Some livid rants are bringing up good points.

I'm finally realizing at home just how much of a packrat I've been, so I've dabbled in EBay selling to dredge the slough out of the house. So I'm getting a little perspective on where you folks with EBay problems are coming from.

It's TIME-CONSUMING to sell things on EBay. Shooting, uploading and editing photos can be a slog. For those running big stores, I can see the temptation to grab "stock" photos.

On the next topic, the registry contest mercifully comes but once a year. If you're thinking of competing in "Best Presented," I can see how you'd want hits to your registry webpage year-round. For the rest of us, a little patience will get us to November's registry season, when all the chips line up correctly.

I'm realizing just WHY NGC takes many weeks to annoint the winners. Proving ownership is a beast! I haven't had that problem yet, but I still only own just a handful of truly registry quality coins, and I'm lagging on posting photos.

It's fun to see these journals evolve. There's always been the ruminations on die patterns, mintages, tough dates, and coin shows. Sometimes, the politics and personal skullduggery stories make this forum seem more like a message board. (Nothing like a recession and high gold prices to bring out the Tea Party Gold Bugs crowd!) But I'm OK with that. Message boards get spammy with dozens or hundreds of posts a day. You journal folks really do save and organize your better thoughts for here.

So, a round of applause for all the upstanding EBay merchants, unobscured registry holders, and avid collectors here. This is a true community!

Finally, months of roll searching culminated in one small grading submission for me. Browse my older journals for the journey through auction-bought OBW's, circulated bank rolls, and a handful of 2010 OBW's I got from my own bank branch. I put easily over a hundred hours into this submission.

Well, I'm not making minimum wage for my efforts, but it's fun. An MS 66 1965 business strike nickel from a circulated bank roll. Some crazy bronze toning on an Ocean View nickel (also a circulated roll) came back graded - not MS DETAILS - granted only MS 65, but I'm glad to get that one-sided bronze beauty slabbed. A top-pop 1977 1c. And (drum roll please) the ONLY 2010 D MS 68 FT 10c graded to date. Those 10c rolls were stellar, and I've got some unopened from that visit to the bank still. So somebody out there will likely find another one ... but I get the Unique Chair for at least a week.

Thanks for the long read. Sorry, no pics - I'll get them posted in a few weeks.

Happy collecting!