USAuPzlBxBob

He'll be back.  (simply)

Surreptitiously?  Maybe.

Last I looked, his Rooster collection is still here… Ranked 6th.

First, he was a Roman praetor (Jack Hawkins), then he morphed into a butterfly… Papillon (Steve McQueen) — first escapee from Devil's Island.

Maybe he'll morph yet again, possibly as a Mockingbird?  Boo Radley (Robert Duval)

We need to get to springtime first, after the dark days of winter are behind us.

On 11/7/2022 at 12:20 PM, VKurtB said:

I have had the unfortunate experience of facing darned serious (threatening end of life THREE times now) medical issues. It does have a tendency to lower one’s appetite for nonsense. Been there, done that. But the place where self-awareness is MOST LACKING here is nobody cares that Quintus is also facing serious medical issues. He deals with it differently. His coping mechanism is irreverent humor, as is mine.

Have you ever seen that online “test” where you are shown an item and you have to choose from two words that you call that item (soda vs. pop is one example) and the test will tell you where you grew up? Well I grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles NW of Philly. The test determined I grew up in New York City. That’s how close the two cultures are. A mere 25 miles south of Reading MOST of the answers are different. What’s okay humor in Reading is completely inappropriate 25 miles away. IT’S ALL CULTURAL. 

Uh oh.

Wishing you the best going forward.

Bob

Looks like today, last day of the year for trading, is everyone's tax loss harvesting day.

Then, January of every new year everyone has cold feet — literally and figuratively.

Most every January there comes a point where I wish I had sold off to some extent the month before.

I never do, though, and I just ride things out, enjoying the Div & Int streams until things come back.

However, I will admit…  2024 does pique a certain amount of angst.  More than usual.

Still remember seeing the movie in the theater — widescreen — and being somewhat disappointed with the ape opening… until the jawbone was tossed skyward and suddenly:  outer space, the beautiful Ferris wheel — filled up the screen — and the music was some classical piece for ballet dancers of yore.

Quite the movie.

All of my Investments are in IRAs, so I haven't tax harvested in over 20 years.

In my portfolio, for years, I would see INTC in red… in fact, just 13 months ago it was negative by six grand.  Always up a little, and then down a little… or a little more.

To add insult to injury, beside its ledger line on my Schwab dashboard, their Rating for it displays an F grade?  (my only equity with such dubious distinction)

However, in just this last month it finally turned green, and now sports a grand Gain.

Today is the day I will be withdrawing my final IRA distribution for the year, calculated to leave me just $1000 short of the 2025 IRMAA threshold.

"Gather those rosebuds."  Larry Wachtel

On 12/24/2023 at 5:45 PM, VKurtB said:

But did the Mexicans need badges?

No, but they did a number on Bogey at the end.

He knew he was in trouble when one of the underlings close to the ground kept lifting up the bottom of his pants to get a better look at his shoes, wanting them for himself.
The cool thing about embedded YouTubes on the Chat Boards here is no commercials!

"Like roulette, one more turn…"

Walter Huston won Best Supporting Actor for his role in this movie.

Hover your cursor over the member's profile and click.

Then click Activity for the upshot.

Got a refund but took an 80 euro bath.

Hasn't been back since August.

Unfortunately for me, my Truist position was acquired in February 2020, just before it fell off a cliff.  Fired my Financial Advisor 10 months later, but kept their diversification.

Truist has a Schwab Raking of D, by the way.  My shares have a mountain to climb still before they begin appearing as "green" in the Gain/Loss column.  Alas, alack, and Alaska.

However, at approximately the same time as the Truist was acquired, I was placed into AVGO.  Fantastic dividend and 250% Gain for the same time period.

Couldn't resist…

Probably in the dead of winter, hopefully with snow falling outside, I intend to look at my scant gold coin collection… in person.

Takes hours to gain access to the coins, and while I'm at it maybe I'll take new photos of a few of them using the knowledge I gained last year when I took photos of my newly edge-tapped 1839 $2.5 Classic Head, which impressed even me.

Other than that, maybe I'll try to improve my Registry Comments on a few of the coins.  Make them less laborious, but certainly not take the route of abbreviation seen by cell phone jockeys, who make you wonder what level of education they've attained in life.

I had forgotten that one of my gold coins had a tiny "issue."

An Apple Notes Note for my coins shows:  1876 CC abrasion on reverse below stars, and tiny black ring circle

When I looked into possibly having it addressed just now, the fees involved would be on the order of $750.

I'll live with it "As Is."

Just to show you how ridiculous it would be to spend $750 and risk a successful regrade after conservation, here is the problem issue:

At the base of the T in UNITED is a tiny, hollow, circular "something" that is black in color.

The grade on this 1876-CC Double Eagle is MS 60, and I think it squeaked under the grading radar of Details - Cleaning.

So, sending it in for conservation would be pushing my luck, since it would get another grading "going over."

If you have a gold coin that is currently graded & slabbed by NGC and you send it to NCS for conservation, they deem the coin worthy of their conservation methods, is there any chance that the coin might come back with a lower grade than it had before?

