Revenant

Thanks! All of this - the raw Zimbabwean coin sets, the Italian coins, the French coins, look through and at all of them with Shandy - has been very gloriously refreshing. It feels like a pallet cleanser. It has a "back to basics" feel to it. Even if a lot of this ultimately is in service to building a registry set or two It feels great to get back to just handling and closely examining coins and putting them in 2x2s and flips... it has just been fun. No points. No designations. Just coins and collecting and "Oh! That looks cool!"

I found a seller offering some old, Franklin Mint, “Coin Sets of the World” cards for Zimbabwe that had the coins from 1C to $1. Some of them were made in the 1990s and some of them had less-appealing coins with some spotting, but they had a couple – at a slightly higher price, but still only about $11 for a coin set - that had only coins from 1980-1983, that were clean, pretty, and spot-free per the listing and “nearly perfect.” I saw these and decided to snap them up, initially thinking, “SCORE! This could get me examples of the older, non-steel-clad type coins I need!” … Except, to do that, I’d have to rip up the cards and cannibalize the sets… and the more I thought about that, I wasn’t entirely comfortable doing that. I snapped these up and I think I was having 2nd thoughts about breaking them up within 5 minutes of hitting “Confirm.” I wasn’t sure I could feel good about destroying these cards and sets with their little cancelled stamps that are dated within a month of my wife’s 1st birthday, stamped in Harare only a few short years (about 5) after it became known as “Harare” and not “Salisbury.” I was thinking I’d just need to find another source for older coins to grade and keep these and enjoy these as-is, maybe finding some way to keep them in the binder where I’ll be keeping the rest of the Z coins I’m going to leave raw. Then they arrived in the mail, and I got to see them in-hand… 1) These are incredibly neat, fun to hold fun to look at, collectables, and I think I’ll enjoy having them as part of the overall collection, even if they don’t all go towards what I bought them for. But… 2) Some of the coins in these from 1980 and 1983 are GORGEOUS. These things look so much better even than most of the coins I’ve been getting from 2001-2003. I think some of these could get MS65 or MS66 grades and these coins could make the registry set I’m trying to build just rock-solid. I decided to try to pick up more of these old Franklin Mint cards with coins dating from 1980-1988 and, having acquired 3-4, pick one or two with really solid looking coins to cannibalize while leaving the others intact. I think that will be a good compromise that I could feel good about. While shopping those I found some other sets the seller had that had coins mostly from 2001-2002, that, if they contained similarly good-looking coins to the Franklin Mint sets, could help me upgrade or bulk-up my set on the post-2000, steel-clad types and get some grades above MS63. And then I saw something else that made my jaw drop… Similar, 7-coin sets, with no $5 coins, but which were made up of almost all coins from 1997… but these sets had 1997 $2 coins, that looked like they might be shiny, pretty, mint state coins where every other $2 coin I’ve seen either looks like an ugly dog or is a 2001-2003 dated steel-clad coin, not this one-year brass type. I caught Shandy in a good mood, did some light begging, and got to order 2 more of the Franklin sets, 2 of the 8-coin sets with mostly 2001-2002 coins and 2 of the 7-coin mostly 1997 sets with those conditionally uncommon $2 coins. At this point my plan was to pick the 2 best of the four Franklin Mint Sets, the best of the 8-coin sets, and the 7-coin set with the best looking 1997 $2 coin and use those to build out the rest of what I want to send to NGC in early 2022. Some of these – but not all, because I’ve gotten “losers” in every batch I’ve bought so far because that is the nature of this - would be going in instead of some of the ones Shandy and I had picked previously. Some of those previously selected coins (the $1 and $2 bond coins especially) would still be going in for grading for sure. We’d look at the old ones and the ones that came in these new sets and choose the best one again, continuing to try to refine / improve the quality of the group for submission as we find more / better coins. *Picks the best set* “I think this one is the winner!” “What’s the prize for winning?” “DEATH!” *Scissors* That was the plan... but some drama emerged with that order... and this post is long enough as it is. So, I’ll continue this story with the next post... with all of that fully resolved. Slightly random aside, but does “Mint” not mean what I think it means? Is “Mint Condition” not the same as “Uncirculated?” Because the seller on these said they were, “MINT and possibly uncirculated.” I mean, isn’t that redundant? Like… What the hay, Man? If I were wrong that could go a long way towards my unhappiness with that first round of “MINT” 10-coin sets. Later on, on the listing for a card with 6 coins in it, the listing says, “All seven coins are Uncirculated.” I’m mostly willing to chalk some of this up to copy&paste errors since the seller lists a lot of these “Coin Sets of All Nations” cards, but… You high, Bro? (You thought that meme was a one-off when posting about the offer on the house on 4-20 and it wouldn’t come up again... You were wrong!) Another funny aside on this, but, when I ordered the first Franklin mint sets, I joked with Shandy that they could maybe make good stocking stuffers for me because the card was 5x8…. The INFORMATION CARD, that comes with them is 5x8. The card the set is in is… a lot bigger. It’s actually about 8x11.5 inches, about the size of a piece of A4 paper. No chance of getting that in any Stocking I’ve ever seen.

