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Star City Homer

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Everything posted by Star City Homer

  1. I'm going a wee bit deeper in one direction than another and will probably be selling my 'best' award winning set off sometime in January (or later). Does that just go away or is there an archive of the major sets stashed somewhere? It's more than a 'best in category' and it was a lot of fun putting together, but it's gotten to the point of being an upgrade game. I have all the photos of course but I've enjoyed the registry presentation of it. Thanks!
  2. If I could only do one show this is the one. Whitman in Baltimore is fun, and I loved my two ANA shows. But NYINC is my favorite. I forgot to ask you if you made the Richmond one. And honestly I'm not even sure if the one near Roanoke has been going on. They changed up the signage out front of the post and it's impossible to read driving by. And on a happy note, I got a message from Instagram saying my account had been 'disabled by mistake'. I happened to be trying again and found my way in--it still wanted to send an SMS code and for whatever reason my phone is not getting them from Instagram. I had the code sent to my husband's phone and made it back into my account. Felt all proud of myself until I read the email and realized they were literally reactivating the account at the same time. My first log in had no name/avatar picture and my second had them both back. It was actually a pretty fast fix considering it was the weekend when it all happened. So, if anyone is interested, I have gotten a few of my 1 yen coins up so far. And it's me again (whoever 'me' is :D)
  3. No, no shows (and never have gotten to the Richmond one). I don't work there anymore so now just passing through if headed to Williamsburg (proud moment/mom-brag, kiddo is about to finish his freshman year at W&M). I do like the Homer name though. He was a good dog. I could get more generic and switch to 'collections', but StarCityCollections is a little yawn. I did grab that domain just in case though. Other than Instagram I'm trying out Wordpress which means I can build a better site. I've let it sit for a couple years with no work because my first attempt was with a proprietary system that was slick at first for a newbie, but really wasn't easy to use once I got to 20+ pages. Moving means redoing the site and this time I decided to be a little more portable and flexible. But I'm still trying to figure it out. Paralysis by analysis is real. Getting a domain name, picking a web host, do they have a site builder or builder plug in I want to use, do I dive into Wordpress or try and 'take a class' so to speak, pick a template....etc. Too many things! And all the templates are for selling, businesses, blogging, etc. Nothing jumps out quickly for a collector just trying to show off coins. I feel like I'm trying to make a very self-centered and egotistical museum. Not a common template out there so time to build up one. Ah well, I digress. No shows for me since forever. I almost made the last NYINC but we had a conflict (a long planned vacation and that got cancelled at the last minute so I didn't get either one). Sigh.
  4. Homer was a good boy (my dog that is) . Poking around I have to guess I clicked a link in a message and got hacked. Apparently that is a thing. My other new account is fine, but I no activity other than suddenly some Rambo coin collectible person is following it. I'm going to delete because that other account has NOTHING to do with coins. Makes me suspicious. Or paranoid. Or in need of a Duff beer. Or a case of Duff beer. I'll restart it at some point. I had some of my best one yen coins up already. In any case, if it was a large scale hacking I'd be more worried. Plus I was thinking of modifying the name and retiring the Homer part. He was my good boy but I get a little sad sometimes with his name in my handle. But my other coin board handle is unlikely to be available and would not mesh well with the StarCity part which I am still attached to. StarCityStork does not do it for me.
  5. ETA: I did get the account back (I'd posted below, but figured the topic got more attention). Well, this old Luddite decided to enter the 21st century. I started a hobby Instagram with my starcityhomer name and another account for my pets about 5 days ago. SCH was doing well, posted some of my nicer yen coins and had about 70 people either following or being followed. Got a security warning and a message I needed to enter a security code sent via SMS. No code arrived (and as a test I added the phone number to my pet account and no SMS would go through there either when I tried setting up two factor authentication). After some painful loops of clicking for password recovery and repeatedly getting dumped in an unhelpful help section, I finally got to an option where an email recovery was sent. Not my email. No emails to me notifying me of a change. Etc. Tried using my email as a recovery input and was told the email was not associated with an Instagram account. For fun I tried setting up a new account, nope that email is already associated with an account (not sure how both statements are true). In any case, and the point of this, the starcityhomer Instagram is not under my control if it even still exists. I know some of the people I connected with are over here. So if you are getting weird things from that account, it's not me! If by some miracle I get my account back I'll post. And if I set up a new one I'll post that too.
