NGC Journals

Time to get ZiGgy....

I’ve been periodically checking to see if sets of the new 2024 ZiG coins would pop up on eBay. Last night, I checked again, and some had popped up at reasonable prices, including some sets being offered by a dealer in Ukraine that I’ve bought a lot of coins from in the past both for my Zimbabwe set and some other projects. Apparently, they’d been up a bit and 10 sets had already sold. They were showing 4 left, for a Buy It Now of $7.19 with some auctions going starting at $1.00 too. I decid

June 26

He certainly seems to be going for it:

Well, it certainly looks like PA JK is out to take me out of the #1 spot on the Zimbabwe set: I gotta say I'm surprised. I didn't think there'd be too many other people out there that determined to sink money into what I'm still pretty sure is a money-losing endeavor undertaken for the giggles, but he seems out to do it to and beat me at it, after Xanno also completed a set. Who knows... there is the one coin he's offering that would be an upgrade for me. Maybe I'll buy it from h

Selling Your Collection and/or Leaving it to Your Heirs

June 18

Random Nonsense

What I found

Somewhat unsurprisingly the search for the 1924 Double Eagle at the coin shop was unsuccessful- they didn't have any 1924s but the manager gave me his card and said to call on Monday and he might have something upstairs, not on the floor. After that, we spent some time looking at the foreign and ancient case. Shandy wanted to look at a coin from Sicily from ~220 BCE that was about $160 but she decided the design didn't really speak to her - but it's an idea I'm going to remember for do

Revenant in Random Nonsense

June 15

Philippine Coins

First Colorized Coins of The Philippines

Today, June 12th, is independence day for the Republic of the Philippines—a country whose coins I collect with great interest. Last year, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) issued a commemorative coin set that honored the 125th anniversary of Philippine independence and nationhood on June 12th. This NCLT set is the first colored coin set of the Philippines. It was produced by the BSP using the latest digital printing technology. The set has three coins consisting of 100-Piso,

The 12th Denticle in Philippine Coins

June 12

Gold

I guess we'll see what we see...

Shandy and I have a couple's weekend coming up that originally started as going to a concert for her birthday and has turned into spending a couple of nights away over Father's Day weekend while the kids stay with their grandparents. As part of this we're thinking about jogging over to a coin store on the other side of the metro area, near where we used to live and where my old office was located. I have about $3,150 sitting in my coin budget and I'll have about $3,350 when we make the tri

Revenant in Gold

May 27

To Everything there is a Season

As I go through my retirement years, my thoughts invariably begin to focus on what I leave behind, both the tangible and the intangible. Among the intangible is my legacy. Among the tangible is my coin collection. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in relatively good health. Furthermore, I want to live as many years as I can. But in the end, someone will get the coins I spent a good portion of my life to acquire. That said, my children are not particularly interested in inheriting my collection. There

coinsbygary in Selling Your Collection and/or Leaving it to Your Heirs

May 16

United States Mint Product Survey For Silver Medals

This week, the U.S. Mint sent me an email asking if I would complete an online survey about their "exciting" new silver medals planned for 2025. As an avid collector of the Mint's silver medals, such as the armed forces and Presidential silver medals, I decided to complete the survey. Unfortunately, these new proposed products turned out to be silver medals depicting current pop singers and DC Comics superheroes... When the survey specifically asked why I wouldn't be buying the proposed 202

Captainrich in United States Mint Product Survey For Silver Medals

May 4

And then there were three.

Well, somewhat to my surprise, PA JK has come out hard and has finished his set, as of just this last Thursday 4/25: So there's now 3 100% complete Zimbabwe type sets, heading into the release of the new 2024 ZiG coins and PA JK has taken away some of my Top Pop labels. Having gotten an MS69 on the 10 cent bond coin and several very nice grades - including an MS grade $25 that has escaped me so far, I think PA JK is a much bigger threat for overtaking my set than I'd thought Xan

April 29

Looks like the ZiG is going to zag down. Hard.

Mike recently helped bring to my attention that we're about to get our first new Zimbabwe coins in about 6 years and my Zimbabwe Coin and Note sets are going to be growing again. The new currency was announced earlier this month (I think around the 5th) and they're supposed to release the new notes tomorrow (on the 30th) and there are already some interesting signs that things are not going well: They announced 8 note denominations and 2 coin denominations (0.25 ZiG and 0.5 ZiG)

April 29

Burma-Myanmar

Mysterious KM# PN 10 for sale on Ebay

I've noticed that a mysterious and supposedly modern Burmese-Myanmar coin is now for sale on Ebay for $9,850, or best offer. The photos are the first good look of this coin I have ever seen. I have done a bit of research into it in the last several days and now have more questions than answers, and I was hoping that someone at NGC or in the community would have some insights. Here are some photos. One question I have is the date: how was BE 2602 converted to Christian Era 1942? If BE refers to e

Phil Hauret in Burma-Myanmar

April 23

Gold

The joys of the gold market...