What macro lens? Are you using a cheaper DX 60 mm macro or are you using the 105 mm G series VR? Or something else? If you're using a VR lens on a tripod, switch off the VR.

It is better than it was... I wanna say a couple months ago? There was a while there were getting on on the PMG side was simply not possible at all and that lasted about 2-3 weeks... now it's mostly just annoying.

Didn't bid but I'll keep that in mind if more pop up in the future. 🤔

I don't know that it was clear to them at first. I had thought it went without saying that if I wasn't wanting random date I wasn't expecting a random date price but I think I sent back another message say, "If you do find one, let me know." The problem I think with these is they're mostly treated like Bullion, and for an 1875 or 1876 I think that's fine but an 1885-1888 is a massive pain to find amongst all the 1875s.

I think it's getting up to 2 years since I've added a coin / filled a hole in the 10G set and the set is still sitting at 72% with 3 slots open. But the low hanging fruit is all gone and all that's left are 3 coins that don't always show up. The last couple of years I’ve been adding other types of world gold coins to my collection and not finished this set largely just because I haven’t seen any attractive opportunities come up. Mine is one of the oldest sets in that category. It was one of the first two sets ever made in the category and it may have been the first - I can't remember anymore. But this means I've gotten to see participation in it grow over the years to now include almost 25 sets - and I like to look at the others over time, looking when a new set pops up, looking to see if anyone else posts pictures that aren't just NGC images... and how my pictures stack up. 😅 So, I noticed when a new set popped up recently - newly listed last month - and it had 1 coin, which happened to be an MS64 1879/7 variety. Probably the hardest coin to get in the set, up there with the 1888 key-date in my set... and, darn, I'm more than a little jealous! I wonder if they got that graded themselves. If they bought it and I missed it coming on the market I'm going to be so annoyed! The coin has a 578XXXX- cert number so I’m thinking it was graded recently. It's hard to find these things with US dealers. I thought about trying to buy the last 3 coins I needed raw from European dealers through MAshop last year. There usually seems to be at least a couple of 1885 and 1886 on there for sale. But buying 100-year-old gold RAW online and paying $30-35 shipping fees I can't get back if the coin is a dog / looks clean in person makes me... anxious. Adding to my annoyance recently: A seller I have bought from with success before - a US-based dealer with lower shipping costs - listed random date Willem III 10G coins for sale at a bargain price. I reached out and... Nope! They wouldn't check dates for me. I didn't even want / hope for their discounted random date price. I would have happily paid a premium for an 1885 or an 1886. They wouldn't even look. ... Punks... On an unrelated, but curious note (to me), while I still don't see NGC-graded Zimbabwean coins pop-up for sale often - probably because Xan and I own half of the small population between us - I DID see some PCGS graded 20 Cent coins pop up in auction recent with "Specimen" (SP) grades and an interesting pedigree on at least some of them. I wonder what the story is with these. In case you're wondering, the PCGS population of the Zimbabwean coins also is not huge - 64 coins, almost the same as NGC… Although if I have my way the NGC pop may be close to 100 by mid-2022. They have graded 1 solitary MS cent, 12 of those Proof S$10 NCLTs and 51 of these "SP" graded coins. 31 of those are 20C coins from 1988-1991, 12 are 10Cs from 1988-1989. And the balance are 5Cs from 1990-1991... no 50Cs, no $1 coins, no SP graded cents... I wonder how many of those have this pedigree and what the story is there. Were they all from the same place? What's with the massive number of 20Cs? Why no 50Cs? Why no $1?

