Mike has earned some kind of "I told you so," as he made references back in, I think, October, about the Zimbabwean coin set winning "Best Presented" this year and I was like, "Nope. Nah. Not gonna happen."
I am, once again, very honored by the award and the recognition. 😃
I'm thrilled for Coinbuf, Lem E, deposito, jgenn and coin928 for their wins, many on sets that have been long labored and personal projects. It's a humbling thing sometimes to be listed next to such endeavors. But some of you guys really need to stop counting yourselves out and selling short your chances.
My wife and I popped a bottle of Champagne Friday night that was left over from New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure if this means we had a lame NYE party or if we bought too much booze. I guess it’s cool either way. She wanted a photo to go with this post and specifically dragged me back up to my desk to get the case from Father’s Day with the 5 gold coins in the background of the shot because she was feeling the need to be artsy I guess. Poor choice of subjects if you’re going to be artsy. Ick… 35… I’m getting older and these kids are sucking the life out of me and the hair off my head. But the wife keeps insisting that I look Handsome... now where's that Meme of the Old Man saying he was lied too...
The comments from the judges mention the set having 21 coins, and it does - 23 actually - but I only had 14 graded and in the set as of Dec 1. Which is the main reason I was convinced that set had not a chance - not a one - this year. But, the coins are ready, I've already started the online submission form, and I will be finishing it as soon as I can. Now that this has come through though I think I’m going to be tacking on some 500 Lire Italian coins at the end of the submission.
Shandy of course immediately joked, "so, you won, so now we're going to just drop that and move on to something else, right?" But, naturally she knows that isn't what we're doing and I think she'd kill me if I tried after all the shared effort looking at and picking coins.
This seems to be becoming a recurring theme for me - I win and then I spend the credits mostly on the set that won - which will not win again - rather than putting it (and the time and energy) towards something new that might win next year. I spent all of the PMG credits from the note set winning on that same collection. Fun collecting, but bad strategy I suppose. But, you can't just not finish something like that after putting so much into it.
My candidate for "Worst of the Best 2020" is now "Best Presented 2021" - just to continue to reference the past of this journal as we prepare to start a new cycle in earnest.
This is going to be one set where it’s going to be a lot of fun for me over time to see the progress of it in the archives over time - getting to see it as it was in 2020 with one coin and no banner, see it in 2021 with the banner, and, hopefully, maybe, see it as the #1 in 2022 with all the coins filled in / 100% complete, and then maybe see it again in 2023 with some coins upgraded. Snapshots in time as the set progressed - assuming it stays #1. I guess we’ll see if anyone wants to throw down in a crazy-off.
The 10G set is another one that I love being able to look back at how it has incrementally grown and improved over now 6 years of being #1, but I think I’ve said that before.
But this outcome has reinforced my decision to cull the submission down to 22 of the best coins from the original 33 and then move on to other things for now once the set is full in a graded state. And I do have at least two things I'm looking at that are in the pipeline, and which will probably now be 2022 projects instead of 2023 projects.
As far as the journal awards go, I'm not going to lie - I'm more than a little sad to see that go - and not just because this means I'll have to do more than just run at the mouth if I want to keep winning major awards and because this means I'll never catch up to Gary.
The Journal Awards had been given out every year since about 2004 or 2005 and, as such, they were one of the oldest and most consistent features in the awards. But participation has been dropping for years and I think it was down again this year vs last year. And I guess this year was the year NGC decided enough was enough and to pull the plug on them. I had thought we were at thus point 2 years ago when the journal awards weren't announced / listed for 2019 but instead they actually upped it by extending the $500 credit to the journal awards where it hadn't before. I guess the last two years were the last chance to see if it would rebound and it... didn't.
Now that they are officially axed, I don't expect the journal awards to ever return but I hope NGC will consider replacing them with something like the community awards that are given on the Comics side - something that can celebrate some of the people that make it worth it to keep visiting the chat boards and who come to share the joy of collecting and not to grind political axes and grumble.
But... while the journals awards are done, don't think you're rid of me yet. I posted in 2019 when I thought they were dead and in 2020. I expect to have more to say in 2022, though I expect inevitably, eventually, my time and efforts will likely go elsewhere for a while just like they did from 2010 to 2017 - because life is like that, and I can't always actively collect, and I don't post or have much to say when I don't actively collect.
But, right now, I'm collecting pretty darn actively. 😃
- Coinbuf, The 12th Denticle, Lem E and 3 others
- 6
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