The seller I got more Bond coins from recently also has some 10-coin sets of the pre-hyperinflation coins for $8, but if you get 4+ they're $6.40 each.

I think I had seen these back in April and passed them over - went with coins from a California dealer because he says the $5, $10, and $25 coins he has are "lightly circulated" where the other 7 denominations are uncirculated. Given what I paid for those others ($18 each) and how that turned out with the $2 and $5 brass coins, I feel more than a bit silly now - especially adding in how the $10 and $25 coins did in grading, coming back as AU58.

BTW, this was a confusing little image from the seller:

They arranged the coins by size from smallest to largest and so the $10 and $25 coins are just mixed in between lower denominations. This confused the heck out of me the first time I looked at it and I wasn’t even sure the set really included the $10 and $25 coins for a few moments until I looked closer. The $5 bi-metallic and the $2 brass coin are just easier to see in a group like this because they’re unique in the group.

I'm going to put in an order for 5 sets - another 50 coins - and do some more searching. I'm sure Shandy will be overjoyed! Lol I’ll have to try conning her into helping me look at them and pick the best ones again like we did with the Bond Coins. Maybe I can get her more emotionally invested in my crazy.  Probably not, but hope springs eternal. Lol Right now, like in the last post, I think she enjoys my enjoyment / witnessing my joy. But I also think she is interested in sharing this with me. I think she enjoys something of seeing me talk about it.

It is going to be interesting and perhaps painful if these sets deliver coins in far better shape than the other ($18) sets I bought.

Getting these sets won't help with the $10 or $25 coins that I need to find nicer examples of – although I suppose I could still be surprised by getting nicer examples than what I got from the other peeps - but it may well help me get good 5C, 10C and $2 coins. It could be well worth it if it just gives me $2 coins that won’t get “details” grades for environmental damage.

I may also get lucky and score some older coins for the non-steel-clad types I still need - I'm still dealing with several older slots being empty with no representative example even in hand to grade later.

Random side note but I recently saw a seller offering these raw 10-coin sets for $49.99! And they’d actually sold 2! – one for $29.99 and one for the full $49.99. That’s crazy to me. All of the coins they offer are the later, steel-clad types, not the older copper-nickels and, while their $10 and $25 coins might be nicer based on the example photo… I don’t think that justifies $50/set. That’s steep. Even on the higher end most dealers are asking more like $25 for the sets. But… Hey… Someone paid it!

The sales on these sets on eBay suggest that there is a decent Collector's base for Zimbabwean coins, at least in a raw state. This dealer has sold over 80 of these 10-coin sets. Some people have bought 5 to 10 sets like me - suggesting that people are giving them away or there are other cherry-pickers out there - or both.

Normally it wouldn't be my go-to option to buy so many sets sight-unseen and end up with such a soon-to-be vast raw collection of these, but I can't go to a local coin show and look through at a dealers table like I could if these were Buffalo nickels or mercury dimes. Most people don't show up to Texas coin shows looking to buy Zimbabwean coins and so that isn't what the dealers bring. I’m also not at a stage in my life where I feel travelling to California or Florida or Colorado for coin shows is something I can realistically do.

With my raw collection of these exceeding 100 coins and growing, I decided to split out these Z coins into a different small binder. I’ve also pulled my US raw coins out from my World coins that are in flips and pages, and I may split my world coins into two smaller binders. Why? Mostly because they were heavy, and I think the weight was going to break that old 3-inch binder. Lol