I was checking last night, and these still showed as being in quality control.

This afternoon I opened my laptop, and the submission tracker page was open in a tab I left open last night when I shut the laptop. It auto updated / refreshed, and I saw “shipped” flash across my field of view as I was closing the tab, and then I frantically re-loaded the page, wondering if I had finally gone crazy.

I’m guessing this is the result of some back-office people in the shipping department working on the weekends and working long hours to get things out faster. That being the case, they have my thanks for that. I have whined… and vented… at length, but I know they’re working hard, and they have my Thanks for this one.

So here are the grades, at long last (I was totally right about the grades... the 2nd time...):

2863257-001; 1997 1C

MS65RD (Top Pop, Pop of 3 with 2 in grade)

2863257-002; 1999 5C

AU58 (Top Pop, only one of this year graded, but there are Mint State examples from other years as of a week or two ago.)

2863257-003; 2001 10C

MS61 (Top Pop, only one from this year graded, but there are better mint state examples from other years as of the other week.)

2863257-004; 2002 20C

MS62 (Top Pop, 2 in grade now / for now)

2863257-005; 2002 50C

MS63 (Top Pop, w 2 in grade I think).

2863257-006; 2002 $1

MS63 (Top Pop, but there are better mint state - MS64 - examples from other years now)

2863257-007; 2003 $10

AU58 (Top Pop. Solo Finest. Total Pop 3, 2 others in AU55)

2863257-008; 2003 S25

AU58 (The only coin in the set not considered a Top Pop, because there are mint state examples in this year.lol)

2863257-009; 2014 1C

MS67RD (Top Pop, Pop of 1)

2863257-010; 2014 5C

MS67 (Top Pop, Pop of 1)

2863257-011; 2014 10C

MS67 (Top Pop, Pop of 1)

2863257-012; 2014 25C

MS67 (Top Pop, Pop of 1)

2863257-013; 2014 50C

MS66 (Top Pop, Pop of 1)

13 of 14 are considered TOP POPs, even though some feel like technicalities. My prediction / post about "A cute, dopey, derpy, set of top pop coins" is made manifest - for now.

While, yeah, you always hope for mint states, I can’t really call the AU58s a disappointment. I knew those were very unlikely to grade well and there was a good chance they could come back with AU50-55 grades. So in that respect the AU58 is a “coulda been worse.” All three of those probably wouldn’t have been graded were it not for the fact that I just had some credit and I decided to just roll the dice with what I had - a shot in the dark hoping for a 61 or 62 - and fill in some gaps. If nothing else they fill in some holes for this year and, if I can find some better examples soon, I’ll get upgrades / new coins in those slots later. The 10C coin was also in this category but that “shot in the dark” paid off with a MS61 - but obviously I’ll still be looking to improve on that later. 

As funny as it is, two of the 3 AU58s are still considered top pops in spite of the grade because there are no other coins of that type from that year graded. There are higher graded 5C coins but not from this year, and the $10 coin narrowly beat a couple of AU55s to claim the honor (for now) of sole Top Pop.

As hoped / expected, the Bond coins come out like rock stars (IMO anyway) with 4 of 5 scoring MS67 grades that I am very happy with, and the laggard still scored a 66.  Some might only be celebrating if they got 68s, but, seriously, I’m thrilled that they did this well. Not even one 65 or lower from that group. As horrible as this may sound, the last time I sent in a group of coins with my step-father with high hopes in 2009 I was shocked by how bad they did, so this was a nice change - lots of 63s and 64s.. Maybe I’ve learned a little. The fact that I was also right in my feelings about those AU58s supports this too. 

I’m also thrilled with the MS65 on the 1997 cent , tying the other MS65 that had been graded before and beating the MS64 that someone graded that popped up last week in the census.

As far as the others, its about the same - they did about as well as I’d expected, mostly with 62/63 grades. I knew these weren’t gems, but I don’t know how easy it will be to find gems, they’re the best I have for now, and I’ll build from this base as I’m able. 

You've endured enough of my complaints about this submission. You will hear no more. The set will soon "go live" with all the descriptions I've been researching and writing for 3 months. I’ll use NGC’s images - which they graciously auto-insert into the set in the new registry - until I can take my own. I have to wait for NGC to populate scores for the Bond coins as those slots haven’t been fully built out yet. Once the whole set can be entered I’ll paste in my descriptions from my word file.

I hope it's worth the wait. I hope those that follow this enjoy the latest arm of my now 3-year effort to build and present one of the better and most complete Zimbabwean coin and currency collections. Try to be kind.

I am still very curious about the other person grading these. I wonder if the other person grading these is going to make a set. I wonder if we'll see it soon or if a new set is going to pop up around 11/30, just before the cut-off.

Someone out there has a bunch of proofs graded that they don't list in the registry, but, somehow, I doubt this is the same person. The timing feels too suspect. Whoever has those proofs has had them for a while and hasn't listed them. But, if it is the same person, we'll probably never see those coins registered and never know who it was / is.

I’m still wondering who originally graded the MS65 1980 I bought a year ago was and were the rest of that submission went since my coin is a -004.

I'm going to just have to hope that my 13-coin submission and my 14-coin set holds up against what they bring this year if they do, and bolster it next year with my next submission (or two). For this year I'm just already out of time. Never thought I'd say that at this time of the year, but there's no dealer stock to snap up, and anything sent in after about late July isn't going to be finished in time to be used for this year's competition.

I wonder what this other person might have in the pipeline already ... I have a feeling I'll be watching and waiting nervously for the next ~60 days. Especially after what happened to the 1932 set last year.

But I'm going to post my set, display it proudly and hopefully let it shine. I'm not going to hide my hand.

It will be both funny and mildly infuriating  if, after all this, again, I can't hold onto or reclaim the top spot against someone that I might have inspired to build a set in the first place. But, if I did encourage the participation of someone else, that is its own victory and compliment. 

Since there is now more than one registered coin, and the scores of everything might actually matter, if they don’t do so automatically when adding the Bond Coins, I will see if NGC will look at and update the scores on everything before the deadline / score freeze. I don’t care about the absolute point values, but it doesn’t make sense to me that an AU58 $25 coin gets 67 points and a 1980 MS65 10C gets 16, especially given that older pre-switch-to-steel-clad coins are much harder to find. That 67 points doesn’t make sense when a 1997 1C in MS65RD only gets 28 points. I have not run across anything that would make me think that the $25 coin is that much more desirable or rare than the lower denominations.

If I do pick up a last-minute competitor, I think I’ll feel better if I lose if the scoring feels reasonably fair and consistent. And… this $25 coin having an out-sized point value would be very bad for me if the MS62 graded a week before mine lands and snags 94 points. Lol That coin / slot is one of two coins (with the 5C) where the other submitter got a much better grade / coin than I did (3-4 grades better) and having that on the coin with the highest scores in the set is potentially very damaging for me. 

Sorry this entry ended up being so long. Thanks for hanging with me if you did.

Thank you, NGC! I’ll shut up for now… at least about this submission. I’m just getting started talking about this series / this set.

Edited to add:

NGC is on it today with the coin queue and the Bond Coins are in the set now:

So there it is - the dopey set of 13 Top Pops. It is nice to be able to hide the empty slots and focus on the  coins I do have.