Coinbuf

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

While I don't have a must do or list of things that I feel are must do items for my numismatic journey, I have some goals for my collection.   One such goal has been to include an uber high grade classic coin to the collection.   This has never been a high priority or something that I felt I "had" to do just a want list item that I figured I would find someday that would not only fit this minor goal but be very nice upgrade to one set or the other.   I think that I always expected that would be a new coin for my Lincoln set, given that it is a very large, long set I guess that it seemed the most likely set to find one that was within financial reach.  There are tons of MS68 and MS69 graded modern Lincoln coins but the most available MS68 classic coins in that series are the steel cents and they still sell for right around 1K on average, doable but not really the coin that I was motivated to go after at those prices.
However recently on GC I saw an auction for a 1940-D Mercury dime in MS68FB, not only is this a great classic design coin but it was also a numerical upgrade for several sets.   So I did as usual and threw in a $20 bid to place the coin on my watchlist, I check recent auction results for this grade and figured that it would likely sell for more than I was prepared to go.   A couple of days before the end of the auction I checked on the status and was surprised to see the price still rather low.  Ok that does happen sometimes and then a flurry of action in the last hour pushes the prices up near or beyond average.   So I decided what I was willing to go, which was below the recent averages; and place my final bid fully expecting to be out bid in those last hours.   I checked my emails after the auction deadline and low and behold I had won for just under my high bid!
I thought that is great, and then the doubts start to creep in.   Why did I win for less that recent average sales; did I miss something that others saw?   Did I just buy a dog coin, what did I just do!   Well nothing to do but wait for the package to arrive and see the coin in hand.   Fast forward to yesterday when the package came, I can now say that I very happy with my new coin, not a dog at least in my opinion.  I suspect that because this coin is blast white played some part in the lower than average selling price, had it been toned I expect it would have been much more expensive.  Also the lack of a CAC bean may have been a factor to some buyers at this grade level, not a deal breaker for me.
So there it is, a minor bucket list item checked off with what I find to be a very beautiful coin with one of the most attractive classic designs.  The only photos I have are the GC one's for now.

Well the 2020 registry awards are in the books, it was a good year for me with 6 best in category awards one better than last year.  Hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of additions and hang on to those for next year, that task may be much more difficult depending on if the launce of the ANA registry brings in more heavy hitters from the PCGS registry.  But maybe with a couple of adds here or there I can keep up on most of last years wins.  Time to begin planning and chasing once again to further my collection and hunt down a few new coins for 2021, thanks to  fellow forum member Six MiIe Rick I was able to add a few zincoln coins to my 09 to date Lincoln set already this year including my first shield cents.

I took Ben to that game store today while Shandy and the baby were napping to kill some time while we were waiting for the sellers to finally vacate the new house - it was the last day of the leaseback and they were clearly unprepared and determined to drag things out all day. We didn't get the keys until 8:30 PM after telling us 5PM and cussed me out and left the house dirty when I challenged him on it, but we won't dwell there. I don't want this to be about that.
Anyway... There was a bin of cards in there that they had for 25 cents a piece - the card equivalent to the junk bin. After Ben got done asking for $40-100 figures and art pieces that I was not going to buy I started digging in the junk bin.
Much to my surprise there were several nice cards in there that featured prominently in the show and I started pulling those out and showing them to Ben and me and the owner were talking about the show and Magic Cards and anime.
It has probably been close to 15 year since I've gotten to just hang out and chat in a cards store while digging and searching - between undergrad, grad school and now parenthood. I was having a lot of fun and could have spent another hour or two happily digging and talking... but that's not how things work with a 5 year old.
But that is our happy place, right? Digging for gems / gold in the junk bin and chatting about our hobbies?
Ben by that point had gotten it in his head to buy a booster pack with a blue eyes dragon on it in the hope of getting a blue eyes- because he doesn't yet get how collectable card games really work. The best / worst part is that the cards in those packs are the Japanese cards and they aren't in English and he knows this because he got one with his mother.
So sensing that my time was up I picked 16 cheap cards for $4 and bought his pack for $3 (7 cards).
We barely got home and he was wanting to take like a 4th of my cards for himself or to "trade" for them. His mother woke up and he starts telling her about the ones I got. - He did get a really nice card in his pack... but it is in Japanese.
I just laughed. I knew I had the good stuff. I pretty much knew exactly how it was going to go down. I knew going with cards he'd recognize from the show was the way to go, but he wanted the pack too. But dad knows where it's at.
I may try to go back with him one more time and dig for more gems in that box before we get fully moved out and over. Just for fun. At 25 cents a piece that's a very fun, cheap, reasonable way to get him some fun cards he'll recognize and enjoy.
I'll keep working on sharing a love of coins, but I collected pokemon cards some too and I turned out okay, and he enjoys these a lot.