You might try seeing if there are coins related to something important to her - like my wife and Italy - and seeing if you can get interest and buy-in that way, by getting into that with her. Use that as a gateway into building more interest in collecting in general. I know with Shandy and Zimbabwe I've had fun talking to her about the historical context of the hyperinflation series and the things / symbolism on them and sharing my research and set building with them - like the change in the name of the capital from Salisbury to Harare, which triggered the change in the type 1a and type 1b notes.

Don't know if you've followed / seen my recent journals but I've been having luck recently with buying lots of raw coins and asking my wife to look at them with me and discuss which ones we think are best to submit and build out a set that's going to be almost 100% self-submitted coins and I'm starting to do some of this with coins and countries that have significance to her and it seems to have worked. We've had a lot of fun with it the last month or two.

Everytime they tighten the highest interest rate they reach before dropping again gets lower. Every time they loosen the rate they loosen to gets lower until they hit zero in 2008, and now real FED funds rate is -6.8% with inflation. And the reason is that dent overall keeps getting bigger and it needs a lower interest rate to make it bearable. But 0% rates and negative real rates can't continue forever. Eventually this wolf we have by the neck - the debt levels - have to be reckoned with at all levels- federal, state, local, corporate, individual... I don't know when but I do think this is a debt bubble and the music will stop... one day.

Makes sense when dealing with coins that expensive though I rarely do. The closest I come to is the 1932 set I helped my step-father build. I have the kind of set-up you talk about with the VR macro lens, but I didn't buy it for coins and probably wouldn't have if it was just for coin photos. That 105 mm Nikkor VR G macro alone was a Grand when I bought it some 7 years ago. I have no clue what they go for now but I love it. Side note but I'm seriously thinking about getting one of those USB coin microscopes. They aren't super expensive and seem like they could be good for some stupid fun. Maybe hook it up and look at pocket change with Ben! 🤔🤣

I'd have to be pretty selective in my definition of that set. These coins from about 1900 to 1925 are pretty. Most of the Italian coins I've seen from 1930-1950 are butt-ugly - Straight up not good.

I just don't think I could ever talk myself into paying someone to image my coins. Through years of trying and doing and redoing I keep slowly getting better... 🤷‍♂️

I'm also trying to mostly stay focused on core projects - which at the moment is mostly Zimbabwean coins and maybe some other stuff soon. But these are a small diversion with minimal cost versus "registry grade" collecting of high grade coins so I'm just having some nice fun with it with no pressure or expectations on it. It's nice. They don't cost much and don't take up much room.

I suppose anything is possible but I think I'd rather just be #2 (or #3, or #4) than to not include those in the set long term. Having those in the set just adds too much to the message and the core of the set, and I think yanking them out at the last minute for 24 hours to win "wins" by throwing the point of the set under the bus, so I just don't see the value in "winning" under those circumstances. Thanks! We'll see where the future takes the set(s).

