Or how I?m spending my summer vacation.

Well, my $5.00 dime set is continuing to grow. I?m up a coin count of 7 now. I even managed to pick up another FT for the set, 2007 SMS MS67FT. I have to admit that limiting myself to spending no more than $5.00 a coin has turned into great affordable fun for me. My admiration of the Roosevelt dime continues to grow particularly with regards to Full Torch classification. I can see myself really dedicating some serious time and resources to this set at some future point down the road. For now, however, it will remain just a $5.00 set. With my summer vacation about half over, I find myself thinking about the new crop of kids I will get in my classes and cannot help but wonder if I will find yet another student or two who I can draw into the world collecting coins. I find that sparking the interest and excitement for this wonderful hobby in the youth of today is one of my greatest pleasures. I could talk to kids for hours on end about coins, listening to their questions and helping them find their answers. Heaven knows kids today need something on which to focus. I?ve even consider going to the local Boy Scout Council to see if I could help any of the scouts working on a coin collecting merit badge.

In working with my own sets, particularly ?Making Cents of My Life?, I realized that while each year was special in its own right some years have more significance than others. To that I end, I added Proof Sets for the significant years in my life. Granted these are satellite sets to my master sets and many of the sets have lots of holes to fill but it broadens the scope of my collection. I also added a US Type Set to the list just because I thought the idea of having one type of each US coin was pretty interesting. Still, filling these additional sets will be a challenge as my budgetary constraints will still be the dominating factor to filling the slots. (Too bad they don?t have a registry set for losing Powerball Tickets!) Additionally, while I have little fondness for the ATB Quarters (I?m still trying to figure out the point behind a 5 ounce coin as well, ugly and useless except for investing in silver.) and for the President Dollars, I am entertaining the notion of starting a Sacagawea set. Don?t ask me why I find these more interesting than the Presidential Dollars but I do.

As I am not a big proponent of setting my collecting goals based on the points in my sets, I realized that my collection had pushed through the 20,000 point mark. Breaking it down even further, my collection has an average point value of 150 points per coins. I?ve paid roughly $0.10 per point to populate my sets to this point and I?m right at $0.27 per dollar of fair market value. My goal, although I do not strictly adhered to it, is $0.25 per dollar of market value at time of purchase. I?ve been able to do pretty well with that goal and the bulk of the discrepancy from target and actual comes from the price fluctuations in coins after I have purchased them. While that has been my overriding target or goal for my sets, I have other more targeted goals for various sets and it is getting to that time of year where I need to rethink last year?s goals and develop new goals for the coming year. My collecting year runs from September to September more in line with the traditional school calendar and my paychecks. The summer months tend to be slow for me as financial resources get tight and only open up again once school starts. Don?t be fooled though, I am ALWAYS on the hunt for exceptional deals!

Looking at the goals from last year, I did well with most but came up short on others. My raw Eisenhower set is complete and I ended putting nine graded Ikes into registry sets against a target of six. The Proof Ike Registry set is only two coins short of complete and that for sure will make the list of goals for next year as will adding coins to the MS Set. All of the proof Ikes are PF69UC, like I could afford a PF70UC of those things. I did complete my set of DC and US Territory Quarters, all PF70UC. I made my goal of six new Proof Roosevelt Dimes, just barely though having added exactly six, my goal of six Proof Lincoln Memorial Cents, adding 20 coins including two PF70UC?s, and my goal of adding six MS Lincoln Cents, also putting 20 new coins in that set. I?m only one coin short each of completing both my Kennedy Half Dollar raw set and Jefferson Nickel raw set, in both cases I still need a 2008S. My Lincoln Cents Raw Set fell short of my goals as I still need 8 red mint state tier coins to upgrade my set back to 1934 and I only filled 5 of the 16 holes I have. All in all I have to consider it a successful run for the year. I really am just starting to formulate next years collecting goals but there are still many ideas running around in my head that I need sort through before everything comes together and I do still have a little bit of time.

Enough of my rambling for today, I will leave you with a photo of the 1964 Lincoln PF68RD I just recently added to my set.

Dennis