So, if it seems like I am more quiet lately know that it is only because Fenntucky Mike and like 5 other people on the PMG side have gotten to witness a lot of manic babbling about near-worthless hyperinflation novelties - feel free to check that out to be as bored as my dear wife.  
So, I got grade results back yesterday evening. No stand-out wins and some minor disappointments.
On the CWTs I had expected like 55-58 but part of me had hoped for a 61-62. I got an XF45 and a AU 55 BN. The 45 is disappointing but not crazy. It is nice to have the F numbers for one of these that I didn't before though. 
 

On the Tobacco Dove I got a 69. The hope here when submitting was, obviously, a 70 - while expecting a 69. After the residue report I was afraid of a 67 or 68 coming back, which would have killed its value and turned sending it in into a bit of a disaster (albeit good to have removed the residue before anything worse happened). The 69 after cleaning is a good save / recovery. It was worth it to let them clean off the residue.
 

Of course, the big news here is my golden babies are coming home! The 10Gs are returning in pretty, new, scratch resistant holders, which is going to make that a very charming set. Now that they're finalized you can see images of them in the new holders on the cert look-up tool. Most of these things were previously graded so long ago (25+ years) that there were no images for them. I love that the old cert#s are preserved in the new holders, preserving the history that many of these were graded a long time ago, around the same time, I think around 1993, possibly by the same person. That bit of history and mystery will always make me wonder with these... who submitted these back in the day?. But I think I will be trying to do my own pictures once they come.

My wife recently referred to my Zimbabwe dollar collection as my “pride and joy” to Ben. I do not know that she’s wrong, but I think they have to share that title with the 10G set… and my wonderful, beautiful sons… clearly. Naturally. My two sons that I do not get frustrated with when they start thumping my 100 trillion note on their knee…
But then, the REALLY big news... We closed on the house today! And are now homeowners! ... and... thanks to the leaseback... landlords! For 2 months! While still being renters!?! … Life is strange some days...
I am very happy to know those coins are coming back now and will be with me even if we move sooner than expected. I will be very happy to have my 10Gs back home.
I am also glad because I'm about to send it the Zimbabwe coins and had kind of wanted to have these shipped home first - I don't even know why. It was just giving me pause to mail off another box when these were not done, even knowing they would probably come back as soon as the Dove cleared NCS which I knew would probably be only 1-2 more weeks. If I had mailed the Zimbabwe coins last week and NGC had shipped these next week like I had expected I probably would have still had the 10Gs before the Z coins were taken out of the box. But I feel like I've been a bit weird about having those 10G coins away from me ever since I had this idea about a year ago.
I will be trying to get the Z coins mailed within the next few days.

With regard to timing, I feel NGC did good. I mailed the coins on 3/30 if I remember right and they arrived at NGC around 4/6. They showed in the system on 4/21 and were shipped back on 5/25. I think they would have shipped home 2 weeks ago but everything has been waiting on the Dove. NCS did quite well. Their turnaround times have been about 22 working days. It has only been 22 calendar days and 16 working days since they sent me the letter about it needing work. Overall, with them coming back about 7 weeks after I mailed them and 6 weeks after they got them - about 30-35 working days for NGC - I would say they held to their turnaround time estimates and did very solid - even with the Dove causing a delay. I am quite pleased.
I also could have had my other coins back faster if I had not asked NGC to hold them and ship them all back together, which they did, saving me a chunk of cash since the other 3 basically got to hitch back with the 10Gs for free - after having hitched on the way over with the 10Gs for no extra cost.

