I apologise for how long I expect this will be...

I love the lincoln cents. I hope to have a very nice set of them one of these days. I have what some have pointed out as being some rather tough grade standards for the set but that just means the set will take longer to build and be better in the end.

Almost ever since I got my first certified cent and started down the path of building this set I've wanted a nice certified 1943 steel cent, only MS66s or MS67s would do and in truth it was the MS67s were what I wanted all along. The MS66s were so expensive and I always figured, "why get 66s when for the price is so close to that of the 67s?" And it's not like the MS67 pop of these coins is small, they range from 1800 to 2800.

I've gone through months of hunting for the coins, frustration at pictures that told me nothing about the coin and gave me no confidence to bid, opportunities coming up when I'm not in a good place to buy, and losses to sniper bidders at the end. It has been a long and frustrating road. Just last week I suffered a last minute loss on a steelie that I'd really had my hopes on.

Tonight there was a 1943-P and a 1943-D available. They were both MS67s, ending about 10 minutes apart from each other. 1943-P was first. I bid on it first; I was only after 1 coin at first. The price rose close to the point that I was going to have to abandon it but I guess God was feeling nice tonight. I won the coin for $64.49 (Numismedia lists at $68.75).

After that I turned my attention to the 1943-D. I had won my coin, I mostly just wanted to see what it was going for. With 9 more minutes left it was only going for about $28. I couldn't resist. I bid $35, just to up the price on the other bidder, I still wasn't really expecting to win. His max bid, as it happens was only $35.01. I decided to go for the coin. I waited until the last minute. I kept expecting the price to go up but it didn't. I then bid $40.01. I still wasn't expecting to win, surely someone else would snipe for more than that. As it turned out another bidder entered in $40.01, the exact same bid I'd entered, but he did it 3 seconds after I did, so I was still winning. With 40 seconds left I was still waiting for the other bid to come, to lose the coin, but it never came. I won the coin, for $45.01 after S&H&I (Numismedia lists for $85).

I was stunned. My heart had been racing through both auction endings expecting to be cheated of my victory again, but no! After months of searching and effort I had not 1 but 2 of these wonderful coins in MS67! I'm still kinda in shock.... WOW! Just WOW!

... I said this would be long didn't I?