It's been funny seeing what seems like an uptick in interest in modern hyperinflation notes in the last 6 months to a year. My Zimbabwe set seems to continue to get more views over time.

Last time I talked about seeing that post about the old, early 20th Century 20 Centesimi Italian coins and going shopping for some raw Italian coins. While doing this I got the idea to look to see if there were any nice, pretty, NGC-graded Italian coins that I could get for good prices. I thought she might like that – some cool MS coin if they were out there to be had. I did a bit of eBaying and found a couple of sellers with MS66 to MS68 Italian coins from the 1980s and 1990s – mostly 50 Lire, 100 Lire, 200 Lire, and 500 Lire coins. I screen-capped some of them, sent them to her and asked Shandy what coins she liked the most. Somewhat to my surprise, she said she liked the 500 Lire bi-metallic the most. Remember that one? I made a post about it earlier this year after finding several in the coins from her father. I really thought I’d get a little reaction out her on the 50 Lire with Vulcan’s naked butt, but no dice. She doesn’t like the face on the obverse as much. Way to kill a good joke, Love. While we were having that conversation, I also got the idea to check to see if there were any categories for Italian coins from this era and what the competition looked like. I saw that the competition was a fair bit stiffer for the 100 Lira, but It would only take 1-2 coins each in the right grades to take the top spots in the 50 Lira and 500 Lira categories. I think these were / are new categories for 2021 so not a lot of sets, not a lot of coins and not a lot of fight to snag them. It would only cost me about $130 to snap up three coins and take a stab at winning those 2 categories, and I loved the idea. I immediately wanted to try to win those categories with set names and descriptions dedicating the sets to her. I was really in love with this idea. So, since I’d need to go outside of my normal budget to pull this off and do it in time for the awards cut-off, I told her about the idea – actually got her to happy cry over it – and got the greenlight from her to do it / go for it / try to win these. I think it would have been more romantic to have just gone and done it and told her about it after the fact if I’d pulled it off, but 1) As I’ve said, I ask permission, not forgiveness, and that does good things for my marriage, 2) I was clearly too pleased with myself and she could tell I was up to something / planning something from the stupid grin on my face because I have no poker face, 3) I really wanted to share it with her and be able to talk to her about it as I progressed with it, to show her the coins and the banner images and let her read and approve the descriptions. I was able to win the coins - all three now reside in a curio cabinet in her office on little stands along with some dragons that I got years ago. I popped them into the registry sets about 2-3 weeks ago, right in the middle of November… spent FOREVER working on different versions of the banner image for them and harassed poor Mike endlessly for about a week there bouncing ideas off him. I also did some quick research and populated the sets with good descriptions to go with the best images I could manage to take – the alloys those coins are made of are HARD to shoot. They do not image well or easily IMO. I think Shandy warmed to the idea of the 50 Lire coin when she found out that the person is supposed to be Vulcan, who in mythology made his forge in Mt Etna – the volcano they lived on the side of while they lived in Italy. And… then I waited to see if anyone else with a stronger set would list it before December 1st… and no one did. So… I think I won the categories for her for this year, and I’ll get to give her the certificates for these in a few months. Ti amerò per sempre (I will love you forever, in Italian, at least, according to Google. Any Italians? Anyone want to confirm?). So, what’s the next step for this? … Because I totally have a plan and I’m totally not just impulsively buying random stuff... Totally! Her father brought home a few of these that look really nice from 1990 and 1991. I’ve bought a few more raw examples in lots online for about $16, and I now have a 1984, a 1985, and a 1988 in a raw state that all look solid – a 1992 too, but that’s less helpful given that I just bought an MS67. I also have a 1987 that I’m a little more “meh” about. I’m wanting to spend about $150-200 next year and send several of these in to get graded by NGC and add those to the set. This will mean that the 500 Lire set – the one she picked as her favorite design of that group - will have 1) mostly coins we picked and had graded ourselves, and 2) coins from that bag of coins her father brought back with them. Coins they got and brought back from Italy with them nearly 30 years ago, one of which from one of the years they were in the country if she remembers correctly (she was young at the time). I suppose it’s not quite the same as “slaying a dragon” but I think it works pretty well as romantic gestures go. That feels like about the best Registry tribute I can give her. I’ll let you guys know if I come up with a better one later. I’m not really sure what more can be expected of a safety engineer and a coin nerd. I slay cockroaches, if that counts for anything. If the 1990 and 1991 don't grade as well as I'm hoping they may ultimately hurt the set from a competitive standpoint down the road if I end up catching more competition, but I still just like the idea of incorporating that into the set. I don’t know if or to what extent I’ll pursue building the 50 Lire set and try to defend that title in years going forward. It’ll definitely take a backseat to doing something with the 500 Lira set just because that’s the one she picked. And, yes, there was not a chance I was going to talk or post about this until after December 1st, after it was done. Not this time. I’ve made enough competition for myself in Zimbabwe, and I didn’t want to broadcast it and then have it flop. That would have been... embarrassing. And, yes, I’ve been up to this while also working on Banner images and Zimbabwe coins. I have been quite the busy boy this month, and during the Thanksgiving holiday, and any flex-day off from work. But this, in particular, has been completely worth it, because it made her happy. And posting about it is worth it, even though I’m probably just going to ultimately make my life harder by calling attention to it. Because if I’m going to go on at such length about my other silliness, I have to brag up a win for her, at least once it actually is a win.

