and didn't buy any new coins !!

I really love the direction that NGC is going--particularly in expanding their World Set Registry. For those who haven't noticed, NGC has been working hard at adding new sets to the registry and even taking suggestions in the Forums/Chat area to encourage people to make suggestions.

Imagine my surprise today when I was browsing through the recesses of the back pages here and saw that they had a category for "France". Dare I hope that it coincidentally might be the set I spent 2 years building?...I clicked on the link and voila!!..It was !!

They had added the 1899-1914 France 20FCS gold coin collection !! Commonly called the "roosters" because of the reverse design, I call them the Marianne's--my wife's name with same spelling. My wife is also adorned with long beautiful and naturally curly hair...so the decision to collect these was easy, plus--how could she ever complain about me building a coin set that is named after her and bears a resemblance to her loving profile?

So I took the time to insert the coins into the set and transfer the pics from my signature set ( I'll take better pictures soon but I'll have to make a trip to my safe deposit box)...This is a great set to work on and I recommend it to anyone. Although I am currently ranked #1 as the only set added so far, I don't expect to remain there since higher grade coins than mine can be found. I just wanted to finish the set. Speaking of which, this set was the last one I HAVE completed..and that was quite some time ago.

So if you are interested in building a gold set, or adding some more gold in your collection..this may be the set for you !! The coins can be found in lower BU for a little over their spot price, they are attractive and readily available ( except for the 1899-1901 coins which are scarce), and you can add "cheap" gold to your holdings and get some nice registry points also.

I noticed after adding my set that my overall rank had jumped from 690 to 540 !!..now if they'll just assign point values to all of my sailing ship coins I might be in the top 100 !!..joke..

Thank you NGC !!

A quick mention..I did submit my grandad's Morgan for encapsulation..I did this because I want it preserved for my grandson and don't want to risk it getting damaged.

I also have 2 other submissions (3 total) at NGC right now..more additions to my Bluenose Schooner Proof Dime Set ( Canadian proof dimes), my first entries for the $2 Polar Bear bi-metal coins..and a few for my ship themed sig set..

So I've been busy...maybe I should have made a bunch of seperate entries into my journal and broken this up somewhat, but I wanted to get this all down while it is occuring..

Here's a picture of the obverse of one of my "Marianne" gold 20FCS coins...