How in the name of Eric P. Newman is it possible for different sets to have the same ranking?
I am referring to my 1940 year set (which has been the #1 set in the registry for six out of the last seven years) and Coinbuf's 1940 set. My set has the #1 ranking for 2020, and so does his.
Yesterday, my set was in the #1 position, and now it is #2.
How is this at all possible?
 

So we (finally) got an appraisal back on the house. It was supposed to be delivered Tuesday and we were assured it always comes in on or before the due date and... the appraiser missed due date... This ends a 3-week saga that led us to leave the lender we'd been planning to use for someone else local because they were not getting the appraisal scheduled, weren't interested in doing anything to move the process forward and we were in danger of missing our closing date over it.
We'd been all over everything, getting everything resolved as quickly as possible. The appraisal was the last thing we needed. If not for that we probably would have closed early... but that lender just wouldn't push to find someone and get it done. We were 3 weeks into the process and they didn’t have an appraisal scheduled, couldn’t tell us when they could get one scheduled, couldn’t promise us we would close on time and couldn’t give us the name of the person on the “escalation team” that we’d supposedly been escalated too. Interestingly - within hours of telling the unhelpful person that we were done with him and going somewhere else my wife and I were finally contacted by two other people in the company about the issue… too late!
Because we acted we'll still get to close on time - still a couple days early maybe I think, by some miracle. Somewhat in the “silver lining” category, this may also end up saving us a few hundred dollars by switching.
My submission of Traveller's Checks and Bearer checks have reached PMG - at least, they’re at the PO waiting for pick-up. I'm reasonably confident that those will come home before the move since PMG seems less swamped than NGC. But I think that will be the last submission to be set to come to this address.
I have picked out the Z coins I want to send in to NGC - a 12-14 coin submission that I think will bolster that set nicely, but more on that later hopefully - and I'm planning a new submission to PMG - which should include a P-3 note or two to close a final hole in my 1st dollar set and some gas ration coupons I want to add to my larger set. PMG seems to think they'll be willing to grade them, so, since I'll be sending them with the P-3s, I'll chance it. I think I'll set up the paperwork to have those shipped back to my in-laws address though.

I have been collecting since I was 8 years old and turn 61 in 2 weeks.  I had the usual starts and stops but for the most part my collecting was always there for me.  I got more serious about a few series in 2013 when I got a new job and needed to escape to my coins.  By way of back ground I am a Trauma Surgeon and have seen suffering, death and dying on a daily basis.  Coins have ben my escape, my safe place, after God it is were I go for peace (this sounds weak and whiny but it is what it is.)  My first passion is as a type collector of pre-1964 US coins.  My set is not number 1 nor will it be but respectable at number 4 currently (https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/90973/).  I got interested in putting together a set of nice Liberty Standing Quarters (SLQ) in an album, and did, but along the way picked up certified coins that I broke out for the album and the some that I just could not break out... Thus started my SLQ registry set (https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/138325/) at a less respectable #12.  With this set I have sought eye appeal and full heads (holder designated or not) over grade numbers and points.  i.e. my 1919-D is a 58 FH that I replaced a 64 flat head with.  And I love the 20 Cent series, short and sweet.  I spent 7 years chasing my 1877 with cameo appearance, now #3 (https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/185444/).
My point is that the registry Mark Salzberg and the great staff of the NGC registry have reenabled my passion of albums, both the cardboard and the virtual (registry.)   The NGC Registry is like a virtual Dansco or Whitman or Intercept Shield album.  I find that for me the coin is only fully in the NGC Virtual album (registry) once I have photographed it and placed a cropped photo in the set on which I am working.  The decision to again accept PCGS in addition to NGC makes NGC in general and Mark Salzberg in particular the bigger and better grading company, registry and man/collector.  My main point is that with 53 years of collecting NGC has been instrumental in helping me to keep collecting and my wits about me. Thank you.
Thank You Mark ,Thank You Registry staff and Thank You NGC for being inclusive (not PCG exclusive) and fostering our great hobby.
How did I get to # 7, very slowly with no goal to get there.
 