  6. I dearly want to go to NYINC this year. Sadly I apparently agreed to a different trip the same weekend. Boo.
  7. I noticed with the consolidation of the Japanese sets that there is a slot for the porcelain/clay coin (at least on the 1 and 10 sen sets, though that slot still needs to be added to the 5 sen). I've been working on my clay issue coins for awhile and have a few sets now. I did not stop to think they could be graded though. Krause (and the JNDA) are a bit sketchy on types though. Before sending in my dozen plus coins, is there a way to determine if they would be slabbed? I would like them slabbed for the protective nature at the very least! But I don't want to be shipping them if there is only an off chance of grading just because Krause didn't show a picture of that denomination in that style so to speak. Here are a few photos. I have a couple more but need to dig around to find them. ( Edited because I found the one sen set! Oops).
  8. I may have asked before, but any chance at expanding some of the Japanese type sets and add a few more? The 1, 5, 10, and 50 sen denominations lend themselves well. The 10 and 50 sen type sets already present don't include ALL types. Also, how about a couple Albanian 1968-1970 proof set. One silver only, the other gold and silver (or just gold)?
  9. I had those on my watch list, very cool you got those! Yep, I sold a few and was not disappointed. Just nothing that was floating my boat to buy though. Sadly some of the best Albanian coins were the ones I was selling . And they were my dupes.
  10. My new set arrived and I made sure to get the 'family photo' with all in the same shot. You can see the sizes (though in retrospect I probably should have added a dime or something for more scale, oh well). Not my greatest lighting, I've diverted two plugs for my new baby chick nursery (apparently I have a new hobby) so two heaters and two lights for me to play with :D. So one shot with the whole set with some tweaking for exposure, then the other two photos for real relative sizing.
  11. Well, they were supposed to be for full circulation, but didn't make it. Depending on source the common may or may not have circulated for 1 to a few days. Millions were minted but release was held until there was enough for sufficient circulation. This plan was interrupted by the war ending. The coins are more durable than they might look, there was apparently a lot of effort into ensuring that. I've seen all of one broken one (not mine, but on another message board). One reference describes drop tests onto various materials, both individually and in groupings. The results were 'satisfactory'. And, it's not like this idea was original. Germany and their porcelain notgeld apparently were an inspiration to attempt coins rather than defaulting to small denominations of paper money. I put a longer post regarding the porcelain coins on a couple other message boards if you get curious as to more details. My alter ego name is different but the avatar should be recognizable. I lost my old handle when the message boards merged with the registry stuff so over here it's Homer. Look for Stork on the other chat sites. In any case, my examples are not close to hand, but my nearby reference lists them as 1 sen 15mm, 5 sen 18 mm, and 10 sen 21 mm after baking. Most of my shots are individual ones pasted together, but perhaps in the next few days I can take one showing a full set in one photo to make the scale perfect. My photos are trying for clarity vs. scale.
  12. I'm always looking for an excuse for this guy! Total 1926 mintage for the 1926 Prince Skanderbeg 20 FrA of all types 6000. Total mintage for the 1926 Prince Skanderbeg 20 FrA with the fasces mark 100. Total estimated survival 10. (90 were reported as melted)
  13. I went a little nuts in a Japanese auction. Let's hear it for the global economy and the ability to move money across denominations and borders. I have to admit I was a bit puzzled by the groupings. These were three lots. I'm not sure how this will format after loading up the photos so I'll describe and you all can figure out which photo goes with the commentary :D. The first lot contained four coins. The three 'Mount Fuji' common style 1 sen showing three different shades of clay (translates as porcelain, but is a clay mixture). Each of the three sites chosen to produce the clay coins used slightly different clay mixtures. This was just neat showing the same design, three colors. Oddly enough the fourth coin in the lot was the white 5 sen. Not sure why it was grouped that way, not even one of the other 1 sen coins! The white 1 sen was in a lot by itself. Now, all I need is the white 10 sen to complete that set. The last lot had the red 1 and 5 sen with the vertically oriented characters. Again, 10 sen missing, but it was a great to get some new varieties to my rather oddball (and otherwise tiny) porcelain Japanese coins.
