Fenntucky Mike

On 10/14/2021 at 11:37 PM, VE Coins said:

I love Czechoslovakian notes,

I only have one Czech note but it's probably my favorite note, design wise, the 1929 50 Korun. It's a beauty!

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Hello, and welcome. I will be using this journal to chronicle my adventures with the registry and my collection. I’ve been active on the registry now for almost a year and have started working on many sets, the main area that I would like to focus on is Eastern Europe. Mainly Latvia and Ukraine but I would love to expand into other countries eventually. I’ve been working on my Latvia 5 Euro set and I’m looking forward to getting my most recent submission back to work on that.

I’ve been reading the Revenant’s Journals on here and as well as inspiring me to do a journal myself it got me thinking about how I view my registry collection. And I viewed it as keeping it a secret but I realized that I would like to share more of my coin collecting journey. Hopefully I can keep my journal updated fairly regularly in case anyone else is interested in the journey. Until next time

My fellow collector of Ukrainian coinage welcome! I look forward to reading your journal entries and discussing coins, any coins. 

Psst... I'm big into Ukrainian banknotes as well, let me know if you want to talk paper money. 

On 10/11/2021 at 7:22 PM, Revenant said:

Mike and I have used it to avoid each other in auctions a few times I think. But what we overlap on isn't rare so it's easy to just wait for the next one in most cases

Yep, and if one of us was to out bid the other the looser would never let the winner here the end of it.  I'm going to pass on that abuse.  

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Just talk to Mike. He can attest - I'm not crazy!  

....... JK. William is a blast to chat with!

It would be more fun if individuals were more active within registry sets, heck, bring it to the boards don't be shy.  I've gone back and forth with some of my fellow set collectors, I've sold and bought coins and traded information with some of them, but for the most part they don't seem to be that interested in carrying out a conversation or chatting in depth about a series. More just trying to get the next coin. I don't know if the silence is more of a strategy for people or if they just don't want to talk but I've gotten over both and it's way more enjoyable.

On 10/2/2021 at 8:44 PM, Revenant said:

Not throwing shade or anything, you mileage may vary, but I find that 500-750 words is more attention-span friendly and more approachable. I also tend to find that if I'm going over 1000 words I'm probably going off on unnecessary tangents or trying to talk about too much and I need to split the post into more posts.

I'm working on Journal Entry "Part 5" this morning and it might spill over into a sixth. 

I think they shipped Friday and the submission details updated later.  

Congrats on the coins shipping and the grades. I'm with you in that there are probably a lot of very dedicated NGC individuals working OT and weekends to get submissions through as quickly as possible. A big shoutout to them! 

The additional coins being submitted ahead of yours is interesting but not a threat IMO, if I were you I'd love it if someone uploaded a set just before the deadline that ended up having more points. Imagine the look on their face if you were to receive a Best Presented set from NGC and they had their little ribbon icon or whatever it is now. Like you said earlier "bring it on".  

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Sorry this entry ended up being so long. Thanks for hanging with me if you did.

Pfft! You ain't seen nothing yet. I've got a doozy going over at PMG that I am going to unleash on innocent people and it's a total flub. 

On 10/1/2021 at 6:39 PM, Revenant said:

Not today, my friend. 83 working days. We're going at least to 84.

On 9/30/2021 at 2:24 PM, Revenant said:

Well, I guess it really is "two steps forward, one step back." ... Back to "Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging."

I was really hoping I'd see grades this week / before the weekend but... 

Oh well... Maybe there was a problem with a label or something that they caught in QC. I just need to try to be happy that they caught it, if so, and be grateful that I (hopefully) won't have to mail any Mechanical Errors back for correction.

Oh, it is so close to shipping, maybe tomorrow.  My orders always seem to ship on a Friday for some reason.

I also had movement on the submission front, the descriptions were updated today on a couple of the coins and they are described as I had hoped they would be. 

Only 59+ more days to go. 

On 9/28/2021 at 7:11 PM, Revenant said:

Just come clean and admit it! It's you! Isn't it! You submitted those! 

Lol, no it wasn't me but now I wish I had.  I would have submitted them too late anyway, but I could've been a contender for 2022. 

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What would be the odds of that?!?

... Zero. 

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That is a very interesting coincidence of timing.

Interesting, yes. Coincidence, I'm skeptical. 

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A saner, smarter, person might look at this and wonder if they should shut up and keep their plans to themselves… but I’m not that person! Come at me, Bro!  This whole thing just got soooo much more interesting. I think I’m actually more excited now. 

100%!

You're cracking me up with this.  I'm glad I'm not alone in being a complete collecting nut case, but you still have a ways to go before you hit my level of insanity. 

So glad to hear that Sam is on the mend. Great news!

On 9/26/2021 at 1:24 PM, Revenant said:

Sam is home. Weak, shaky, grumpy, angry and recovering but home.

On 9/24/2021 at 6:45 PM, Revenant said:

If you want a few I can probably send some your way before long. I have extras and I plan to buy more to look through soon.

Thanks for the offer! I'm gonna hold of on getting any of these for now,  if I do acquire any it'll be a completely random act or pure chance, like a few were in a bulk lot of coins I purchased. All joking aside I have been seriously contemplating going after some Rhodesian coinage but I just haven't been able to pull the trigger on it yet. I've thought about going for some Rhodesian banknotes as well but some of those have some pretty hefty price tags.  I got scared, but I keep finding myself looking at them.

Poor little dude, we're all pulling for him and quick recovery. 