John
 
 
 


 

I very much enjoy a nice cold coin especially many of the early designs, but even some of the modern designs are very nice and present well.   As the price of gold has jumped up significantly I have curtailed most of my buying on the hope that what goes up must come down, at least that is what I am hopping for anyway.  However a couple of nice opportunities did present themselves over the past year and I did pull the trigger on a nice XF $3 gold piece and just a week ago on an AU $1 Liberty Head coin.  As a side note I cannot fathom what anyone was thinking by coining such a tiny coin, I see no way in the world that these could have circulated without being lost constantly.   The $3 coin is graded by PCGS and on a whim I sent it in to CAC with a group of coins where it was blessed with a green bean.   The most recent $1 coin was bought raw to place in my raw AU gold type set, I actually have a PCGS holdered example but just couldn't bring myself to break it out of the old green label holder to put in the raw set.  So now I need just three coins to complete the set; an Indian head $1 (which again I have one in an old holder just not willing to break it out), an Indian head $10 coin, and a double eagle.
But two of those are rather expensive at current levels and prices would drop quite alot if the spot price continues to slide down as it has been doing recently and were to approach the levels we were at a year or two ago.   So what are your thoughts, are you buying at current levels or are you like me and for the most part taking a wait and see stance on buying gold coins.

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

So, unlike with the PMG plaque, which arrived on 2/27 - much to my shock – I can’t really call this one a surprise in the mail. I’d seen other’s posting about getting theirs on Monday and Tuesday, so I knew the arrival of this package was probably imminent. Still, it was great to get it.
My home office and my windows sit almost directly above the front door to the house, so I heard the carrier scanning the barcodes and the beeping as it was dropped off and I wondered in that moment if that’s what it was because I wasn’t expecting anything else in the mail today.
I didn’t open it right away. I took it upstairs and stuck it in the bedroom to wait until after the kids were asleep. I will likely repeat what I did last year and try to get a shot of the two boys together this year holding the two plaques for this year now that I have both, but I wanted to get a minute and just enjoy opening this and looking at it in peace myself. I opened the PMG plaque with Sam around and it took a while before he let me have it back.


So, here’s the coin:

A MS64 1881-S Morgan, which will be quite a partner / buddy for my MS64 1882-S Morgan.  I'm now ranked in the top 1,700 for Morgan sets in the registry. It's straight to the top now! #1 set, 2021 awards!
I had guessed that the coin would be a 1 or 2 ounce graded silver NCLT from 2020. I was wrong and very pleasantly surprised. Fenntucky Mike posted an image of his full slab and (unsurprisingly) looks like all these Award Winner coins have the same 7-digit invoice number and they’re numbered 001 through… 50? I think? He got number -008 and I have -022. Gary appears to have -034.I wonder who got -001? Who got the last / highest number. I'm sure it was all random but it is funny to think about.
(Edited to add this bit, which I'd said as a comment elsewhere) Honestly, the sheer number of coins they had to give away - and the unstated expectation that everyone would be getting the same / mostly the same thing - is the main reason I was REALLY expecting the coin to be 2020 NCLT, just because those would fit because of the year and would be easy to get in an arbitrarily large number in the same basic grade / condition (69/70).They really surprised me with this one, managing to give 50+ people MS64 Morgans from San Francisco from just a couple of years, but, as Gary said, they are more common dates. Even then, I really wonder if it was at all "interesting" to round them up and how they went about it - Did they go into the market for RAW coins until they had enough MS64s? Did they buy some of their previously graded MS64's on the market? A little of both?
When the PMG plaque arrived I posted a shot of the 5 together and Fenntucky Mike said something along the lines of I’d need another or a bigger shelf soon. I shifted some things around, cleaned up my desk, and popped over to Michael’s to buy another stand last month, so here is my proof. I made it work (for now). If NGC or PMG are nice enough to give me something next year I'll cross that bridge and deal with that “problem” when the time comes.

