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Naked Angel

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Journal Entries posted by Naked Angel

  1. Naked Angel

    A Find of a Lifetime

    By Naked Angel,


    Great Find
    Hello everyone, It's been a long time since I made a journal entry, but I'm back.  I didn't stop adding to my collection, I just got lazy and stopped writing about it.  I had to share this story though.  Earlier this year, my wife and I had been talking about going to our local flea market for a while, and we finally had the chance to go back in May.  We were looking for old stuff that we could use in the new house we are about to start building.  It was a perfect day to go picking, not too hot, and it wasn’t too crowded either.  
    We were wandering around the outside vendors tents and had bought a few things, when we came to an old guy who had mostly pins and patches, silver jewelry, and a few other random things.  I was small talking him while he was cleaning his silver jewelry, and browsing his pin collection.  I didn’t see anything that I couldn’t live without, so I was about to leave.  Just then a bin of coins caught my eye that I hadn’t noticed before, so I started digging through it.  This was the kind of coin bin you find in the “value section” of a coin show...just a lot of random stuff in 2x2 plastic flips.  I saw a Chuck-E-Cheese coin, a couple of arcade tokens, a couple of old casino tokens, and a lot of world coins that weren’t worth much.  I picked a couple of decent coins out of the bin and then something caught my eye.  It was silver and had a ballerina on one side and the Soviet Union insignia on the other.  It was dated 1990, and when I looked closer I could just make out in the tiniest writing...Pd .999.  It didn’t register in my brain at first, because I’d only seen this coin in a book or online once or twice (If you've read my older journals you know I collect Libertads mostly, so I’m no expert on Russian/Soviet coins).  After a minute it sank in that I just found a Palladium coin!
    I picked out 7 coins and tried to be as cool as possible, and asked what’s your price on all of these?  The guy looked at them and hemmed and hawed a minute and then was like, I can do $10 for all of them.  Just then my wife was walking back toward us and almost as soon as he said $10 I yelled DEAL!, and told my wife, give me some money!  As we walked away I still couldn’t believe it, and I think I whispered to her that I just stole from that guy, lol.  At the time of this writing, palladium is $2,767 an ounce, and this coin is a half ounce of Pd.  There were also only 15,000 of these coins minted in 1990, so what this coin was doing in a flea market bargain bin, the world may never know.  I was able to go to the FUN show over the weekend and submitted it to NCS, so now the wait begins.  When it comes back I'll make another journal entry. I had to share because this kind of thing never happens to me!


  2. Naked Angel

    FUN Show fun!

    By Naked Angel,

    I was able to go to the FUN show this past Friday (the 10th), and it was probably the best time I’ve had at the show since I’ve been going.  Living in Orlando has many advantages...and this is one of them!  This was the biggest show that I can remember, with over 1000 booths.  It was tough, but I saw it all in just over 3 hours.  I was able to pick up a 2019 Libertad 5 piece silver proof set for a great price, along with 3 other coins that I needed for my collection.  The gold panning people were there again, and I think in 10 years I might find enough to trade for a 1/10 oz, haha.  I also participated in the coin grading contest at the NGC table, and while it was fun I think I’ll keep my day job!  I didn’t do very well at all, so a new goal for this year is to be a better grader.  Friday evening NGC hosted a reception for registry participants that I attended.  They gave away a sample of the new Sacajawea dollar just for attending.  Mark Salzberg spoke for a few minutes about going through the Armstrong Family collection, and it was really fascinating.  They drew three raffle prizes and this guy won the last one!  I won a 2020 Silver Panda, not bad if I do say so myself.  It was a great start to 2020 and a great start to the collecting year!  If anybody else was there tell us what you thought of the show.
  3. Naked Angel
    Hello everyone,  I wanted to share the results of the batch of coins that I submitted at the FUN show a few weeks ago.  It only took 18 days for NGC to grade them and get them back to me.  That's pretty good for the volume of coins they received at the show!  I submitted 9 Libertads, and 4 of them came back a perfect 70, so I am quite pleased.  My only disappointment is the 1/10 oz gold coin came back MS 68.  I suppose that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes.  If you can't tell from the picture, here is the list...
    2019 1/2 Oz Gold Reverse Proof - Reverse PF 70
    2019 1/10 Oz Gold BU - MS 68
    2019 1/20 Oz Gold BU - MS 69
    2018 1/20 Oz Gold BU - MS 69
    2019 5 Oz Silver Reverse Proof - Reverse PF 70
    2019 2 Oz Silver Antiqued - MS 70 Antiqued
    2017 1 Oz Silver Proof - PF 70 Ultra Cameo
    2016 1 Oz Silver Proof - PF 69 Ultra Cameo
    1987 1 Oz Silver Proof - PF 69 Ultra Cameo Lettered Edge
     
