It was an investment decision!

Greetings Collectors,

I have been "chomping at the bit" for several months now, waiting for Wed. the 22nd of Jan. to hurry up and get here. Now I hope I have done the right thing. Or should I say, I hope I haven't done the wrong thing.

I have read several times, in several numismatic publications that they will be minting as many of the new UHRs that we, the collecting community want to buy. In other words, no limits. But as you all know, the mint has a habit in changing things they say like that. I just hope that they keep their word this time so that I will still be able to purchase one later on in the month of Feb.

I started off this year by saying that if the coin or coins that I am looking at are not made out of gold, I was going to pass. Well, that vow lasted less than two weeks. I ended up picking up four nice MS 66 red Lincolns to add to my birth year mint set (1954 D & S) and my sisters birth year (1957 P & D). In the same auction, I was able to get a nice '73-S Proof 69 DC Eisenhower clad dollar in a PCGS slab, for almost less than the cost of the slab. Again, none of these coins are "yellow".

Which brings me to the point of my post, in the large "round about" way I always adhere to. I love the gold buffalo coins, and while I do not have any at present, I had decided that I would start the 1/10 oz. in UNC and Proof to go with my 1/10 oz. gold eagle sets. Well as I am sure all of you know, that the mint has decided to stop minting the fractionals across the board. Now while I feel that the mint will change their mind, and start the fracs. up again, because of their greed, I can only hope. Meanwhile I still don't have any "skinny buffalos".

I do alot of my coin buying on Teletrade and have purchased the majority of my tenth oz. eagles there, but they very rarely have ANY gold buffalo one oz and I havn't seen a fractional buffalo there for months. So what I did was I took my UHR budget money and added a few more dollars and ordered the following from the US Mint: 2008-W 1/10 oz gold eagles in MS and Proof and my new "pride and joy" purchase, the 08/08/08 Double Prosperity set that consists of, for those of you that do not know, a half oz. skinny buffalo and a half oz gold eagle. Well now I feel better (and broker) that I have finally bought not one, but four yellow coins.

I am not rich and have had my "bucks" for some time for the new "saint" in high relief and have instead, spent it on something else. I do think that the 2008 gold and platinum coins will end up being, not only some beautiful coins, but some very valuble ones as well. If any of you can swing it, You really should think about that two coin set. I have been wrong many times in my life, but of the two $1000+ coin/coins the UHR will be available in Feb, Mar. April? but that $25 gold eagle and that half oz. skinny buffalo may only have days left before they are gone forever. Sorry for such a long post, but I felt I should let my thoughts be known. Sure hope I made the right choice as I would for sure, be ill if I ended up not getting one of those UHRs. Congratulations to all who have one on the way. I will have to wait for my next medium-large remodel job in order to justify the expenditure for mine. 'Til next time, Happy Collecting! WKF