the late 19th and early 20th century - a group of coins I call my "golden nickels," because they're all about the size of a US nickel and because of what happened at around that same point in history with the "no cents" V nickels in 1883. It's a group of coins from the pre-Great War period that I think I'll always find endlessly fascinating. All
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Revenant in Gold

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European Pocket Change

Got a couple of pages sorted.

While Shandy was napping with the baby, I let Ben have the TV and sat down to continue this project. Shandy sent a picture to her parents recently to let them know where some of our important papers (like our wills) were stored and all of my Father-in-law's coins were visible in the shot, stacked up nearby. I pointed that out to them, and my wife made the comment that my FiL would like seeing that and that knowing something was being done with them. That got me feeling motivated to continue
Family

As it happens... (cheap) plastic ages! Just like I do apparently.

So I have a bunch of these old collectable miniatures that I used to play with in Junior High and High School. My sons get to slowly play with (and destroy) some of dad's ol "Robot toys" but I hold back some old special ones that were my favorites. A guy in a Facebook group was looking to buy some that I had some spares of - even unopened from back in the day - So I offered to sell and maybe get a few bucks towards a coin or note purchase. I have an open one too and he asked if i
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Revenant in Family

6
Gold

And now I got to order it! (The 20 Lire)

So work did come through with a bonus this year - smaller than last year but still a very nice surprise considering I wasn't expecting anything. So rather than making me wait to see what happens in Washington the wife let me order an NGC MS64 1882 20 Lire coin last night. I won't post pictures or anything because the seller watermarks their images but I'll be looking forward to getting the coin - hopefully sooner than their shipping estimate suggests - 2 weeks from California to Texas
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Revenant in Gold

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Coin Displays

Thoughts on the 20 Lire and the display front.

So, counting the post yesterday on the PMG side this'll be three posts in three days but I guess things are finally starting to settle and I'm starting to de-stress and I feel like talking / writing again. The good news on the tax return front, other developments in the political sphere that I've referenced before, and the recent dip in gold prices have me optimistic that, in the near future, I'll get to knock a coin off my wish list, and I think its going to be an Italian 20 Lire. The
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Revenant in Coin Displays

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Family

Well, that happened.

A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup." We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe. Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even wh
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Revenant in Family

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Coin budgets

The coin budget might get a boost afterall...

This might be a bit rambling but I will get to a point, I swear. My wife and I got that 2nd stimulus check a few weeks ago and we set about spending the majority of it on 1) redoing and improving our kids playroom to make it more comfortable and fun for the boys ($500 that has made life sooo much easier for Shandy) 2) allowing us to spend more than we normally would have on anniversary presents and 3) planning a weekend AirBnB get away to celebrate Ben’s Bday since he will once again not be
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Revenant in Coin budgets

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NCLT

All Hell Breaking Loose? - Because of Reddit? of all things?

So, it would appear that the group of redditors that have been playing games with Gamestop and AMC stock (among others) are now plotting a short squeeze on SLV and the silver futures market, which is driving up spot a little (but not insanely much so far). It's also causing a crush of orders to hit the dealers, causing the dealers to limit or stop taking orders and it's causing the prices of / premiums on physical metal to spike and getting physical metal is staring to cost $35+/ounce now.
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Revenant in NCLT

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Random Nonsense

"Bad Luck Pennies" / "Hard Times Pennies"

I had to run an errand today and I found a penny in the parking lot on the way to my car. I stopped and picked it up like I have always tended to do ever since I was a small child, as I was encouraged to do. I remember always being taught the rhyme, "Find a penny? Pick it up! And all the day you'll have good luck!" Some years ago now I had a supervisor at work whose husband took this rather seriously and got upset when he found out that their child had found a penny on the ground and l
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Random Nonsense

A Random Thought on the Awards Announcement...

So, two weeks later I find myself looking at the text of the awards announcement again - in part because I've also been swapping emails with NGC/PMG about mailing addresses and in part because I just really like what they said about my note set - and I notice the video they have and decide to watch it. So... a bit of context but... 2 weeks ago I was tasked at work with recording demo / how-to videos on how to use our software. These are supposed to go on YouTube as a Marketing tool (to sho
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Gold

Finally Filled “the Gold Box” - ~13 years later.

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years. I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really). The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subredd
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Revenant in Gold

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Family

5 Years

So yesterday was our 5th anniversary - we are over 6 years into the relationship. The 5th anniversary is supposed to be “Wood” so my wife had considered getting me a challenge coin / coin holder make of wood with the idea of putting a coin that relates to us / our relationship in it, but I don’t really have a coin that fits that bill - the closest I had was that Standing Liberty half she got me as an anniversary present last year, and, since it is in a slab, it wouldn’t have worked for this
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Revenant in Family

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2020 Awards

So much to say…

So, this will be long and perhaps rambling, but I have several things to touch on and I don't like making multiple posts too close together, so I just refuse to break this up. At a different time in my life this probably would have been posted yesterday but you don't always get time to sit down and write with 2 kids under 5 around in the time of CoVID, and I had cube organizers to build. I snuck in some posting on the boards mostly on my phone, but I wanted to take my time with this more.
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Revenant in 2020 Awards

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