Wow! That turned out great!

Overall I'd say this submission went extremely well. The results were actually better than I had dared to hope for.

Invoice: 2755950

001 2006 SILVER NEWZEALAND NORTH ISLAND BROWN KIWI $1 MS69

002 2005 SILVER NEWZEALAND KIWI $1 MS70

003 2004 SILVER NEWZEALAND SPOTTED KIWI $1 MS70

004 2006 CHINA PANDA S10Y MS70

005 2008MO MEXICO S1ONZA MS65

006 2008MO MEXICO S1ONZA MS69

I can't even say how great the grades on the kiwis were. The 2004 and 2005 kiwis are extremely rare and extremely expensive. This submission was probably going to be my only shot at the top grade for those coins. That said, they both pulled through and got the top grade. With the 2008 coin I now have half of the (currently) 6 coin set in MS70. Since the 2006 is somewhat cheaper than the earlier 2 issues, I may try to find another one and take another shot at a MS70. I'd love to have a full MS70 set of them. Even if it never becomes a competitive set, I think it would be awesome to have a full 70 set that I mostly graded myself. At the moment though, it appears that those 3 coins are the first and only ones of their kind graded by NGC, and that's a distinction all on its own.

I was, in some ways, more thrilled about the Panda than even the Kiwis. As I have said before, that coin was sent to me by the ever wonderful Jackson. It was one of a handful that he and his wife (who I'm sure is also wonderful) ordered directly from the issuing authority when they came out. He went digging in his "silver bin," found it, and went out of his way to let me have it. This coin will now have a permanent home in my signature set and a place of honor in my competitive panda set (though the set will probably never be "competitive").

I'll admit that the MS65 Libertad was a disappointment. I would have thought both of the coins I sent it might go MS67+ or I never would have wasted the fees. I do understand NGCs decision though. The coin had 1 or 2 issues going on that I considered somewhat minor with respect to grade. NGC probably disagreed, but understandably so. That's why I sent 2 of those though. All I wanted was at least 1 MS69 out of the 2 and I got that. I may keep the MS65 coin for silver value or just sell it at a low price to partially recover costs.

I'm thrilled with this result. I got everything I wanted and more out of this. My gamble paid off!

With respect to my signature set, which all of these are for, this means 11 of the 45 coins I have or have on order will be MS70. That's not bad at all for a set that was initially going be an all-MS69 set. I've added a few 70s where the opportunity has existed and they are now nearly a full 4th of the set. At least 5 of the other coins in the set are Top Pop MS69s with no MS70s and a few others have only 10 or fewer MS70s which are nearly impossible to find and alarmingly expensive. Considering that, I've made a fairly high quality set in my opinion. The signature set is subdivided into 7 competitive sets and a group of non-competitive coins. Most of these competitive sets will still never win me an award but that's not what they're there for. They serve in other functions independent of the signature set.

Now that I actually have a few of my own self-graded MS70s I may hijack gherrman's signature set idea for my own nefarious purposes. (ie. personal amusement!) Nah... I can remember this on my own!

Well, I think I've written more than enough for one evening.