Wow hard to believe that the registry cutoff is just a week away, this year has certainly gone by quickly.   As I look back I had no specific goals other than to try and add or upgrade to my existing sets in order to hold onto as many of my first place awards as possible.    Looking at my sets now it seems like I have actually lost some ground in that regard and will have fewer awards for 2021 than I did in 2020.   Partly because I spent some time and money adding some memorial and shield Lincoln coins which was (and is) not a major focus, yet still my OCD gets the better of me at times as I would really like to finish the full date/mm run from 1909 to current.   An insane number of coins that is currently at 293 coins and counting, absolute insanity to complete the entire run and a goal that I would abandon if I had any smarts.    I also spent more and upgraded more coins in my 1940 date set than I had planned to do, but the friendly competition from the former 1st place set; who wants to be back in 1st place; had me doing more to defend the set.    That is a good thing as I added some amazing coins to the set, but it also diverted some funds that I would have used to improve other sets.

I did lose ground on a few sets as it seems that a few gold bugs put together some sets in the early 20's year sets, well not really sets as most of those sets only have one two or three coins in them.   But those high grade $50K gold coins really rack up the points and it makes competing with them next to impossible as I do not have an unlimited budget.    That is unfortunate in a way as I now have to decide what to do with those coins, I could keep them and just leave the sets as they are.   Or should I sell those coins and move on to something else, tough call and I'm just not sure how I'll proceed just yet.

All in all it was another nice year and I am blessed to care and provide the stewardship of the coins I have in my collection.    Like many I am grateful that I have my health, too many have been lost to Covid and other diseases over the past year.   And whatever the next year brings I will continue to enjoy the friendships that I have made within the hobby and the coins in my collection.   For sure there is still much to be done in the way of better photos and descriptions for many of the coins in my collection and that will be a continuing focus each and every year.

Happy Thanksgiving and a joyous Christmas season to everyone here.