Did you get imaging through NGC for the Zim coins? I imagine you didn't as you take excellent pics of your own, but I wonder how many NGC would have imaged for their own use? It will be a good comparison, your images vs NGC Photo Vision. That's one of the advantages about collecting coins that no one else does and submitting them, if NGC does not have an image of a coin for their records they will image the coins and send you a copy.  Since no one else in their right mind would send in Zim coins you probably have a good chance of getting NGC images of most or yours. 

Maybe the next time I need to spend a couple of extra bucks to qualify for free shipping I'll throw a Zim coin or two in the cart.  Better watch out. 

On 9/21/2021 at 6:37 PM, Revenant said:

Have you factored in the holidays and your conservation in that? You're getting your coins back in like March.

Pfft, conservation, imaging, I'm screwed.  LOL. I'm planning a submission to PMG early next year and I'm pretty sure I'll get those notes back before the coins. 

On 9/21/2021 at 4:56 PM, Revenant said:

 "Are you not entertained?" 

Indeed. 

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As of today, World Modern turnaround times are up again to 93 working days...

That officially pushes me into 2022. Should have sent my coins in when I said I would, but noooo I dragged my feet hoping for the turnaround times to get better. 

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I'm wondering if they'll hit 100.

Yes.

While I'm seeing VERY slight improvements, or at least some leveling off, in regards to lead times for parts/materials here at work, the machine orders just keep pouring in. I don't think we've seen the last push back of turnaround times at NGC. 

On 9/14/2021 at 7:52 AM, Revenant said:

Doesn't make the waiting more fun.

Like waiting on the sun to come up with no power.

No it doesn't but in the end I'm always happy/relieved, mostly relieved. 

Coins are always worth the wait. 

I wonder if it isn't just a "resources shift", U.S. coins are the TPG's bread and butter and it's probably more important to turn those than to catch up on world coins.

Or maybe they just want to clear the decks of U.S. coins before the tidal wave of 2021 Morgan and Peace Dollar commemoratives hit them in October. 

On 9/7/2021 at 10:46 PM, coinsandmedals said:

Update: I received another call from my contact at NGC last week, and things are starting to progress quickly now. Three of the invoices are already in the grading/encapsulation/imaging stage! I will be sure to update this journal as more information becomes available. 

Side note: Things seem to be moving pretty quickly at NGC now. A dealer friend just submitted a medal on my behalf under the early bird tier. Including shipping to and from it only took 29 business days. The published turnaround time is 36 business days, which doesn't include shipping time to and from. It still hasn't been 36 business days, and I now have the coin in hand after being shipped to me from the dealer. Now that's a pretty quick turnaround! 

Glad your coins are moving through quickly Don, can't wait to see the results. 

I fear my own submissions are going to linger for quite a while. When I saw the turnaround time for the Modern tier go from 64 to 85 days and the Economy from 54 to 71 yesterday I pretty much relinquished any hope of seeing the coins before the end of the year. At least 2022 will start off on a good note. 

Blast white any day of the week for me, gorgeous and looks like amazing luster to boot! 

For my current collecting interests, IoM, Ukraine, World NCLT and banknotes, I'm seeing some signs of slowing, mainly due to the certified supply out pacing demand, I think, pricing for raw examples of World NCLT are still high but seem to have plateaued. I tend to think prices for most U.S. coinage and high end World coins could have a long way to go before they crest. Overall I have not seen increases, for raw circulating coinage, beyond what I would normally expect and prices are much the same as they were 1 - 2 years ago. Other than the rise in PMs it has not been to bad, a benefit of playing in the shallow end of the pool.  

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I've always tended to favor the images showing the prongs / holder because the goal of registry images is documentation of the set and the image with the prongs is a more accurate representation of the coin as it is in person but the blacked-out image has a certain cleanness to it and I can understand why it appeals to many.

That's a real tough call.  I guess, if it's my set, I'd lean toward leaving the prongs but.....

Awesome pics by the way. 

On 7/15/2021 at 9:38 AM, Revenant said:

Side note, but the population of ngc-graded MS Zimbabwe coins increased by 2-3 recently, and it wasn't me. 🤔

Huh, that's kind of weird/interesting. Wonder if it's ol' Bonezy.  

Sorry, I couldn't resist. 

They seem to be making some headway in opening the mail, not caught up yet but gaining ground.

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On a similar / related note I've been seeing a lot of Venezuelan and Zimbabwe notes popping up lately in the 55 to 65 range. As more of these things get graded however it's increasingly clear that anything below 66 is just junk that shouldn't have been graded. And it feels weird to say that - because it feels strange to say that a 65 is effectively junk. But the 66s, and 67s and 68s are so common and that makes the 65s so undesirable that they actually sell for less than the discounted bulk grading fees - a complete disaster for someone submitting to resell.

True but at one time they may have been Top Pops, let's say, and then the market got saturated possibly due to the low grades bringing in decent money and large sellers submitting large numbers of the same notes hoping to cash in. Then you get large numbers of 67 - 69 graded notes and even more graded lower and in the end not enough collectors to continue to pay premiums for even the 68 graded notes. That's what I'm seeing with the Ukrainian notes anyway. Almost every modern note is not difficult to find in a high grade, same with NCLT and moderns here, and playing the grading game with moderns is good in the beginning and usually terrible anytime after that. If Notehobby or BNW submitted 20 or so of those Traveller's checks, could be trouble for 65's & 66's.

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I suppose the P72 is one exception I shouldn't ignore though. 

That one is a head scratcher, with 44 at 66 or above and 74 total graded (including replacements), I just don't get it.  And it's killing me because I would like to get one for my signature set, as you know.