  14. The USPS is being consistent. Certificates arrived over the weekend and the plaque and coin today. Very pleasantly surprised--thank you NGC! This will be my 'keeper' Morgan. I have another but that is in my 7070--and this one is NOT getting cracked! Very cool and super impressed.
  15. Personally, I have forgotten to delete a few coins after selling. It's hard to remember when it was some bullion-esque coin in a non-core set. Now, as for fraud, there isn't really much monetary motive. But I'm pretty sure there have been some high profile set or other that was crossed over to PCGS. So the same coins had both a PCGS cert and an NGC cert. Won on both sides of the street IIRC. That is pretty cheesy.
  16. Being an overcompensating sort, I use the Intercept boxes and put the slabs in Intercept lined coin slab baggies. It might be overkill but I've lived in some interesting places. Love the intercept boxes though. And the single row ones designed for baseball cards work great too.
  17. Agree with the NGC only for awards, which affects me not at all in terms of awards given or things my sets are competitive with. I didn't add my first registry set until after the PCGS option was removed from the world sets, and anything US I have (I don't keep track) is very, very far off the top tier set. Because PCGS coins are not allowed to compete in my 'good sets' I like to think I have an unbiased opinion (). That said, I have learned to appreciate some of the differences in grading between the two (at least for the coins I see, and sometimes I'll cross/try to cross things just to see what happens). There are some differences so IMO PCGS registry should award PCGS coin sets, and the NGC registry should award NGC coin sets. It's lovely to have a place where a mixed set can be shown off though, and makes me wonder whatever happened to that photo hosting site Stacks bought--it was great for showing things off but I can't even remember the name anymore. Also, not sure what the status is of the ANA project--hopefully it will expand to world coins too someday. Maybe it's time to look them over seeing as I just got my annual request for dues.
  18. I wish it were published! Any chance of a self-pub via Kindle (IIRC though it's been years, one can have a book formatted that is more appropriate for laptop or tablet viewed vs. an actual 'paper' type Kindle)? Or maybe a website? I remember some of your work on it and even though it's not an area I actively collect in, it would be fascinating.
  19. I'm closer to Roanoke than Roanoke Rapids :D. Shoot, I'm closer to Richmond. Sounds like Chicago has a big draw outside of the show too, that sounds very appealing. The NYINC is in the heart of NY and fun (if chilly). Rosemont is not. Had to take a long shuttle IIRC from the train station to the venue. Well, either show is great. And 2022 sounds much wiser.
  20. Hm, either show is a lot of fun and worthy of a visit. Not sure which would have more material you are looking for though. Free lodging will save a good bit of coin money. In my case (SWVA) it's a lot easier and less costly to get to NY, but I take the train. Had fun at both shows, but if I could only go to one it'd be NYINC. Purely on personal preference and has a lot to do with social aspects. And seriously, Amtrak makes it super easy, though not sure where you are in NC to make a difference. Edited to add: NYINC is cancelled this year so it may be a moot point.
  21. This sounds like the plot summary for a movie. This movie. Maybe I should rent it. Enterprising thieves breaking into the Mint and creating an error coin to sell to collectors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_Heist
  22. Not posting much anywhere lately, lots going on 'in real life' and collecting took a back burner. I almost didn't even open the email. That said, I do try and check in on 'the boards' at least to lurk once or twice a week.
  23. I must admit I was a bit surprised. I didn't do as much with that set this year. There was one good addition (which took quite a few shenanigans to purchase and without the registry I may have not tried so hard) but the write up stuff really hasn't changed. And some of the coins do not appear to exist in real life, so it will never be 100%. And how does one start collecting Albanian coins you might ask? Well, when starting to collect as adult many of us will start with the 'OFEC' or 'one from every country' theme. Turns out it is HARD to pick just one coin! And Albania is early in the alphabet :D. NGC certainly has made this fun! Many thanks to our hosts!
  24. What a huge undertaking that has been! A quick perusal, and just an FYI but under Japan you have 1932 5 sen listed twice. One has a reasonable valuation ($7 for AU), but the other is $1350 for XF/AU. JNDA would put that at 80-150 yen, could that have been meant to be 1.35? 150 yen is about $1.41 at the moment. Looking at this I realize I had better start getting my collection/accumulation under better control. That is a lot of work to leave someone, even if it is a labor of love.