When I found out that the UK Royal Mint was going to be releasing the Queen’s Beast series a few years ago I got really excited. My mother was always really into family genealogy and the coat of arms and family / clan patterns from Scotland and all of that fun stuff. My family originates mostly from England and Scotland and I’ve always thought the coat of arms was cool. I loved the fact that they were going to be big, thick, 2 oz, high relief rounds and I loved what the artist had done with the Lion of England design, the first coin in the series. I was excited to collect these from the start.
When my wife found out there would be a griffin, she jokingly said that she wanted one of those too - she likes griffins, who knew? (I think it’s a Harry Potter thing or something.)
But that got me thinking.
I decided that instead of building one set for me, I was going to build a set for me, a set for her and a set for each of our kids - we only have one so far with another on the way but I decided I was going to make three more sets because I’d always hoped that we’d have 3 kids. I figured at the time that if we decided to go nuts and have a 4th kid my wife and I could just keep one set and give one each to the kids.
At present those sets are half-finished. I have the first 5 coins and I’m just waiting to place an order for the 2019 Falcons - I’m hoping the dealer I usually go through will put them on sale and let me get a break on the premiums. I guess we’ll see there.
Well, turns out that’s probably not going to happen - the three kids anyway. We’ve found out that there’s likely to be complications and potential complications that put our chances of avoiding another c-section with our 2nd child at only around 35%. If there’s another c-section, the risks to my wife if we have a third child would be prohibitively high. A third child isn’t completely ruled out at this point, but it doesn’t really look good / likely at this point. Those are risks I just don’t like. I work in risk analysis and those numbers are just too ugly looking.
I bring this up in the context of these Queen’s Beast sets because, It’s amazing how it’s the little things that hit you in situations like this. I’ve been mostly fine and accepting of the situation as it has been unfolding for the last three weeks and focusing on supporting my wife but I got choked up thinking about it, I think for the first time really, looking at and thinking about those half-complete sets in their air-tites and what they’re for.
I’m going to go forward with finishing the 5th set. Who knows? life could surprise me, and we could get lucky - I’m certainly not feeling lucky so far but life does surprise me sometimes. The extra set may get sold one day. It might end up being a very nice gift for someone. I’m already buying a 6th copy of each issue and giving to my step-father over time as he also likes coins and he doesn’t really shop for / buy these things like I do but he enjoys getting them and he’s hard to shop for.
Don’t get me wrong in any of this - it looks like I’m going to get two healthy children (which is more than some get) and the odds currently overwhelmingly favor that my wife will at least make it through this pregnancy in good health. I feel very fortunate and grateful for that. Ultimately, I’m not guaranteed that my sons are going to grow up liking this stuff. With my luck, this 10G set I’ve been building for 10 years will go up on the auction block as soon as I’m in the ground because the kids just won’t share my attachment to any of it. Still, a guy can dream, and I have had my hopes up about sharing this stuff with them.
All the same… this kind of bites. We’ll be finding out more about the situation on Wednesday so I guess we’ll see how that goes.
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