Happy New Year!!

Greetings everyone!!

As I sit here and write this entry, I have to say I do so with a great joy, and a great sense of pride and fulfillment that I think only ones collection, no matter what that collection is, can bring.

In about 1983, I started collecting baseball cards with my fellow high school friends, with whom I shared a great sense of comraderie, and got a great deal of help from these people. They shared with me how to care for the cards, shared the adresses of the baseball players who would send your card back to you autographed ( Reggie Jackson, Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench) and the ones who would NOT ( Pete Rose, Rod Carew) but I tried anyway, and lost a few cards to these players.

I was always thrilled with the cards I got....it was the year of the Cal Ripken,Jr. rookie card. I bought so many packs, I had more than a few of the Cal cards..I gave some away to my friends, and they did the same for me. It was exciting to collect, and to get the autographs and follow my favorite players.

The era changed and the players changed. My favorites retired and it seemed like the sports we all loved, became "Sports, Inc." and the money mattered more to anyone than the tradition and love of the game. So I stopped collecting the cards when I lost the sense of mystique and joy that used to bring.

I then started collecting comic books. It was the era of the Frank Miller Batman series with drawings by Mazzucelli (sp?) The stories of Year 1 and subsequently Year 2 with the Grim Reaper, enthralled me. I was very drawn in by Millers writing style, and the artwork of Year One. I also collected the new "Flash" series, and Justice League. I had a bunch of early 70's comics as well that my brothers' abandoned...Human Torch, Thor, Iron Man. The comics gave me an escape from the reality that was inner city Detroit, and I was so thankful for the stories, and the fantasy and art in those pages.

That era also passed, but not on a bad note like that of baseball. It was more of a "I don't have enough ROOM for all these comics!!" So for a long time I stopped collecting altogether.

In the interim, I got married, had 3 wonderful children, got divorced, became homeless for a small stint, got re-married and now have settled in in a pretty great life. Great job, wonderful caring wife, stable in every way.

Now, I have discovered the great thrill of coin collecting.

Any of you who have read this journal need not be reminded of my passion for the silver eagles. I feel like I got in on this just in time, too as the prices have been increasing dramatically in the past year. I cannot find the deals on ebay or anywhere like i did when I first started collecting just 8 months ago. Even the mint has raised it's prices a bit due to the value of silver.

The times have indeed changed. Instead of meeting daily with my high school friends, I now find myself connected to all of you via the internet through my computer screen...but instead of 6 people at school I now can potentially connect with 6 million of you. I love the journals and the registry here. I do think we sometimes take the registry a bit too seriously, but that's just my opinion...hell, at least we all have something to be passionate about!!

I have had a very exciting year collecting the eagles. I have had a great sense of adventure, and a great sense of "what's next?" as we all try to guess what the mint is going to do, and how many coins in the mintages they will put out.

This is great fun, great excitement, and coin collecting has given me a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in every way.

I hope this great hobby has done the same for all of you.

I wish you all luck for the upcoming year on getting the coins you desire, and I hope this brings you all even more joy than this year has brought me.

Happy New Year Everyone!!!