I also got the new certificates in the mail over the weekend. So far, I’ve managed to keep track of all the certificates I’ve gotten since 2016 – including now 5 certificates for the 10G set for all the years since my marriage and Ben's birth.. 
Thanks again to NGC! Thanks again for those who read these and say they like it / what I write.
The version of myself that Joined the registry in 2007, the version of myself that started this journal as a 20 year old, did not, and would not have imagined this. Not what’s sitting on my desk hutch now, not my life as it is now, not my wife or my sons, not this past year.
I’m not done yet! More to come!
Side note, but one of Shandy’s current obsessions is our next housing situation. With our current lease up on 3/31/2022 she’s looking to move us closer to her parents for more access to free baby-sitting and more date nights. So there’s a good chance that, if I win anything next year – be it plaques or certificates – they’ll be delivered to the new address / the new home or subject to mail forwarding. But we’re hoping that will be the last home – for the foreseeable future anyway. She was looking at this last night even!
I think Ben’s Beyblade collection now numbers 19 – with three more seemingly lost forever in some magical void that only children can access in some 1-way capacity. I’m pretty committed to not buying more but he does get a weekly allowance now so what ne does with his allowance is his business!

When I shipped my box of 10G coins (and a few others) last week I was pretty happy/ content to fork over an extra $26 for Registered mail. The box in question was worth about $5,000-6,000 dollars and contained 12 years of a collecting journey. I would have a hard time finding another 1880, 1887 and 1888 in Gem or near gem grades. I do not want to lose those.
However, I'm hoping to queue up 2 more submissions soon - one to NGC and one to PMG, both related to my Zimbabwe collection, that are going to have a total value of $20-50 each. It's hard to justify paying an extra $26 to protect against the loss of things that are so casually replaceable. Increasingly find that I don't even really consider insurance much once the cost of the insurance starts to exceed about 10% of the cost of the item - including and especially these service / warranty plans that Amazon keeps trying to sell me on electronics.
Anyway, it's just a funny thing to think about - for me anyway.
I'm hoping to belt out these next couple of submissions within the next couple of months - I'm hoping I don't let it drag into another 8 month ordeal of trying to convince myself to deal with it. With the 10Gs just the idea of how best to package and pad them was a very big deal for me, but I can tell already I'm just going to be a lot less worried about a Z-coin submission on a bunch of levels. But I guess that makes sense when the value and effort involved is 0.5-1.0% that of the first box. With the last box I ended up stealing some of my wife's more sad-looking hair-ties because I couldn't find rubber bands. Well... "stealing..." I did ask her if it was okay first... For the first one anyway.  
The big things that are going to hold these up for now is that I need to order the coins from a domestic dealer that actually has and sells them - it has been surprisingly hard to find US-based sellers for the Zimbabwe coin sets - and included in that coin order will be a couple more notes I need for filling holes. I don't think I want to make my notes / traveller check submission and then have to submit these other notes (like a P-40 and P-45) separately. I'd like to just knock them all out together. 
Side note but tracking says the box with the 10G coins was delivered today. It got to Sarasota on Monday. For all the noise that gets made about Registered Mail slowing things down a lot - and with even USPS saying it can slow shipping by 6-10 days - that got to Florida pretty quickly - even with the supposed high package volume that is supposedly slowing USPS down.
The box also contains a 1975 Bahama's gold coin - the only raw gold coin that I own - that I decided to get graded because... why not? And a couple of old raw civil war tokens. I wanted to add those to the 4 graded ones I have and maybe one of these days I'll get back into collecting those more seriously again. The ones I have are some of my favorite diversions in my collection / collecting. I really enjoy this history of them. but then, I really enjoy the history of a lot of coins, including my growing set of "golden nickels."

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

Today while working I had the unfortunate encounter with one of the most ugly (I am talking the persons character not physical looks) and nasty individuals for quite some time.  I had such a very nice weekend spending time with my family over the weekend, my youngest daughter was unable to come home for Christmas so this was a second celebration for the family.  And then today BAMM!! this jerk slaps me in the face with the most despicable display of rude, dishonest, and awful behavior; really a downer after such a fantastic weekend.
For those that do not know I own a small vending company and while servicing a car dealership account today I had placed a items on a table next to the vending machines.   An older service customer came in and sat down at this table and immediately began to spray the table down with some antiseptic spray and wipe the table off.   I was busy at the machine but was going to move the items off the table for him when he just pushed a case of energy drinks off the table onto the tile floor damaging several.  He then proceeds to turn around and give this smug smirch and say oh I'm sorry but those shouldn't have been there anyway; what a jack knob!!   I mean it was 7AM this tool had the entire waiting room and could have sat anywhere.   Needless to say I wanted so badly to pound on this guy, but as a vender in another business I have to bite my tongue and control my urge to cream this jerk.  
I usually tend to think that people over the age of 60 have better morals and ethics but every now and then I meet one that reminds me that disrespectful nasty people come in all ages.    Phew, ok I'm better after venting, back to your regular programing.  

