Sometimes a picture is worth a "thousand" words... In this case, it's barely worth the few words here...

Greetings Collectors,

Speaking of thousand, which is about how many shots I have taken in the last few weeks, I am still encountering mega problems with taking the pictures, as in lighting, distance, angle, glare and on and on. Now I am having some MAJOR problems with "Picasa 3", & with the "exporting" to a folder and then when I want to put the pics into a set, only one pic is showing up after I click on "browse". And it's not even the first pic in the group. I have done something and I don't know what, but it is by far the biggest snag thus far. I am so very glad I have plenty of hair,'cause I have been pulling it out by the bunches. If any of you are "very" familar with "Picasa 3" please drop me a line and let me know how to "clear" the system as this was not an issue in the beginning, so I know I did something to cause what is happening now.

Anyway here is a way less than best photo of the "titled set". I took more than 20 shots outside and inside my home on a sunny day here in N.E. Fl. to get it, and while this pic borderline "stinks", here it is for those of you who did not get this set or have not seen a picture of it yet. It opens into a 3-segment book type setup with the "Lincolns Gettysburg Address" on the two pages to the left of the coins, and then folds up to the size of the part you see here with the coins. I think the copy of the "address" is actually the coolest part, as it shows in Lincoln's handwriting, the draft with certain words corrected by him, by scratching a line through the word with the new/added word written beside or above the corrected word as in substituting "for" in the place of "of" and the word "the" crossed out and "that" in its place. This famous address I think took less than 90 seconds to give, but oh the meaning of those few words. No wonder the man has always been and the coins continue to be "timeless & priceless" in so many words.

Well so much for the "two sentence" post & pic. I never had much faith that I could pull it off and actually got two e-mails from a couple of you saying that they would be "very disappointed" if I were to post a journal with only two sentences. Thank you to the both of you, and you know who you are. You can not imagine how good it makes me feel to hear that. There are others of you who post "often" and none of us get paid for this and if you are anything like me in the matter of being a slow "typer", it takes alot of time and research to say the things we say via typing it out. I am sure I can speak for all when I say, "we do it because we love this hobby so, and all the "pay" we need is the hearing from others that they were helped by something that was shared, or that they got a "laugh". You all will get a hint of the "life" I have when the "highlight of my day is reading journals posted by you all. Keep up the good work. Our great hobby will be "all the better" on account of it.

In closing I am gonna go out on a limb and make a prediction that may benefit all who partake. This whole "Lincoln set" thing and quickness of the sell out has been one with exclamation marks, bright lights, underlined, with a line out the door and even a waiting list. On the other hand a very tiny dim light barely illuminates another set. The "Braille Education Set" has a max mintage of 25,000, has been out for a while, yet so far "to date" a mere 5,996 have been purchased. The total max mintage, for all Braille coins, proof and unc. is 400,000 and that includes the 25,000 proofs that will go into those "Education sets" (that is, if they sell that many!) So far they have sold a "hair" over 125,000 proofs, which is a low figure that has the almost 6,000 proof coins from the set as part of that 125,344 total. The uncirculated version has sold only 66,888 pieces. As far as dollar commemoratives go, and one that continues, marching towards the cut off, a very low total indeed. And since there are no limits, I will go on to suspect that a very large % of total sold thus far, have been purchased by dealers/speculators. Olympic coins,Jackie Robinson coins and coins from the run AKA "Capitol Visitor Center are all "modern issues" with low mintages and ever rising, "after-market" prices. I have a very strong feeling about this issue.

I was almost forced into buying the unc. Braille dollar because the day the Lincoln set went on sale, it along with a first spouse coin & a couple of 2009 P&D mint sets were still in my "shopping cart" from a previous visit a few days earlier to the mints website. I could not afford to buy that gold coin on Oct. 15th but the time it took to remove it from my cart, made me think I could not afford to wait the 11+ minutes it would take to delete the Braille dollar & mint sets and take a chance on not getting the Lincoln set. Now I am very glad I got it (the unc. Braille dollar). Now all that's missing is the set itself, in which will get me the proof. The total number in the marketplace a couple of years from now will be small, by modern coin standards and the total number of these "Braille sets" will be much much smaller. Bottom line, I think it may be wise to buy one of the Unc. dollars and one of those sets. That combo gets you a Proof, an UNC. and the set as well. I really don't see how one could lose on account of the low totals sold to date. We all collect for various reasons but in the end, we are collecting "money" plain and simple MONEY. It always has been about the total number available and it always will be. Worst case, you have a couple of 90% silver dollars and an accompaning set to boot. I smell a handsome profit along with having a couple of "not that bad a looking" silver dollars to go along with it. I keep thinking about the "Wheelchair" Olympic dollar, which I have all the respect in the world for. The physically and mentally handicapped are indeed, an additional worthy cause, another reason to get the issue with the "surcharge" going to a very worthwhile idea. Don't know why, I just didn't get at all excited about those issues from those past Olympic games. But just take a look where they are all trading at today, even way more so in "70". I have come to the conclusion that it's maybe something to ponder. I hope you are having fun with your coins & the hobby in general. Gotta go, Teletrade has an auction tonight...

Happy Collecting! WKF