I’ve been periodically checking to see if sets of the new 2024 ZiG coins would pop up on eBay. Last night, I checked again, and some had popped up at reasonable prices, including some sets being offered by a dealer in Ukraine that I’ve bought a lot of coins from in the past both for my Zimbabwe set and some other projects.

Apparently, they’d been up a bit and 10 sets had already sold. They were showing 4 left, for a Buy It Now of $7.19 with some auctions going starting at $1.00 too. I decided to buy the 4 sets for about $38 ($10 was shipping). I added one of the sets ending the next day to my watch list and went to bed. I normally prefer to get 5-10 sets when buying things like this, but they were listing 4 so I ordered what I could get at a good price with combined shipping.

The next morning, I saw the auction was still going pretty cheap and they’d added another BIN set. I decided to try to win the auction and, if I won, I’d buy the BIN set and try to combine shipping. I won the auction for $6, added the BIN set for $7.19 and went to check out it was charging $17 for shipping instead of $8.50+$0.50. I added a note asking for them to do a partial refund for the shipping, added that they could ship it with the other 4 sets if they hadn’t been packed and shipped yet and paid – so that was another $30, but it got me up to 6 sets ordered.

Went to the pool with the kids for a couple of hours after that.

I saw later that they’d put up 2 more BIN sets for the $7.19 and so I ordered them, put down another $23.38 ($9 on shipping) and included a note that they could combine them with the other two orders if not packed yet.

So… I’ve ordered 8 sets, which is getting into the range I like for picking through to find one to submit… Down about $92 ($36 in shipping charges), but some of those shipping charges might come back. If they don’t… oh well.

This is one of the few times when it wouldn’t annoy me too much if all three orders came in one box together and I didn’t get much or any of it back. Call it a donation at that point. I’m honestly glad to see they’re still in business and I’m glad to send some business their way. They’ve been very helpful in building the Zimbabwe set and I think I also bought a lot of the coins for the Venezuelan set from them. So they’ve been essential to a lot of fun I’ve had looking at coins with my wife over the years, and 2 “Best Presented” Awards for me.

Although, I do kinda wonder if Xanno and PAJK buy from the same people I do or if they have other sources.  There's a dealer out of Germany that also offers these and similar things.  I haven't worked with that one up to this point. My other hook-up is based in Turkey...

As it happens, my membership also just renewed this month. Unlike the last couple of years, I’m not primed and ready to go with a bunch of coins to send in.

My plan from last year had been to submit some turtle coins including some coins for that Columbian 1000 Peso set that I started last year. That’s easy enough to look through and get ready to go out since there isn’t a huge number of them, though I have several dates represented. That probably explains one of the reasons I haven’t been in a rush on it. (Well, that and getting through the end of school and working on finding new homeowners' insurance and getting new wills done and some other things that have had me quite busy).

But now that they’re on order, I’m definitely going to at least wait the 3 weeks to a month to get these in hand and probably send in some of these with those other coins.

I may also include one of that 2017 50C Bond Coin, just to have a graded example of both dates in my collection / set.

It's been my experience with this seller that the pictures usually look like and make the coins look like but then what comes in the mail looks shiny, clean, and pretty.

Edit:

Shandy: "Couldn't you have just messaged them to see how many they had?"

Me: "That would have been entirely too easy."