So.... This is long delayed, but I've been far busier at work than usual and we're having a lot of difficulties with Sam's health the last couple of weeks and months and so the journaling and the coin research is suffering.

Sam has been in decline since June. We think he has Slit Ventricle System (SVS) and he's dealing with almost daily debilitating headaches that are making him cranky and, in some cases, frankly, violent. Which just makes things hard. We're probably going to have to cancel a family vacation in October to have him hospitalized for weeks and in the meantime, we're stuck with pain management strategies that don't seem to be doing much good. That too, may tank any plans of actually making some of this work for this year, but, if it does, it does.

I also have a bad habit of making the perfect the enemy of the good enough and I've been letting that get in the way of just getting some pictures of these turtle coins I'm starting to work on imaged. But yesterday I just decided to make something happen and say, "good enough."

So, a quick update on the submission with about 35 coins I sent in:

7/5 - Shipped

7/10 - Delivered

7/27 - Showed as Received

8/3 - Payment Acknowledged

8/7 - Scheduled for Grading

The estimated times on this when I sent it in and when they acknowledged it suggest the submission will be finished around Mid-September to Early October. I'm mostly hoping that they just get home before November 1st so I can rush out some photos for the Argentine sets I'm planning, and the Venezuelan Set and the 500 Lire set I want to have more or less "finished."

The submission includes examples of the coins in the pictures that follow. These coins are ones that lost out to the ones I submitted so these are still home in flips while the ones we thought were the best are hopefully going to come back with some nice grades:

Colombia - 1000 Pesos

Cabo Verde - 1 Escudo. Sorry! These didn't come out good.

Tokelau - 1 Cent  - check out those die cracks on Queen Elizabeth's face! That die was tired!

Cayman Islands -

Congo - 1 Franc

1 Seniti 

I'm working on buying some more raw coins with stylized turtles on them. You'll almost never see me admit to shopping for something here until I've already bought it so I'm not talking yet.  

I tried showing these to Ben and he acted kind of interested and said they were cool but he was over it pretty fast. I don't think this moves the needle for him much. Maybe one day he'll think they're cool. Maybe they'll be show and tell ammo down the line.