So, I've always thought the expression "It's all over but the crying" was a funny one, in part because when something is over people can be crying because they're happy or because they're sad. You see it on awards shows all the time with the happy cry, but, given that televised award shows are often for TV and movie stars who are, after all, professional pretenders, it does make you wonder sometimes how much of the happy crying is genuine.  

What I never knew, however, but what a little bit of quick googling has now taught me, is that this is apparently the name of and a line from a Hank Williams Jr break-up song from 1947. Which was... a bit before my time, if I'm being honest. I am now wondering what the broader cultural awareness of this song and the cultural origins of the phrase seem to be. Am I not aware of this song simply because I'm not 60-80 year old or is this something that most other people in their mid-30s currently are aware of and I'm just out of the loop?  

But, anyway... 

The registry awards are now closed. I wish everyone luck. I'll resist the temptation to make the obvious Hunger Games reference.

I thought I'd take the occasion to follow-up on a post from last year.

After I won in 4 Modern Italian categories last year my wife had jokingly asked, "So, 6 next year?" My response at the time was that I'd be happy to hold 2-3. It looks like the end result is going to be 5 for this year - Very solidly not bad.  

I guess we'll see how long people let me continue to get away with this.  I think the only set in that group that it would REALLY annoy me to see get knocked down from #1 would be the now-100% complete 500 Lire set that includes two coins her family brought back from Italy. That one I really would want to defend.

Somewhat to my surprise, the 1932 set was not challenged or bumped after the CAC points were removed, and, for the first time in 3 years, it'll take the top spot, and take both the overall and the NGC award, bringing that one up to 25 Best in Category awards earned over 16 years, which goes far beyond what I ever expected for that set.

For a little context - I've been in the Registry for 15 years from 2007-2022 and earned 48 Best in Category awards, and literally almost half of those are on that 1 set.

Some of my recent efforts are starting to change that. I think this is going to be my best year ever in terms of BiC awards and a few more years of this might help make that set less of an out-sized contributor, but I do still find it kind of amazing. But I think it continues to be a source of pride for my Father-in-Law.

I can't remember if I ever talked about this at the time (looking back, it would appear that I did not), but a year ago I gave my stepfather a 6-coin glass-lid Volterra display case as a Christmas present - very similar to the 5 coin case my wife gave me a year prior. When he saw it and saw that it held 6 coins he understood immediately and there was zero need to explain exactly what the idea for it was. And yes, 6 slots would do - because short of winning the lottery we are never getting that $20 Double Eagle.  But! If we ever do win a couple of hundred million dollars, I will gladly buy a new custom 7-coin case.  And at that point I doubt I'll ever have to worry about that set losing the top spot in the category ever again, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the old coins in the set - like the MS63 $10 Eagle - got some upgrades.  I tried to talk my Stepfather into some MS67RD pennies over the years I think but he hasn't bitten so far.  

For my part of the crying, I think the main thing I wanted to get done that I failed to do was that I failed to get pictures done and update the presentation fully on the 5L and 10L sets. Like I said before though, I was pretty sure that was dead as soon as Sam went into the hospital earlier than expected.  I also did not get the turtle coins fully imaged, and I have not set up anything for showing off that effort as it moves forward, but I've known for a while that that was going to be more a "next year" thing that I was just starting to work on this year, so I don't mark that as much of a failure.

I think the major focuses for next year will be to:

1) bring the Austral set closer to 100% if I can - it closed this year at 61%, there are 5 coins that I'll need to find and grade, and I've managed to pick up a raw example of 1 of those 5 so far.

2) do more with coins from the short-lived Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and maybe spread into the Republic Era that lasted from about 1965-1980 - an interesting period given that the country was in a Civil War for pretty much the entire time. But I do want to try to fill in this gap between my Federation-era sets and my Zimbabwe set. This year though, given that I have "A Tower of Towering Giraffes" and "A Parade of Dancing Elephants," I think you're going to see "A Bouquet of Flame Lillies" and maybe "A Leap of Vigilant Leopards."

3) do more with Turtle coins. I really am working on a few things with this, picking up some various raw coins where I find promising examples. Much like with Sam, I'm going to build this I think, even if all Ben ever does is roll his eyes at me for it later.  

4) work on my "Golden Nickels" set. I realized recently that I only have 5 coins listed in that little custom set I have, even though I've added several coins to the collection in the last couple of years and I think I could actually have 10 coins in that set right now. But I think the extent to which I've ignored and neglected this set is a testament to how much I don't like the old Custom set system at this point, which probably bodes poorly for the turtle set, if I'm being honest.  

Because, yes, it is sometimes fun to make these statements, call the shots, and see a year down the road if I actually kept to plan and did what I said I was going to do.

But that's my ramble for the day. Lots of laugh emojis just because I'm feeling silly and trying to relax after last week.