Type Collection Manager into the NGC Search "window" and pursue things from your renewed perspective.

You'll learn a lot if you have perspicacity.

Went with the acid/caustic guess.  Technically, saltwater is a subset of acids/caustics since if they are mixed together you get "water" and "salt."

Example:     HCl             +          NaOH             =    H2O   +      NaCl

         Hydrochloric Acid  +  Sodium Hydroxide  =  Water  +  Table Salt

Redline68,

It now is at 60, so it is definitely working again.

As I keep a log of my competitive and custom set view counts, it was getting to the point where I wondered:  Why bother looking to see if the custom set has received a view, it never, ever increases?

I'm stunned to see it moving upward again!

The big question now will be:  Will it show any further view counts goin forward in the weeks and months to come?

Remember, it didn't budge for over a year and a half.

On 5/2/2022 at 1:45 PM, Ali E. said:

Hello. We have been notified that the view count on your custom set was resolved. Please let us know if you have further issues. A set will show zero views when it is first created. View count also may not update until our daily software update runs in the evenings. Thank you.

On 5/15/2022 at 1:24 PM, USAuPzlBxBob said:

Ali, I just visited my Custom Set while logged on, my first test of this since the Blue Heart from you was noticed, and it did not update its View(s) count.  So far, so good.

I will inspect the View(s) counter later on today, and even into the evening — without visiting my Custom Set — to give the daily software update a chance to run, and see if all remains well.

Thank you for you help.

Bob

 

Ali,

Since April 12, 2022 my custom set (Puzzle Box Gold) has remained at 58 view counts.  I figured no one ever looked at it, and that was all.

However, on October 19, 2023 I asked a fellow member (The 12th Denticle) to view my custom set — he looked at several coins in it and was very thorough with his "viewing test" — and it did not update with a view count.

This leads me to believe that when "the view count on your custom set was resolved" the resolver essentially turned off my custom set view counter completely.

Since this constitutes a "further issue," please have someone (a resolver) look into what might be going with my custom set view counter.

Thank you.

Bob

I viewed The 12th Denticle Custom Set (Custom Sets >> World Coins >> 1 Peso Coins… ) earlier today and it updated from 24 to 25 immediately.

I've asked him (private message) to view my Custom Set.

It will be interesting to see if my Custom Set updates above 58 views for the first time since April 12, 2022.

Ali E.,

The major question that this thread would like to clarify is…

Is the View Counter for Custom Sets working properly, in every way, as intended?

The current opinion by The 12th Denticle, and myself, is:  No, it is not updating when anyone other than the owner of the Custom Set views a Custom Set.

In other words… the Custom Sets View Counter is broken.

Is it broken?  Please investigate using NGC engineers.

Bob

Recommend an 1862 $1 US Gold, around MS 64.

You get a piece of history (US Civil War) and for a small gold coin it will hold its own among your other coins… may even whet your appetite for collecting other US gold.

They don't call it "gold fever" for nothing.

For over a year now, as I would keep data on Views to my Registry Sets, I've watched as my Puzzle Box Gold (Custom Set) would not get a single view, and I merely thought no one was looking at Custom Sets.

However, this past week The 12th Denticle sent me a private message telling me about how his Custom Set was not showing any Views, either.

So, we each looked at each other's Custom Set, to see if we could register a View Count, we even waited over a day to let NGC's software have time to update things in the evening, and we have verified that the View Counter is not updating when anyone looks at our Custom Sets… sets that we put so much work into.

Anyone else noticing this peculiarity?

Here's the latest update to this project, six months to the day since I last posted.

The Carson City run fizzled-out as soon as it was brought to light in my prior post on April 1, 2023.

Newly added to this graph is my Puzzle Box Gold (Custom Set), which is very revealing.  It has not recorded a single view in over a year.  Unless you have a collection that is "exciting" — like Shipwreck Coins — no one is interested in Custom Sets.  Also, the old format/presentation of the Custom Sets just doesn't "have it" compared to the Competitive Sets format/presentation of coins.  NGC needs to roll up their sleeves on this deficiency.

All of my Competitive Sets, with the exception of Denver, are making View gains on Puzzle Box Gold, hoping to unseat it.

In order of "ferocity," their gains are as follows:

               Competitive Set                       View Gains (relative to PBG)
                  Philadelphia                                           +10
                  Carson City                                             +7
Charlotte / Dahlonega / New Orleans                       +5
                 San Francisco                                          +4
                     Denver                                                  -2

Had my own run in with this sort of thing a month ago.  Four or more attempts per day.  Even got to the point where I checked — independently — to see if any breaches had occurred.

Best advice I can give is inspect each email with just a single click — to "see" them without opening them — and then delete them, followed by deleting them even further by deleting them in the Trash, too.  Maybe even go further by keeping a Notes file of who, what, where, and when as that sort of information may later reveal how well you've been parrying the threats.

The good news is… when the bot decides to "move on," you're eventually left alone.  (I hope.)