Thought I’d throw some notes out about some other nonsense that probably doesn’t rate having a stand-alone post:

I recently found myself wanting/ needing to get more boxes again for the first time since 2020, and I decided to do something a little different. I remembered that NGC had sold red boxes with gold lettering instead of the standard grey / silver ones with blue lettering. NGC is sold out of those but there are sellers on Amazon that have them for re-sale at reasonable-ish prices. Just for fun I picked up some of them and I’m going to be using those to store the Italian coins I’ve bought to build sets for Shandy. I took the two silver boxes these coins had been in back for myself.

Because, yes, what started out a couple of random modern Italian purchases to win a few BiC certificates and ribbons and make a quirky romantic gesture to my wife has slowly grown over 2-3 years into something a little bigger and (maybe?) more impressive.

After adding the 20 Kroner coin from Denmark and the 20 Bolivar coin to my collection of world gold coins, I'd been at a bit of a loss on where to go next the last year or two. But it recently occurred to me that I work for a Scottish company that is majority owned by a Swedish company. I have a British Sovereign, but I don't have any Swedish coins in this set, and there are Swedish 20 Kroner coins that clock in at about 0.25 ozt and 23 mm in diameter that, while on the larger side (with the British Sovereign), do match the theme for the set. So I may be looking into one of those soon / next. Another option I've consider is getting one or more of the 10 Gulden coins for the Netherlands that have the different Wilhelmia portraits - currently I only have the Wilhelm III coins. I've also considered trying to pick up one of the older 20 Franc designs from Switzerland from the late 1800s.

Regarding getting back into the Koalas, having remembered that my MIL got me that Koala at my wife’s suggestion, remembering that this was one of my wife’s ideas for buying me presents, and remembering that Christmas, our Anniversary, and Valentine’s day are all coming up, I’ve decided NOT to touch the rest of the Koala’s that I “need” for now. I don’t know if my wife will buy more coins for me for this set for any or all of these occasions, but I’m going to leave it alone to leave the option open for her, just in case it ends up making her life easier.