Another lovely little lady will soon be mine.

The current Heritage auction has, as usual, a number of coins that fit my collecting goals and, more or less, my budget. A few Capped Bust half dimes and a few Seated Liberty half dimes topped the list. Early on, I made the decision to focus on a colorful piece dated 1869 that's in an NGC MS67 slab.

I did my usual price guide and auction result investigations, decided on a maximum bid that fits in the budget, and entered it. Because that date is near the end of the half dime run, that meant forgetting about all the earlier dates unless someone outbid me during pre-sale absentee bidding.

Auction results for such coins are few. The most recent one is almost two years old. That coin is pretty, but with a few spots and weakly struck in the usual places. The next two back, from 2008, are nearly white but more fully struck. They sold for more. The coin of interest is pretty well struck and original, and so I set that max bid to be what I thought was a "mildly aggressive" amount - with a good chance of winning, but by no means a certainty.

At the end of pre-sale bidding, I still had the high bid, which was significantly below my maximum. So I waited until last night to watch the live auction on-line. I was very pleased to see it hammered with no further advance. So it will soon be mine (and is already in my Registry sets).

Over the years, I've had very few cases of coins won at auction and seen only on-line being disappointments in hand. Given the unexpectedly low price, I do have a little fear in that regard.

I'm still quite busy with work and trying to spend time with my wife. So I'm behind on journal writing. This one comes now only because I'm at work and storms last night knocked out just about everything. Our unsecured wireless network has come up, allowing me to get this out, but everything I need to work is still down.

In any case, here's the new coin. Happy collecting to all!