Sunday mornings while most of the world is asleep

It seems like it has been forever since I last sat down on a quiet Sunday morning and dedicated time to enjoying my collection. Fortunately, I am the only early weekend riser in the house. I?m sure there are a thousand other things I could be doing but I don?t. This quiet time is perfect for updating my registry descriptions and photos or just working with my raw sets. I?m not distracted with the mundane activities and noise of the everyday as I plow through the net researching my collection. This morning was no different. I finally have updated my Kennedy Half-Dollar Proof Set by adding my recent acquisition of a 2007 S PF70UC Clad half-dollar. I still have a number of other sets that need some attention. My Proof Roosevelt set is almost there lacking only some updated photos. My Proof State Quarter Set is about at 50% of where I would like it to be and my Lincoln Cent sets well lets just say they need a good bit of work. For the record, I think I may be the only one who actually likes the new Coin Manager. I have found it extremely easy to navigate and I like having the ability to set up my own fields for display.

There is still no money in the bank account to make any major additions to any of my sets, graded or raw. (The story of all my summers.) Thank goodness payday is in a week. In the mean time, I have worked out a very nice trade with some of my extra slabs for a graded coin I need. I am actually very excited about this trade. I still scour the auction pages for those great deals on coins but alas window-shopping is about all I can do. I think there is a coin show in the area n a few weeks and I may have an opportunity to add to my collection there. As always everything depends on the funds and how much catch up we have to play with the bills coming out of the summer. There is very little I miss about my corporate job of old when compared to teaching. Getting a paycheck in the summer is one thing I do miss. Fortunately, that is about the only thing I miss.

This summer I did spend a lot of time looking at coins mostly pennies and nickels. I still have great difficulty with the higher grades. I suppose in time and with a lot of practice I may feel better about my abilities. I am getting much better at grading them though but sadly as I am now in the second half-century of my life my eyes are not as good as the used to be. I must rely on a 3x magnifying glass, a 10x loop and even a high resolution digital camera and a computer screen. Based on all of this looking this summer, I reached another conclusion, if I have to spend too much time trying looking for errors in coins then they are not worth my effort. Either I can see the error quickly and easily or I just am not interested in it. (I?ve never been a big fan of error coins anyway.) I also found out that I have to limit my time for looking at coins to about an hour. After about an hour my eyes start to get tired and play tricks with me. It should come as no surprise that dimes are the hardest for me at which to look being so small. (I have a very had time even seeing the date on them without a magnifying glass. That might be a contrast thing too.) I suppose that in time I will even have to ramp the size of my magnifying glass to compensate for my eyes. I just hope it is not too soon.