I was also disappointed with NGC dropping the journal awards but like you, it was not unexpected. Congratulations on the Zimbabwean coin set winning best presented. I have always thought hyperinflation as a cause of disappearing coins was a very interesting and compelling theme. I am also glad that we are NOT rid of you because of the journal awards.  That said, some things were just not meant to be. Believe me, I would have enjoyed you catching up to me in the journal awards. It was fun while it lasted and BTW, you won't be rid of me either! 

You have every right to be proud of your all your sets, they show the dedication and work that you (and now Shandy) have and are putting into the collection.   It is kind of sad to see the journal awards gone, I'm not much of a writer myself but have always enjoyed reading the journal entries posted by others.   I hope this will not cause folks to abandon the journals altogether, they add an extra and interesting dimension to the boards.

"...the wife keeps insisting that I look Handsome"

This is the most important sentence in the whole journal entry. 

I like that photo!  You look relaxed and happy and the coin display in the background is an awesome touch. 

And you are so right that active collecting spurs my journal posting, too.

On 1/9/2022 at 5:13 PM, coinsbygary said:

I was also disappointed with NGC dropping the journal awards but like you, it was not unexpected. Congratulations on the Zimbabwean coin set winning best presented. I have always thought hyperinflation as a cause of disappearing coins was a very interesting and compelling theme. I am also glad that we are NOT rid of you because of the journal awards.  That said, some things were just not meant to be. Believe me, I would have enjoyed you catching up to me in the journal awards. It was fun while it lasted and BTW, you won't be rid of me either! 

Yeah. I think we all knew it was coming. I had just been hoping we could turn it around.

This is definitely something I'm not done exploring though. Thanks!

On 1/9/2022 at 8:25 PM, Coinbuf said:

You have every right to be proud of your all your sets, they show the dedication and work that you (and now Shandy) have and are putting into the collection. 

Definitely very proud of the sets and some aspects of the presentation, which is what is getting the nod - the pictures, the research and the journey. Thanks.  There's also some odd vindication in it.  One of the things that spurred me back into this in 2019 was one of the members here dismissing the Zimbabwean notes as "just big numbers" and I wanted to show that they were more and impressive and cool with a great story. It's funny to me that that annoyed me enough that three years later I still remember it and it has lead to back-to-back cross-registry wins. I had someone tell me once, "You really do not like being criticized - but you hear it, and then you take it and do something awesome."

Quote

Mike has earned some kind of "I told you so,"

  Ok,  I told you so! 

Congrats again my friend, it's really amazing that you were able to elevate both Zim coins and notes to these heights. A major award for the same county (none U.S.) at both PMG and NGC is really something to brag about and enjoy. And just to get this on the record now, I expect big things with the 500L set and probably another major award. 

Documenting your journey putting together the Zimbabwe coins (and the Italian) has been fascinating - I think it just highlights the level of commitment and how difficult it is to do this and I have no doubt that world coins from this period will become mainstream for collectors at some point. The Award is very well deserved.

On 1/10/2022 at 5:45 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

Congrats again my friend, it's really amazing that you were able to elevate both Zim coins and notes to these heights. A major award for the same county (none U.S.) at both PMG and NGC is really something to brag about and enjoy.

It has been a lot of work to pull it off but it has for sure proven to be well worth it. 

On 1/10/2022 at 5:45 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

And just to get this on the record now, I expect big things with the 500L set and probably another major award. 

You'll have to argue with my wife about that one. She's been saying that, after 4 straight years of bringing something home, I just need to mentally accept now that I'm probably about to miss a couple of years (which, she may well be right about), but her justification is that I just don't have anything ready and in the pipeline and it usually takes at least a couple of years to get even a small, cheap project like this into contender status. Every time I bring up the 500L set as one of the 2022 projects and getting it up to 50% so it can at least be in the running she is just like, "I don't think they'll give you an award for making something for me." I guess we'll see, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm sending enough 500L coins to at least get that set to 50% and I'm going to hopefully put together a follow-up submission later in the year / in the summer to add a few on top of that and maybe try to improve the $10 and $25 Z coins while I'm at it.

On 1/10/2022 at 9:01 AM, ColonialCoinsUK said:

Documenting your journey putting together the Zimbabwe coins (and the Italian) has been fascinating - I think it just highlights the level of commitment and how difficult it is to do this and I have no doubt that world coins from this period will become mainstream for collectors at some point. The Award is very well deserved.

Thank you. I've made the comment to her recently that I feel like I actually really hit a good stride the last few months with some journal entries that really dug deep into the journey and the hunt and not just, "Hey! I bought this this week." Nothing wrong with "Hey, I bought this! Ain't it neat," but I thought i was producing some good stuff there.  Hopefully that continues a bit longer.

On 1/10/2022 at 5:45 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

it's really amazing that you were able to elevate both Zim coins and notes to these heights.

I keep thinking the last day or so that, when I get the plaque in hand, I'll have to take some pictures with one or all of the following:

1) The PMG & NGC Zimbabwe Plaques together,

2) The NGC plaque with the Zimbabwe coins in the case when the 2nd coin submission comes back.

or 

3) The NGC plaque and the PMG plaque with the Zimbabwe coins and like the 100 Trillion Note or something.

 But it does feel quite nice to have both halves of this collection / project with Best Presented Awards and both collections spanning the entire History of the country from 1980-Date.

I will admit that I don’t get into the journal section of the forum very much. I really don’t know why because I usually end up reading quite a bit when I do. I wanted to say congratulations again to Revenant on your award(s). After reading through this entry I realized the other accomplishments you have achieved with your Zimbabwe sets. Having both sets win awards at the same time is remarkable and shows the dedication you put into the hobby. It’s an inspiration to this collector. Congratulations again my friend and to the rest of you as well.

On 1/12/2022 at 2:29 AM, Lem E said:

I wanted to say congratulations again to Revenant on your award(s). After reading through this entry I realized the other accomplishments you have achieved with your Zimbabwe sets. Having both sets win awards at the same time is remarkable and shows the dedication you put into the hobby. It’s an inspiration to this collector. Congratulations again my friend and to the rest of you as well.

Thank you! It is a lot of fun to find a collection or a set that has a story to tell and then trying to tell that story.

Mike is well aware of the Note set because he's one of the few others that is active on the PMG side as well and we talk a lot over there. 

I've made the comment in the past that I think projects and sets like this would make it really cool if we could have cross-registry sets that incorporate PMG notes and NGC coins, but I'm sure that's far easier said than done. I work around it in my own way by having the coin set and the note set reference each other and link to each other in the Set Descriptions. I've also considered, in the past using "extra" certification numbers for PMG notes I don't include in my Zimbabwe Signature set to incorporate images of the Bond Coins and other Zcoins into that set more directly. But I don't have a huge number of unused cert#s and that approach is just a tad clunky.

As it is though, I'm mostly just happy and grateful that PMG and NGC include competitive categories for these coins and notes and allow for Signature / Custom sets. While participation in the PMG Zimbabwe Category has increased with time - perhaps in part because of my efforts, perhaps not - at the time they were added (around 2016) I was pretty much the only one that listed sets in them along with maybe 1 or 2 other people. Now I'm one of only two sets in the NGC category,. But maybe that can change with time.

I did notice that there seemed to be a bump in participation in the PMG Zimbabwe registry after the note set won Best Presented last year.