When the heat goes, so do any funds to buy coins.

It was just one of those things. Two weeks ago the heat pump here at the house rolled over and died. Thank goodness I don?t live in New England anymore; still North Carolina does get cold in February. But when you need to come up with a big chunk of pocket change to repair the heating unit for the house, buying coins doesn?t seem quite so important. So any money I had set aside for coins this month got diverted to the cost of the repair of the heating system. Fear not though, we were only a bit chilly for a little more than a week and a fireplace and a lot of a split wood has kept us warm enough to make until the heating system got repaired this past Thursday.

But all is not lost! I did manage to pick up the last Territory Quarter I needed to complete the 2009S proof set in the last week of January. I have been working on getting all of the pictures in place and doing the research for the description of each coin since. I will admit that it is easier when the description for the Clad and Silver pair of coins is the same, save for the composition details. With any luck I should have everything in place, pictures and write-ups, in the next week or so. Now I am truly faced with a quandary. What do I do with the set? I see Lighthouse has binders and pages that will fit graded coins so do I want to put the set into a nice binder. I really don?t want to leave it out for display and besides that doesn?t make much sense to me. It seems like such a shame to just put the completed set into a safety deposit box. I?ve never been faced with this kind of problem before. Of course, I have never had a #1 ranked set before either. I wish all of my problems were of this pleasant nature.

Completing the DC & Territory Set is the 5th of 10 goals I?ve checked off of my list of goals that I set for myself last September. The remaining five are all about halfway home so I?m feeling pretty good. In the mean time, I have been reading a lot especially Coin World Magazine. I even started going back into the archives to read the back issues. I really liked the article in this February?s issue of Coin World on grading Walker Halves. I have a small raw set of mostly good to fine coins I picked up for less than melt along the way but at some point I?d like to really work on building a set of those half-dollars. But I have been holding off given the silver feeding frenzy of late. I will admit I was rather blown away by the MS Walker sale pointed out by EPC. I, like him, am in shock! Speaking of the silver feeding frenzy, I?m not so sure I like the 5 ounce silver rounds the mint is producing in conjunction with the National Parks Quarters. I will not call them coins! Be serious, a 5 ounce coin? It is obvious a play by the mint to bring in more operating funds. Even worse than that, the State Park Quarters are not impressive in the least. I will not be pursuing a registry of the State Park Quarters. Personally, I think this set is going to be a flop for the mint like New Coke was a flop for Coca-Cola. Too bad the mint has committed to such a long run for the quarters. One can only wonder what will be next.

Right now I?m trying to scrap up the money I need to buy Newcomb?s and Sheldon?s books on Early American Coppers. I can?t tell you how many times I?ve come close to pulling the trigger on putting a couple of bids on some of the later date cents only to pull back and remind myself not to do until I become more educated. The frustration is incredible. These early cents are so incredible. I?m just hoping the market doesn?t go crazy on them before I can start populating a set. Funny thing, for all of fascination with Early American Cents, the Half-Cent coins haven?t caught my interest at all yet. I say yet because who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Anyway enough of my rambling! Here is a photo of the Virgin Island PF70UC Clad quarter that completed my set.

Dennis