    On another note, I just did the math and realized I am exactly 50% complete with my Libertad typeset I have been working on.  If anyone is interested, check it out...https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinCustomSetView.aspx?s=26162.  
    It's a work in progress, and I hope to add a lot more this year.  

  4. Naked Angel

    We've all been there

    By Naked Angel,

    I wanted to tell a story that we can all relate too that happened recently.  I had a rare instance where I wasn't paying attention and got caught flat footed, and now I probably paid a lot more than I should.  About two months ago the 2019 Antiqued silver Libertads were released, and they sold out without me even knowing about the release until it was too late.  So naturally I was kicking myself for not being on top of things, and after scouring the interwebs I couldn't find anything anywhere.  A few weeks later I was killing some time at work and saw the 1 oz version online, graded NGC MS 70.  The bank just happened to be right across the street so I sped over with the intention of seeing if I could afford it or not.  (It's my play money account so it's not overflowing with cash).  Well, I ended up ordering the coin in the parking lot before I ever went into the bank.  I know we can all identify with that right! Lol.  A little backstory as to the urgency...last year was the first year that Mexico made silver Libertads in an antique finish.  The 1 oz had a mintage of 40,000, which is by far the lowest mintage non-proof silver coin.  The 2 oz and 5 oz coins had a mintage of 2,000 each.  Well this year they threw us a serious curve ball.  The 2 oz and 5 oz coins had their mintage reduced to 1,000.  The real kicker is that the 1 oz went from 40,000 last year to 1,000 this year!  That's 2.5% of the mintage from last year.  I would say it's a true rarity in the Libertad series.  I ended up paying $170, likely way more than I should have if I had been paying attention from the start.  But to me it's well worth it, except for the fact that I have a lot less dry powder now! Haha. 

  5. Naked Angel

    My First Journal

    By Naked Angel,

    Hello everyone, I have been an NGC member for a few years now, and a lurker on the chat boards.  I have never posted on there, or created a journal, but I wanted to create a journal to document my progress.  I recently realized that I had made a tremendous amount of progress this year on my collection of Mexican Libertads.  Like a lot of people, when I first stated collecting I didn't really have a focus.  I just bought a lot of random "junk", like silver bars and rounds, silver bullion coins from different mints around the world, and the occasional gold bullion bar or coin.  That all changed several years ago when I bought my first silver Libertad.  I was instantly hooked.  Over the last few years I stopped buying random stuff and when the budget allowed, made an effort to create a collection of Libertads.  Late last year I decided it was time to get serious about my collection (in a having some serious fun kind of way, lol).  My goals were to cycle through the junk from my early days of collecting and turn that into what I really wanted.  I also had to keep it "budget neutral", because when the wife sees too much money being spent on coins, its a bad day for me.  Now admittedly I have taken a loss on some of the random bullion, but I suppose that is the cost of education.  One highlight was getting a 1 oz gold American Eagle graded, which came back MS 69, and then selling it to raise money for a 2018 1 oz Gold Reverse Proof Libertad.  That was the best decision I've ever made when it comes to coins.  That was sent off and came back an RP 70, and it's the most beautiful coin!  I recently did an inventory check and realized I've added 30 coins to my collection this year so far.  By my standards that's a great year!  Also, my registry sets don't yet reflect my actual collection, because I have probably only 1/3 of my Libs that are graded.  That will be a goal for next year.  I hope to write often about my collection or Libertads in general.  So thanks to anybody who cares to read this, and if you want, leave a comment.  Until next time...