No specific goals for me - other than to have fun!!

I think I became lost in the battle to be #1 in 2011 - accomplishing that task in a few minor sets that are really just hollow victories, in my opinion.

I've been refining my grading skills year over year since joining NGC - as attested by my results in the following table.

Avg High Low Total

2008 66.16 68 64 30

2009 65.76 67 64 32

2010 65.94 68 65 16

2011 66.25 68 65 12

2012

The disturbing part for me is the lesser total of graded coins. I believe there are two reasons for this, one I've become much more discerning about what I want to send and two I've been hung up buying conditional rarity moderns. The buying part has become boring to me and there's really no satisfaction, in my opinion.

So, what to do? Well, I've decided that in 2012 I'm refocusing - slowing down on the buy side for moderns and rely upon my skills to select the very best. Here's another table that shows the progression in awarded grades that tells me I'm on the right track -

69 68 67 66 65 64

2008 0 1 13 9 3 3

2009 0 0 7 17 4 3

2010 0 2 5 4 4 0

2011 0 3 4 3 1 0

Just in case your curious, no grades were less than MS 64 other than 2 Details coins.

I think I'll largely rely upon my developing skills to complete my Roosevelt Clad dimes, besides it's much more fun to search raw dimes for that special coin, then have it graded to confirm my assessment and then upload as Self Made to my set.

With that said any purchases will be focused on old silver - at this time I'm leaning towards a set of Capped Bust Half Dimes. If I'm going back to classic coins I feel as though I should go way back and start a neat set of beautiful coins with tons of history.

So, I guess you could say I have a couple of goals.

1 - Start a collection of Capped Bust Half Dimes - learn, learn, learn, which translates into fun, fun, fun!!!

2 - Work on completing some Modern sets - Roosies/Washington/Kennedy through grading raw coins - once again translating into fun, fun, fun!!!

I've also stepped out into a couple of new endeavors that will be subjects for some future posts.

Thanks for reading and may 2012 bring fruition to all our collecting dreams and aspirations.

Todd

The picture for this post is one of last year's MS 68 coins - Roosevelt Dime MS 68 FT.