So I'm probably going to come off like a bit of a "super judger" (as my wife puts it) while also preaching to the choir a bit, but I wanted to post about my the work I've been doing on my Half Cent set recently.

I said recently that my wife gave me a 1955 Rhodesian Half Cent, following up on the 1957 and 1958 she'd given me at Christmas, buying things I'd put on my watch list. 

Putting this coin in my set put it in the #1 spot in the category. And so, it was a #1 ranked set for me - with none of my own photos, just NGC photos, no set banner image, no set description and no coin descriptions.

This happened in large part because I hadn't been focusing on this - I'd been focusing on buying and working on coins for another set that I'm also researching a the moment and I'm going to build it out as a phase 3 to what I've done with Zimbabwe and Venezuela. But then this new set snuck up on me, going from 20% complete and rank 5 to 80% complete and rank 1, driven completely by my wife, who knew I liked them and had heard me talking about them.

But once it was #1 I really felt a need to table some of the other stuff for a while, get pictures of these, and build out a presentation for the set. Because - I really think if you made a #1 ranked set, you should make it worth looking at and fun to look at if you're at all able too - no shade intended at those that can't get a good photo of a coin, perhaps just because they don't have the equipment. But it is just so much nicer to click on a #1 ranked, 100% complete set and see gorgeous, lustrous, detailed, close-up photos. And I love that NGC made it easy to pop-in their verification photos... but that's photos are just not as good as what many of us can produce and they often do not do a good job of showing off the coin. Those photos are produced in a quick, generic, assembly line kind of way and you're not going to get the best images of a particular coin unless you're taking your time with each coin - something NGC just can't afford to do unless you're paying them an extra fee for their high-end photos.

And so, that's what I've done and built and at this point the set presentation is more or less finished and built. I have at least 1 more coin description to get to, as I'm about to get to.

Getting the 1955 meant I only had one more coin - the 1956 - left to get to complete the set. So getting that coin moved up my priority list in a big way after the 14th of last month.

As I started looking into building a presentation for the set, one of the things I like to look at and reference is the mintage for each year.

And that brought something to my attention - the 1956, the only coin I hadn't acquired, the only coin I hadn't even really seen for sale, is also the lowest mintage year with only 480,000 made that year. The next lowest had 720,000 made - 50% more - and all the other years were in the 1-2.5 million range. 

And, coincidentally, as I was looking at all of this and figuring all this out, a seller I've bought several of these Rhodesian coins from listed a 1956 in MS65RB. For reference, there are no coins at MS66 or above presently, there's a single MS65RD graded by NGC and only about 3 MS65RBs. So, this was one of the better NGC-graded examples.

So I immediately wanted that coin, and I have some hobby money saved up and I was ready to bid aggressively to get it, since it was an auction. Because, I'm not sure how long I might have to wait to see another one this good - maybe not long, maybe quite a while.

Turns out I didn't need to worry - no one else bid and no one fought me for it. But the set is now complete. 

I won the coin last weekend, and it arrived on Wednesday. I took some time last night to get pictures taken and edited to go with the pictures I took of the others last week. And so, here it is. I just need to get that last description finished.

And so the next post will probably focus on what I've been working on now that this is done.