I would have liked the title of this journal to be some witty pun on the "dog-eat-dog" idiom. Unfortunately... the title is literal.

Christmas...

My brother and his wife are staying at my place for the holidays. With them they've brought gifts and deserts and all the accoutrements one brings with them while on vacation...

Plus one 75-pound greyhound.

See where this is going?

I recently bought 20 or so new silver Roosevelts and have gone through them to pick out ones that I wanted to send in for grading and certification.

Of those, I picked out three that I set aside for more consideration, and one that, there was no doubt, I was going to send in -- a 1963 P, which I believed would have graded MS 66 FT -- not an easy grade to come across for this date. NGC only has 40 in their registry with a book price of $200. PCGS has less in their registry; 30 at that grade with a book price of $475.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the dime would have graded MS 66 FT. But I was at least 80% confident that it would have achieved that graded, or I wouldn't have considered sending it in for grading in the first place.

We made our rounds today visiting different family members and finishing off the night with a visit to my sick grandmother (Yup, I'm going to use my old, sick grandmother whip up the commiseration.) When we returned to my place for the night we found that Leon (the greyhound) had eaten the cat's food, a large bag of sugar cookies, and one Roosevelt dime from my desk -- you guessed it, the 1963 P.

Gone... Ingested by the hell hound, and currently somewhere working its way into the beast's small intestines.

I would have never thought that the dog would (or even could) get his face up onto my desk, more or less eat one of the dimes on it. "Man's best friend" my ! Ugh...

But hey, at least the dog has good taste. (There's that pun I wanted.)

I can't be too upset. I really didn't pay that much for the raw coin. And it's not like the dog ate the cat, or my boss or the place where I work. I mean...I've live, right. Besides, I'm guessing that the dummy won't be feeling too great tomorrow anyway after also eating those four dozen sugar cookies.

I'm already over it. I actually feel more guilty about being irresponsible with the coin than upset. Although, like I said, I never would have guessed that the dog would eat one of my dimes out of all the other things in the house that you'd think would be more appetizing.

I guess that you win some, you lose some, and the dog eats some.

So let this Christmas tale of loose coins and canine betrayal serve as a warning to others...Keep your cookies out of sight and your coins in a drawer.

Regards,

Mr. Smith Guesser

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