When I first started collecting coins, I purchased whatever caught my attention with little to no discipline. As I matured, I found myself focused on EAC and early U.S. type coins. Eventually, I abandoned those areas of focus and shifted my attention to world coins. More specifically, almost all of my collecting efforts are focused on English and Irish copper, emphasizing the Soho coinage.
Perhaps it is this intense focus that makes my newest purchase so odd. It is not copper, it not English or Irish, and it predates the bulk of my collection by multiple centuries. Given that this coin is so far removed from my ordinary pursuits, I would have been lost without the detailed description inscribed on the envelope by the previous owner, Eric Newman. The envelope is marked Arab Sasasnian Abbasid Silver ½ Dirham. The description continues identifying the piece as struck at Tabaristan Mint (Muqatil). Newman graded this piece as XF, and he noted that it was acquired from the Morris Collection. I find this coin interesting, and I look forward to doing a little more research as time permits, but this is not the only reason I purchased it.
As it relates to my area of focus, the world coin market is very hot right now. The higher prices have made it difficult for me to add new examples to my collection while maintaining the general quality I have come to expect. As an alternative, I have been purchasing relatively inexpensive eye appealing coins to hone my photography skills. I have a fair amount of experience with copper, but silver is a metal that I rarely work with when photographing coins. The fact that this coin was silver, toned, and not perfectly round made it an ideal candidate to test my skills. Overall, I think the images do a decent job capturing the color and character of the coin, but I found the editing portion to be cumbersome as I had to test out entirely new techniques to account for the jagged edges and irregular shape. I am happy with how the images turned out, and I look forward to applying the lessons learned from this experience to a much more complicated project already in the queue.

Arab Sasasnian Abbasid, AR ½ Dirham, AH 174 (AD 790-791)
Issue: Muqatil – Governor of Tabaristan
Mint: Tabaristan
Size/Weight: 23.20mm, 1.80g
Provenance: Eric Newman Collection, Morris Collection

Today while working I had the unfortunate encounter with one of the most ugly (I am talking the persons character not physical looks) and nasty individuals for quite some time.  I had such a very nice weekend spending time with my family over the weekend, my youngest daughter was unable to come home for Christmas so this was a second celebration for the family.  And then today BAMM!! this jerk slaps me in the face with the most despicable display of rude, dishonest, and awful behavior; really a downer after such a fantastic weekend.
For those that do not know I own a small vending company and while servicing a car dealership account today I had placed a items on a table next to the vending machines.   An older service customer came in and sat down at this table and immediately began to spray the table down with some antiseptic spray and wipe the table off.   I was busy at the machine but was going to move the items off the table for him when he just pushed a case of energy drinks off the table onto the tile floor damaging several.  He then proceeds to turn around and give this smug smirch and say oh I'm sorry but those shouldn't have been there anyway; what a jack knob!!   I mean it was 7AM this tool had the entire waiting room and could have sat anywhere.   Needless to say I wanted so badly to pound on this guy, but as a vender in another business I have to bite my tongue and control my urge to cream this jerk.  
I usually tend to think that people over the age of 60 have better morals and ethics but every now and then I meet one that reminds me that disrespectful nasty people come in all ages.    Phew, ok I'm better after venting, back to your regular programing.  

