In other words, I have too much free time on my hands if that is possible.

Two weeks into summer vacation and I find myself haunting the mailbox for the odd coin I manage to acquire and doing all of the little things I have wanted to do with my coins. For the most part that means getting all of the photos caught up in my registry sets. Slowly but surely, the pictures are coming. But me being me I am not content with simply taking a picture of the slab and posting it. Of course I am still struggling with getting a good picture like so many of us. Fortunately, I have ample time to experiment. I?m working the pictures for my proof Lincoln Cents Set as I write this. I have a presentation format that is, well, okay. I suspect I will be changing it again at some point in the future but I had to start somewhere. The write-ups are a different story. I haven?t dedicated any time to those yet but when the pictures for the set are complete they are next on the list. I decided I probably better work through one set at a time so I can actually feel like I am accomplishing something.

My ?Coins for Kids? set has been adding a dime here and there. It is pretty much what I figured in that the dimes I am getting for less than $5.00 are lower to middle MS grades. That?s not bothering me though. I think it is incredibly cool that for less than $5.00 a dime a kid with limited resources can actually build a respectable set. I will most definitely have something to show off and talk about in classes in the fall. With any luck I might be able to convert a couple of more kids into coin collectors. I have a feeling that I will need to do a bit more than just have the coins to show the kids. With kids, you need a hook to get them into anything. So with that in mind, I have started on the presentation aspect of the set. While I don?t have any pictures posted in my registry set yet I have been playing. I actually think I have the start of something pretty good too. The picture with this entry is my first attempt at presenting the dimes in an eye catching fashion that doesn?t detract from the beauty of the coin.

There has been an interesting side effect of my work with the Roosevelt dimes. In the past, I have not held Roosevelt Dimes in particularly high esteem but that is changing. As I work with them more, I am finding that they are a pretty cool little coin. Oh they will never supplant my Eisenhower Dollars or Lincoln Cents nor will they ever captivate me the way Early American Large Cents do but none-the-less they have definitely moved up in the ranks of coins I find interesting. It just goes to show that this hobby is indeed dynamic and there are always new things to be learned. One of the key things I am finding particularly interesting about the dime is there role in history particularly during the Great Depression and subsequently their link with FDR. It probably goes back to my Masters Degree work and all of the research I did on the Great Depression. (I find this period in American History particularly fascinating given the perception many people have about it and what really happen.)

As a side note to my sets, I will just throw this into the mix. I?ve been working on registry sets for roughly 2 years now, give or take. In that time, I have acquired just three Jefferson Nickels. All three are PF70UC but I just picked up 2 of those 3 nickels in the last month or so. I keep looking for them but finding a PF70UC nickel at a reasonable price (by my definition) is a lot easier said than done. It just seems that finding a proof nickel at a price I?m willing to pay is more challenging than I thought it would be when I started building registry sets. Either the nickel is far more popular than I originally thought or there are just not enough of them getting graded to satisfy then current demand. Either way, it makes for an interesting hunt.

Dennis