on many fronts; photos, adding coins, and grading submissions.

The last 14 days or so has seen a lot of progress for me on the coin front. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I bought a digital SLR camera; since that time I've been experimenting with it, reading the manual, and FINALLY I'm starting to get some better pictures. My biggest stumbling blocks have been WHITE BALANCE and light coverage. Well, I feel I'm making a lot of headway on the white balance. Personally, I hate photos with a tint to them, however, as with toning, a slight blue tint isn't as irritating to me as green & yellow. Anyway, I feel I'm making progress, but I wish I could figure out the light coverage better. I've noticed when I've come close on the coverage, it's amazing how sharp and clear the pics are. The benchmark I use for sharpness is being able to read the small initals of the engraver.

I'm also making progress on the sets front. I've purchase several commemoratives (modern) for my set. I've also upgraded one of my Franklin FBL coins, but haven't received it yet from Teletrade.

Also on the buying front, I'm getting for the 52 Collection sale from Stack's the end of the month (the 29th I think). I have some ABN plates on my watch list. I truly enjoy the plates, I have several. Here's where I really kick myself for having my financial troubles, I had to let a lot go for the simple reason of no funds. I truly believe we're the caretakers of these items and several I missed would have been perfect additions to my Wild West theme collection. I guess I will live and learn on this.

Finally, I'm getting submissions ready to go. We have a couple of people at work on vacation this week, so instead of having Monday off as usual, I'm off Thursday. So, the post office will be collecting some major postage, and NGC, be on the look out for a nice size box filled with submissions. At last count, I have at least 5 19th century coins for 1 submission, another 5 coins (mix of Eagles & Commems) for my coupon submission. That leaves another 12 coins for a regular submission. Plus I have 5 world coins, 4 modern & 1 1912 Mexican Centavo, if I can put them on the same form. We'll see how this goes, and I'll try to update on grades.

Finally, my picture for this entry will be the Mint State Lincoln Commem obverse. You can tell I haven't quite figured out lighting coverage, but I have made progress.

Thanks for reading!