Settling into the New Year

Greetings my fellow collectors. I have wanted to post a journal recently but was sidetracked with an emergency home repair. Now everything is back to normal so some meandering thoughts.

First, to all the award winners congrats. You set the standard for us to follow !!!!

During the holidays I got out all my proof sets and decided to really give them a good once over since I haven't taken a good look at them in a while. I should preface this by saying one of my Xmas gifts to myself this year was a new lamp to view coins and to also assist in my photography of them. So I went to one of the local fabric stores and purchased an "Ott" type lamp.

Man did that ever make a difference. It provides all natural lighting. If you are looking for a lamp for your coin viewing, it is the best I found. The fabric store I went to were out of the Ott brand so I purchased the equivalent which was "NaturaLight" model UN1017 Check it out at www.mynaturalight.com

Believe me when I say you will not be disappointed !!!! Looks ultra-modern and folds up when not in use.

So I get out my proof sets and I couldn't believe some of the "" I had. I mean it was like someone just passed on the crappy ones. I did have some really nice ones but with the new light I could really spot the inferior ones. (NOTE: I also use a visor magnifier with 2 different powers of magnification)

So I just decided to "crack" the proof sets with coins that were hazy or spotted. If there was a decent coin, I put it aside and just put the rest in the change bowl. I wasn't going to pass this on to someone else when I wouldn't want it myself.

Another thought.... This has also been brought up here recently. The price of some coins at E-Bay is getting crazy. I'm not talking about the Lincoln cent that was outrageous but MS ASE's. A majority of sellers are asking twice the FMV. Then when you check how many revisions they have made to their listing you can see it has been listed for months. (No wonder it is not selling) I just flat refuse to pay what some are asking. Like someone here said, "it's their coin, they can ask what they want". I just laugh and move on.

Well, that's about it for now. Take care and good luck filling those empty slots. If anyone decides to check out that lamp let us know how you like it.

moondoggy