I'm not even going to get to my Specimen Note research...

This journal article is sort of an update, some observations and just plain straight talk on what I've been up to. Jackson had sent me a message a few days ago, indicating he at least would be interested in hearing what I have been up to, since I hadn't posted any journal articles for a while. (Jackson, hope you don't mind that I used this, felt it would give a little explanation.) So thanks Jackson, for your interest at least.

As I told Jackson, I've been laying off any major coin purchases for a while, as I've run my credit cards up a little too high. Yes I did say cards. Fortunately, it's given me time to sort through a lot of coins. Some (such as my Liberty Half Eagles) are going to get sold. I've decided (among other things) that to fit in with my main Wild West theme, that Indian gold would be the more proper fit. So, I've been reading up on those. In sort of the same vein, is it just me, or has some of the rest of you noticed how many spotted, unattractive Indian cents there are out there? I'd like (when I get things paid off) to work on my Indian Cents, but so many (in the auction sites) to me are spotted and really unattractive for the grade. I try to use just a handful of sites; Stack's, David Lawrence and Teletrade, for my major purchases. Maybe it's just I'm really starting to have a better eye for quality, or something, because I've passed on several that would fit, just because I didn't like the looks.

Another thing I've been doing is going through my ungraded coins I'm keeping, mostly Peace and Morgan dollars, but I have others also. My dad (who passed away about 25 years ago) saved a bunch of Morgan and Peace dollars, and finally one Christmas day, my mom had my brother come in (my sister in law was gone visiting her daughter who just had a baby). Mom said we could divide up everything dad had saved, and some Kennedy's that mom had saved. Now, I'll be the first to admit none of these coins are anywhere near Mint State, to my grading eye, the best has been and EF Morgan. Some have been cleaned, whether by me when I was a kid and didn't know any better, or from whomever they got them from. But that doesn't bother me as they all are tangible links (now that dad is gone) to him and mom, and they'll never leave me. This is the big personal reason why I got a little hot yesterday. I'm attaching a pic today of one of the Morgan dollars.

Finally, about coins graded 70. Yesterday got me thinking about population reports and 70 graded coins. So I got curious and looked up the proof mintages for the 2000 through 2003 Proof Sac Dollars. My big reason (even though I have some) against putting all (or a major part of) an investment in modern 70's is this: population reports can only increase. Dave Bowers goes into this in depth in one of his books better than I can. Anyway, for the 2000S through 2003S Sac proofs the mintages range from 3,084,600 for the 2001S to 4,048,865 for the 2000S. Then I looked at the totals (both NGC and PCGS) and found out that for the 2000S for example 9501 have been graded by NGC (with 1112 PF70's) and 8927 by PCGS (with 111 PF70's). You add those numbers up, and you get 18428. Now that number (assuming no resubmissions, which I doubt) is less than 1/2 of a percent of the total mintage. Now, what happens if another 1/2 of a percent get graded (I feel human nature what it is, seeing the prices of a PF70) that could happen. And if the same percentage of 70's come out of it, what does that do to the price? I'd be interested in hearing other comments on this subject.

Anyway, I've rambled on way too long. Thanks for putting with me, and THANKS again Jackson.