What a "Grab Bag" of Joy...

Greetings Collectors,

I went out of town this morning and got back this afternoon and it looks like a trip to the bank tomorrow before work. When I got home, I always look to see if one of the keys is missing to either one of our "big lock-boxes" at our mail kiosk. This always means that in someones smaller personal box there is a key that will open one of the two "big boxes". Today was one of those days and when I opened my small box with my key, there sat another key to one of the "big boys". For those of you that have mail brought to your personal box at your door or in front of your house, it's like this. I live on a private lane and we have a group of 12 boxes that all require keys to open. Next to that group of 12 is a separate stand that has two fairly large boxes that measure about 20 inches wide by 30 inches tall where packages that won't fit in our personal 6x6 inch boxes end up. It's always nice at late afternoon when you are expecting something, and you pull up and see one or both of the big box keys missing. That means someone has a larger parcel that day. Today that person was me.

So I opened the big box after retrieving the key from my smaller box and had three packages inside. Actually 4 but one was a book. In the other three parcels I got the following: My three NGC MS-66 1958 Washington quarters from Teletrade, An original bank roll of 40% 1968-D Kennedy halves and the heaviest box of the 3 contained a 200 coin lot of assorted 40% silver Kennedy halves 1965-1969. The two groups of Kennedy halves came from eBay vendors.

This is a shot of my dining room table where I am going to have some fun separating all of them into stacks/rolls of each individual dates. I also plan on taking aside all of the "gems" and see if I can make a roll or two of those. Man oh man, each day brings something new to this hobby.

Last night I also was able to snag a nice Walker half on a Heritage auction. It is a date for my Walker "middle set", actually the first date, the 1934-P. It's a PCGS MS-64 of which the pops are rather low compared to other issues. Around 6.5 million were struck but all that have been graded at PCGS & NGC is around 5200 in "ALL" grades. Less than 1/2 that number exist in MS-64 and higher. Compared to other more expensive dates, the "keys" for example, in the run between 1934 and 1947 all have a lot more in total captivity. Looks like this date beats out the '38-D, the '41-S and the rest of the "S-mint" coins that make up the "short set". This one is as nice a 64 as I have ever seen. I feel very fortunate to have obtained it for the price it took to win it. Only have six more dates to complete that set. That is if I don't count some of the ones that are 64 & MS-65 that populate my short set at present, and will be moved to this middle set as soon as MS-66"s make themselves available for my Walker short set #1.

This was another great day to be a coin collector. Happy Collecting to the rest of you. Here's hoping that you are zeroing in on whatever elusive date you are "in need of".

WKF

P.S. Tomorrow is 4-weeks exactly 'til "election day". Don't forget to register if you have not done so already. And then don't forget to vote.