As I've referenced recently, I've been sitting on and trying to accumulate some cash in my hobby budget to maybe buy a 1924 $20 double eagle in MS65 - my grandmother's birth year and now a newly 100-year-old coin. My grandmother would have been 100 years old in February if she were still alive. I finally got some things moved around and have saved enough that I now have almost $2600 in my hobby budget, and the coin, back in January, was going for about $2,500-2,600. But gold has moved

Revenant in Gold

April 15

An Important Pedigree for Brazilian Coins (cont.)

Five additional RLM pedigreed coins that I purchased after the original Heritage RLM auctions are shown in the pictures above. The data for these coins are shown below, including the dates when I purchased the coins as well as the change in the price that I paid for the coin compared to what the coin sold for in the original RLM auction. Other interesting information is also included. Brazil, 1832-R 6400 Reis, gold, NGC 55, NGC census (33 total, 8 in, 24 better) I purc

April 13

An Important Pedigree for Brazilian Coins

The RLM Collection, which was assembled by Dr. Roberto Monteiro, contained an impressive selection of gold coins, gold ingots, and medals from Brazil. This collection contained examples of most of the rarest gold coins from Brazil and was one of finest collections of Brazilian gold coins ever assembled. This made the RLM pedigree very desirable. The RLM gold coins were auctioned during the first three of six auctions by Heritage as shown below. The last three auctions included medals fr

April 12

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

April 11

Eight Great Coin Pedigrees

In 2018 CoinWeek published an article by Doug Winter titled “Eight Great U.S. Coin Collections,” i.e., https://coinweek.com/doug-winter-eight-great-u-s-coin-collections/ You may recall that in one of my previous posts I mentioned that Doug Winter is a renowned dealer of U.S. gold coins. He has written numerous informative articles that you can find on his website. In this linked article he lists the following great U.S. coin collections: 1. The Ed Milas Collection of No Motto Half E

March 30

A Great Set for US Gold Collectors

I think that a great set for US gold collectors is US $1 Gold coins that were minted in San Francisco, see https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/119601/ US $1 gold coins were minted at the main Philadelphia, Pennsylvania mint (no mint mark) and the branch mints, i.e., the Charlotte, North Carolina mint (C), the Dahlonega, Georgia mint (D), the New Orleans, Louisiana mint (O), and the San Francisco, California mint (S). Below I list the number of dates for each mint for ea

March 7

Joao V 400 Reis Gold Coins from Brazil and Portugal

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you enjoy the eye candy. It’s calorie free. Introduction My main goal for this post is to explain why I chose to collect coins from Brazil and Portugal together. I will use gold 400 Reis coins that were minted in Portugal and Brazil during the reign of Joao V for illustrative purposes. I have created a custom registry set that is titled “Joao V 400 Reis Gold Coins from Brazil and Portugal” to provide additional information about these coins, i.e.,

February 14

Resources I Used on my Collecting Journey

Many of the things I discuss in this post are “no brainers”, but I’m hoping that some people may find this information to be useful. I discuss some of the mistakes I made and hope that it may keep other people from doing the same things. I also briefly discuss some resources that I found useful. My Early Collecting Years When I started collecting coins in the 1970’s as a teenager, I really didn’t have many coin collecting resources available to me. Since I was only collecting US coi

February 6

NCLT

Following through on the Koalas and maybe going for a bucket list coin....

After my mother-in-law got me an MS70 2013 Koala, that got me looking at the set again. My wife got me the 2014 and 2016 in MS70 coins as part of my anniversary present a couple of weeks ago. Around the same time I scored pretty good deals on the 2019 and 2022 coins... As a funny aside, entered in the 2022 coin this morning, and I saw the pictures entered in the data base for the coin... that... doesn't quite look right... So that leaves me just needing to get the 2015, 2018, 2

Revenant in NCLT

January 31

Collecting Pintos – The Jewels of Portugal

In the last post I showed the obverses of two incredible Portuguese gold coins that are called Pintos. Pintos are the smallest gold coins from Portugal. They weigh between 1.07 g and 1.1 g, and are between 14 mm and 15 mm in diameter for different rulers. They all have a fineness of 0.9166, which leads to between 0.98 g and 1.0 g of pure gold in every Pinto. In order to provide a better feeling for the size of the Pintos I compare them with US $1 gold pieces. The Portuguese Pintos are sma