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The Zimbabwe Birds are in Flight!

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Revenant

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I took advantage of having the day off yesterday to box up the Zimbabwe coins and take them to the post office before Shandy and I went to lunch as a kind of pre-versary thing - today is the day. 6 years together.

We were supposed to attend a wedding today for a cousin that will now share our date, but our child care got sick and Sam is dealing with his latest ear infection, so we decided to call some quiet time alone today and a nice lunch good enough and we'll try to just enjoy some stolen moments at home this weekend.

I got some funny looks at the Post Office for wanting registered mail. And maybe it was a bit silly, but, while the value of the box is not great the value of the time invested into finding and picking those coins made it well worth an extra $10-15 to help make sure the box arrived okay. I sent a couple of submissions in last year via priority mail but those didn't have the significance or time invested that this one did or the association of having done it with her.

This won't be the last submission to involve the Zimbabwe coins or the 500 L coins because I'll need / want to upgrade the 2003 $10 and $25 coins at minimum and I'll want to try to get 500L coins for 1983, 1986, 1987 and 1995. So there will be more down the road and that'll probably take the form of another mixed submission of Italian and Zimbabwean coins - maybe later this year.

But, while I knew this wouldn't fully resolve the need I wanted to get this out and not start having me delay it with the idea of a few more coins. I feel it is more important to get what I have in the pipeline. I've also run afoul of just continuously putting things off a bit too long in the past and it cost me so I definitely don't want that again. 

The other possible consideration is that NGC is saying the $500 credit will show up "by the end of the month" - in contrast to prior years when they were usually saying 1 week after the announcement. I think this is another indication of how busy they continue to be. But, with them being 3-5 weeks behind in opening boxes, by the time my box gets there and they enter it in, the credit should be there. And I have a note about it on the form just in case.

If they arrive on Jan 19th, the current 71 business day turnaround puts them finishing around May 5th, so I think there's a good chance we'll have these Z coins and those 500 L coins in time to being looking at them on Shandy's birthday in Mid-June.

What was the Anniversary present this year? A P-46a Zimbabwe note in 68 EPQ. About the only 2nd dollar variety I still needed, echoing the purchase of the 68 EPQ 20T note three years ago that started me back down this road. But the mail carrier also brought me a new Venezuelan VEN 114 1 Million Bolivar note today in a bit of convenient timing. I still need that VEN104 though. Both are great additions to their respective note sets.

1590203755_VEN114aFront.thumb.jpg.20ccbf6f68fffd106258f36cb9bb7e7b.jpg1721784572_VEN114aReverse.thumb.jpg.09c93cc18d71651cbf80ac1b954def1c.jpg

198633297_ZIM46aFront.thumb.jpg.c6ca3febd75ea276b371c4694e974985.jpg1464807156_ZIM46aReverse.thumb.jpg.c9e95b0c1d8fb5f713b70c8c2b2dc665.jpg

She got a sapphire bracelet this year that goes with the necklace from last year. And she seems happy to wear them together this weekend. 

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Well, after the email I got today about the grading fees and the shipping fees going up effective 2/1, I'm really even more happy I didn't drag my feet on getting these in the mail.

Edited to add: I'll admit I had been holding these back a bit hoping for Jan 7th and hoping an award might help me cover the submission, but Shandy can also attest that I'd been estimating / looking at what the submission would cost at $18, $19, and $20/coin, fearing that waiting for a possible award might get me hit with a price increase.

Edited by Revenant
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The $1 increase is not too bad but having missed the increase is even better. (thumbsu On a larger submission, like yours, it would have added up to the cost of an additional coin, plus some. :( 

I was thinking of sending in some coins this month but I'm a little leery of doing so, as some are silver NCLT, and I'm not sure if sitting around for several months is taking too much of a risk with milk spot development. It didn't go well for me last time in that regard, I may only send in some gold and/or different metal compositions this time around. hm  

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On 1/19/2022 at 8:24 AM, Fenntucky Mike said:

The $1 increase is not too bad but having missed the increase is even better. (thumbsu On a larger submission, like yours, it would have added up to the cost of an additional coin, plus some. :( 

I was thinking of sending in some coins this month but I'm a little leery of doing so, as some are silver NCLT, and I'm not sure if sitting around for several months is taking too much of a risk with milk spot development. It didn't go well for me last time in that regard, I may only send in some gold and/or different metal compositions this time around. hm  

Yeah, I mean, I'd been speculating / pricing out what the impact on my cost would be if they'd upped it to $20/coin for moderns just because that would have been just a bit over a 10% increase and would have gotten them to a "round" number, so I was half expecting that was going to be what happened. So in some ways I'm a little surprised / happy to see a pretty "restrained" ~5% increase for moderns. But with $29 coins and a $3 increase in return shipping for up to 30 low-value coins, this increase would have hit me for an extra $32 that I'm just as happy to not pay.

And... yeah... Submitting silver NCLT is a bit of a pig and a poke unless you're submitting NCLT that is at least 5-6 years old. Because milk spots, if they are going to show, usually show up by then. Usually. (shrug) I'm gonna be honest in that I think I'm mostly done with Silver NCLT unless I'm buying already graded and it is at least 6 years old or I'm getting a really good price on it. lol At this point I'm just getting so much more joy out of self-submitting low-value moderns that only I care about. lol 

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On 1/19/2022 at 4:20 AM, ColonialCoinsUK said:

You did better than me, i finally found some coins I need to complete some sets and was just packing them up to send for grading next week - never mindxD

I mean, if you get them out really fast I think the old pricing is honored if you get it to them by 2/1. lol

Honestly though I think it's probably over-due that they increase pricing since obviously at the price they're charging there is WAYYY TOO MUCH demand for their services. And personally I think if it was worth it to submit at the old price it's still worth it after a 5% increase - their price increase is actually even below the current rate of inflation. It's awfully darn reasonable of them.

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On 1/19/2022 at 10:48 AM, Revenant said:

I'm gonna be honest in that I think I'm mostly done with Silver NCLT unless I'm buying already graded and it is at least 6 years old or I'm getting a really good price on it. lol

Yep, me too. :o For the most part. (thumbsu

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On 1/19/2022 at 3:53 PM, Revenant said:

I mean, if you get them out really fast I think the old pricing is honored if you get it to them by 2/1. lol

Honestly though I think it's probably over-due that they increase pricing since obviously at the price they're charging there is WAYYY TOO MUCH demand for their services. And personally I think if it was worth it to submit at the old price it's still worth it after a 5% increase - their price increase is actually even below the current rate of inflation. It's awfully darn reasonable of them.

They need to go for grading anyway - much more saleable (and protected) that way, particularly for my family should I disappear unexpectedlyxD

Edited by ColonialCoinsUK
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