Today while working I had the unfortunate encounter with one of the most ugly (I am talking the persons character not physical looks) and nasty individuals for quite some time.  I had such a very nice weekend spending time with my family over the weekend, my youngest daughter was unable to come home for Christmas so this was a second celebration for the family.  And then today BAMM!! this jerk slaps me in the face with the most despicable display of rude, dishonest, and awful behavior; really a downer after such a fantastic weekend.
For those that do not know I own a small vending company and while servicing a car dealership account today I had placed a items on a table next to the vending machines.   An older service customer came in and sat down at this table and immediately began to spray the table down with some antiseptic spray and wipe the table off.   I was busy at the machine but was going to move the items off the table for him when he just pushed a case of energy drinks off the table onto the tile floor damaging several.  He then proceeds to turn around and give this smug smirch and say oh I'm sorry but those shouldn't have been there anyway; what a jack knob!!   I mean it was 7AM this tool had the entire waiting room and could have sat anywhere.   Needless to say I wanted so badly to pound on this guy, but as a vender in another business I have to bite my tongue and control my urge to cream this jerk.  
I usually tend to think that people over the age of 60 have better morals and ethics but every now and then I meet one that reminds me that disrespectful nasty people come in all ages.    Phew, ok I'm better after venting, back to your regular programing.  

Today while working I had the unfortunate encounter with one of the most ugly (I am talking the persons character not physical looks) and nasty individuals for quite some time.  I had such a very nice weekend spending time with my family over the weekend, my youngest daughter was unable to come home for Christmas so this was a second celebration for the family.  And then today BAMM!! this jerk slaps me in the face with the most despicable display of rude, dishonest, and awful behavior; really a downer after such a fantastic weekend.
For those that do not know I own a small vending company and while servicing a car dealership account today I had placed a items on a table next to the vending machines.   An older service customer came in and sat down at this table and immediately began to spray the table down with some antiseptic spray and wipe the table off.   I was busy at the machine but was going to move the items off the table for him when he just pushed a case of energy drinks off the table onto the tile floor damaging several.  He then proceeds to turn around and give this smug smirch and say oh I'm sorry but those shouldn't have been there anyway; what a jack knob!!   I mean it was 7AM this tool had the entire waiting room and could have sat anywhere.   Needless to say I wanted so badly to pound on this guy, but as a vender in another business I have to bite my tongue and control my urge to cream this jerk.  
I usually tend to think that people over the age of 60 have better morals and ethics but every now and then I meet one that reminds me that disrespectful nasty people come in all ages.    Phew, ok I'm better after venting, back to your regular programing.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

Short version – do all the things I still haven’t done from 2020, 2019, 2018 etc
Longer version – I bought less coins in 2020 than I have done for many years, and this is not because of the current environment we all find ourselves in, but that the higher grade coins in my collecting areas, even the minors, seem increasingly scarce and have rapidly moved beyond by budget making completing sets effectively impossible.
At least partial acceptance of this fact prompted some specific research into ancients and banknotes, two areas I have always been interested in and still follow, and the situation is very similar – quality examples are very expensive, even more so than coins. Financially it looks like I should have concentrated on banknotes of the British colonies rather than their coins!
So where does that leave things? It is no doubt apparent that I have an interest in varieties, this coupled with the rapid improvement in photography of auction lots, has made identifying such things much easier which is great – and even negates the need to buy the actual coin which is a bonus when you can’t afford them. Documenting this level of detail may not always be possible within the standard references, which makes rarity etc somewhat difficult to establish, and it would be useful to have such information available.
This Journal would be a good place for me to start, and evolve, such a study for the series I am familiar with as committing to paper, albeit electronic, often highlights gaps in the information available which my memory just doesn’t do any more,  so it was a nice surprise to receive another Journal Award from NGC. This was particularly appreciated as friends and family would probably describe me as more of a practical person and allergic to paperwork. I do hope to continue adding to my collection however a shift in focus from date-runs means that Custom Sets will be more appropriate although the current possibilities for these still have plenty of empty slots before they are coherent enough to be added to the Registry.
I hope everyone makes progress on their goals for 2021 be it coins or anything else (apparently my wife thinks the kitchen needs painting etc etc).

Well the 2020 registry awards are in the books, it was a good year for me with 6 best in category awards one better than last year.  Hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of additions and hang on to those for next year, that task may be much more difficult depending on if the launce of the ANA registry brings in more heavy hitters from the PCGS registry.  But maybe with a couple of adds here or there I can keep up on most of last years wins.  Time to begin planning and chasing once again to further my collection and hunt down a few new coins for 2021, thanks to  fellow forum member Six MiIe Rick I was able to add a few zincoln coins to my 09 to date Lincoln set already this year including my first shield cents.