Fifty coins, and it only took 8 years.

It doesn't seem that long ago that I started aggressively collecting the US/Philippine series. I hadn't initially intended to focus on the Bronze coins, but one good opportunity led to another, and about six months ago, I found myself with a very nearly complete set. I was only lacking one Half Centavo, and two One Centavos. I wasn't seeing the missing coins in the marketplace, so I decided to "grow my own."

I combed through my collection of raw coins and found three that I thought might fare well in the certification process to fill the empty slots. In the process, I came across a couple others that I thought might trump coins already in my set, so I added them to the NGC shipment as well. I was really pleased with the results.

1905 Proof Half Centavo - NGC PF63BN (filled the one empty slot)

1922(M) One Centavo - NGC MS63BN (filled an empty slot)

1938M One Centavo - NGC MS65RB (filled an empty slot)

1915S One Centavo - NGC MS62BN (upgrade from PCGS AU53BN)

1920S One Centavo - NGC MS64BN (upgrade from NGC MS61BN)

I completed these sets a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to finish the description for each set and the full descriptions for each of the coins. The statistics for each set are as follows:

Half Centavo

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http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/registry/coins/SetListing.aspx?PeopleSetID=34796

Grade range: PF63BN - MS65RD

5 NGC (2 self submitted)

2 PCGS

One Centavos

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http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/registry/coins/SetListing.aspx?PeopleSetID=34793

Grade range: AU58 - MS66RD

31 NGC (10 self submitted)

11 PCGS

Wilson So-Called Dollar - Bronze

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http://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinView.aspx?sc=149888

NGC AU-Details (self submitted)

While these sets are now complete, they may never be "finished." More upgrades are always possible. My One Centavo set is not number 1, but I hope NGC will consider it for a "Best Presented Set" award.

The picture below is of the last coin added to my One Centavo set. In 8 years of collecting, I've only seen one mint state 1915S for sale, and it was well above my budget. Needless to say, I was quite pleased when this one came back from NGC graded as MS62BN.

Good luck to all in your quest for registry awards!

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