My wife made the comment a few weeks ago that I “haven’t really been buying coins lately,” and I was like, “yeah.” It was in relation to the fact that I’d racked up a pretty crazy amount of money in my hobby budget, when I used to never have much left in it, and the reason was… I still haven’t been buying anything.

The main reason for a while there had been that I was saving up enough to buy that 1924 gold double eagle. Then I had enough, but I wasn’t finding anything at an attractive price that checked my boxes, so I wasn’t pulling the trigger on that, but I was also not buying anything else to keep the funds available.

But then the months have kind of dragged on, and I have been distracted by other things, and I keep mostly racking up my monthly allotment while I’ve been focusing my time and efforts on other things. Like I’ve continued working on learning and playing around with Mini Painting.

The recent high gold prices have not encouraged me to look or shop too aggressively either - thought I have found myself buying some amusing novelty Silver rounds over the last few months.

There have been a couple of times in the last few months where I’ve seen something posted in a Facebook group for sale that would have checked my boxes and I would have been willing to buy, but by the time I saw the post someone else had gotten there first.

I still have not gotten around to picking and sending off those new Zimbabwe coins or the turtle coins I wanted to get graded this year. I need to make myself get on that.

I’ve always gone through phases with things and had my emphasis on different things ebb and flow over time, so this is nothing new for me and I’ll probably get back to some of this when I’m good and ready.

But I also bought myself a 2^nd hand Samsung tablet, which allowed me to get a mobile game that my son has been playing – BTD6. The interesting thing about this was that I played the first, 2^nd, and 3^rd installments as a teenager 20 years ago. Then my son got this new edition about a year ago on his tablet and he’s been playing it, but I didn’t have a way of playing it myself until I got myself a tablet. All of a sudden, I poured a lot of time into that, I remembered most of the basics that were quickly the same, surpassed him in the game, and then he started sitting next to me while we play together, learning from me and playing co-op games with me. So, I’ve gotten to be impressive as dad again and it has been some fun bonding time.

My large stash of cash combined with the recent pull back in Gold has gotten me back into looking at gold coins again and possibly picking something up. I’ve even been considering a US gold coin even though I’ve traditionally avoided them because of the premiums. But I think it could be really fun to add some US gold to my collection – not just the double eagle.

One of the things I’ve been looking at is some NGC graded “Random Date” deals I’ve seen from some dealers I’ve bought from before. The prices on some of them look pretty attractive but I’m on the fence. I’m well aware of the fact that buying a “Random Date” means I’m going to get a common date and probably nothing that looks super premium for the grade, because the dealer isn’t going to want to let those go at a discount.  I’m just wondering if going that route is going to doom me to getting a coin with some really unattractive copper spot or something similar.

The boys continue to grow and develop in ways that surprise me. I’m getting older, and I’m starting to look more like my uncles. It’s an odd thing to realize.