So, starting with a small update on Sam... Two ER visits, a Neurosurgery follow up and 3 CT scans later... we're waiting and watching see when he has clinical signs of shunt failure before moving forward to surgery - probably an ETV to try to free him from shunt revisions. Two ER visits, a specialist appointment, and 3 scans later... we're right back where we started...  watching and waiting... for an indefinite and unknowable period of time... What the actual hell?!?

So... I guess we'll see there.

My submission hit "Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging" on 8/31 - or that's at least when I noticed it was in that phase... but I check it pretty much daily, so... I don't think I'm off by much.

It's still in that stage but having them hit grading at the tail end of August got me more hopefully and optimistic that they'll be done early enough in October for me to get them and photograph them. So that has gotten me to shake off my apathetic laziness on this front and continue drafting out my set and coin descriptions - for the new, planned Argentinian sets in particular.

I've drafted up one of my typical "opening essays" for the set description, once again centered around an old quote that I found and enjoy. Each coin is going to have some coin facts for the coin (composition, diameter, thickness, KM#, etc) and some information on the animals and structures featured on the coins. I'm hoping to add for different coins in the Austral set historical information on some of the old debt defaults from 1827 to about 1889, and then have the Peso Convertible set focus on the origins of the Peso Convertible specifically and have an emphasis on the more modern troubles surrounding the 2001 and 2014 debt defaults and the more modern 2019-2023 debt and economic crises. 

I feel like I can definitely have the coin facts and discussion of the features up well before November. I'm pretty sure the Austral set's discussion of the historical debt defaults are do-able before November... The Peso Convertible set being fully fleshed out may be a bit of stretch goal - we'll see.

I haven't looked recently but I think I drafted out information for the new Venezuelan set hole-fillers and the 500 Lire set hole fillers months ago. If I'm right I can just pop those up when the coins come back. If not... I think I can bust them out pretty fast.  

I'm hoping some fun new turtle coins I ordered will be here... soon? ... in the next couple of days maybe? ... I'll see if I can get another post about those out.

The set is not public yet because it has no coins registered in it, but below is what I'm working on for the Set Description for the Argentinian sets:

“Debts are like children – begot with pleasure but brought forth with pain.” - Moliere

The name of Argentina comes from argentum, which is the Latin word for silver (and the reason why the atomic symbol for silver is Ag). In the early 20th century, Argentina had one of the largest national economies in the world, thanks to its production of beef, wheat, and other farm goods, combined with an educated workforce made up mostly of European immigrants and their descendants. Argentina emerged from the 2nd World War in the mid-20th century as the 7th Largest Economy in the World. But the constant economic crises, often attributable to government mismanagement, sometimes combined with fluctuating commodities prices, have plunged millions into poverty and put the country off-limits to most foreign investment. Even with everything it has gone through in the last ~70 years since WWII, Argentina has still been hanging out at around 25-27 on the list of the largest economies in the world since 2021, with a GDP of about 520 Billion dollars.

But, with Argentina, while commodities prices crashing played a role, as it did in Venezuela, the ongoing story of national misery seems to have long centered around the management of national debt.

The country, by some counts at least, has defaulted on its debts 8 times since declaring independence in 1816. Some sources will say 9 defaults. Some say more. And I think part of the disagreement in count may come from debating the definition of a “default” or a “partial default” / “full default.” Personally, I think most of the counts are unfairly high as, in some cases, you have more than one default listed in a short period of time and a more through look at the facts show that the country never fully emerged from the crisis that led to one default / missed payment, and they were forced to miss another one. This to me, doesn’t constitute two separate events - it’s one long crisis.

To illustrate this point, you can look at a 2019 Bloomberg article that listed 9 defaults. These 9 defaults were:

•    1827
•    1890
•    1951
•    1956
•    1982
•    1989
•    2001
•    2014
•    2019

I don’t really see how the 1951 and 1956 events can be treated as separate and distinct events given that they occurred as part of a decade’s long era of pollical and economic instability in the post WWII era. The 1982 event was precipitated a collapse in commodities prices combined with Volcker’s interest rate hikes, which made the country’s debt to US and British Banks unpayable. These same events caused 27 nations – including 16 in Latin America – to restructure their debts. So, Argentina had company in its misery, but this triggered a spike in inflation and efforts to bring that inflation under control, and those failures lead to the 1989 default. So, it’s hard for me to treat those as completely separate events. And the 2014 default was triggered because of legal actions brought by creditors from the 2001 default that the country was never able to come to terms with.

It’s also worth noting that the Bloomberg references September 2019 as a default, where some articles reference a 2020 default, and everything being discussed by various sources and articles presents what looks more like one continuous period of pain that started up around 2017/2018, continued through the COVID era, and now seems to have entered another phase that could provide as terminal for the Argentina and the Peso Convertible as the Zimbabwean crisis of the early 21st century and the Venezuelan collapse that followed a few years later.

The thing that adds an extra layer of interest to this, for someone that loves coin and currency collecting anyway, is that these debt defaults often corresponded with spikes in inflation – sometimes into hyperinflationary territory – and these inflationary spikes often led to the death or abandonment of the national currency and the creation of a new national currency for Argentina. So, from 1813 to the present, there have been 7 national currencies for Argentina.

•    Real (1813-1815))
•    Peso Fuerte (1826-1881)
•    Peso Moneda Nacional (1881-1969)
•    Peso Ley (1970-1983)
•    Peso Argentino (1983-1985)
•    Austral (1985-1991)
•    Peso Convertible (1992-Date)

If you look at the date ranges for the currencies vs the debt defaults, it’s clearly not a perfect 1-to-1, but you can see a lot of places where the national currency changes with a couple of years before or after a debt default – usually a year or so after, consistent with the idea of the default leading to an inflation and currency crisis, leading to the “death” of the currency.

This Registry Set includes the coins from the brief reign of the Austral as the national currency, from 1985 to 1992.