Yesterday was the Bday. I finally found out what Ben's present for me was and it was swords... a set of 6 foam swords. Which he has had great fun running around with and playing with, including with his mother while I'm working. I'm so glad that those are mine. Clearly. They don't hurt when you get hit with them though so I guess that is a form of gift. A form of one...

My in-laws gifted me an Uncirc 2020 SAE, which is nice - after some recent discussions here though and current silver prices I'm almost afraid of what the mint charged for it. It has been a few years since I shopped these at the mint.

I posted about what Shandy got me on the PMG side - a P-89 for my Zimbabwe set in 68 EPQ, which is going to strengthen my standing in a few categories there.

Leading into our trip / vacation in the hill country my in-laws gave us a couple of bags - one of old currency and one of old coins. These apparently come from when my father-in-law was traveling and he'd always try to come home with a few of the coins and notes for each of his three kids. They decided to give these to us if we wanted them. I don't know if this is more for Shandy / the boys, because they know I collect this stuff or just because they no longer wanted to keep it. But these coins and notes are very much in the same spirit as the coins that came down to me from my grandfather and the coins I brought home from Scotland in 2017. Some of this is pre-Euro obsolete European coinage. At some point, when I have the time, I'm going to probably put a bunch of these in cardboard flips and I'll hold onto them and one day they'll got to the boys. I think when it's all said and done they'll get pages and pages of old coins in flips in a binder (or 3). None of it will be valuable but hopefully they'll enjoy them.

My in-laws, knowing that I have old cameras (and that Ben likes to borrow them and play with them) also gave us an old Kodak Brownie and an old video camera that was bought by Shandy's grandparents around the time my father-in-law was born. It is dirty and showing its age a bit but with a little cleaning and TLC it would look quite nice I think.

I guess I just like old things.

Edited to add: I spent some time last night picking through the coin bag and was finding a fun mix of things including Greek coins, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, German, and some Kroner. A few British coins too. Fun stuff. I'd never seen anything from Spain, Italy Greece or Turkey.