Most likely cents I would think if this were real. The gold color might night seem as funky among shiny pennies and not white dimes. But I still don't buy it.

Kinda funny that you say that in that you have the Futurism movement in art and Italian society starting around 1909, emphasizing youth, modernity, "a new, great italy," war, violence and extreme nationalists. They were basically anti-woman, proto-fascists. The movement fizzled in the1920s because many of the participants / leaders died in WWI - glorifying war and violence has a price.

Like Mike said, it could be a nice, risk-free test / trial coin. You really can't make that situation worse.

In early November I caught a post on reddit about the "Flying Nude" 20C Italian coins that were made until about 1924, that are more accurately called "Liberty in Flight." Also apparently called “Liberta Librata” (“Hovering Freedom”) according to Numista. The original post was joking about the fact that the type 1 SLQ wasn't the only "scandalous" coin from the era / “The US didn’t have a monopoly on ‘scandalous’ designs.’ I find this a little funny as a claim when you actually look at the coin. I also think it’s more than a little funny that early 20th century Europeans / Italians were probably a lot less prudish about artistic nudity than early 20th century Americans or 21st century Americans. Seriously – it's a tiny-non-detailed boob on a coin smaller than a US nickel. In either case, the design makes it clear that "Liberty" is wrapped in a cloth and a line above the bust makes it clear that the intent of the design is that she's covered - unlike the Type 1 SLQ – so the “nude” description probably isn’t even accurate. The whole "blowing in the wind" look just makes it a very form-revealing look. Anyway... I digress! It happens sometimes when you’re a pedantic nerd with, among other things, an A.A. in Visual Art. I had never seen one of these before, and, when I realized it was Italian, I showed it to Shandy, and she thought it was pretty. I pretty much immediately wanted to get one or two to look at in-person together. She did like it. It is a gorgeous coin design in my opinion and hers. I ended up securing a pretty nice looking 1910 and 1913 for $4-5 each, and a 1918 & 1919 20 C that had a different design and a 1922 1 Lire - another very beautiful design that reminds me of the old, seated liberty coinage. All in I spent about $30 on the 5 coins - the 1 lira was by far the most expensive at about $13, but I had a hard time finding a cheaper one that didn't look harshly cleaned, and the one I got looked very nice. All and all a fun and cheap way to add some new variety to the raw collection for a country my wife has such affinity for. While I was shopping those, I also found some French coins from 1918 that looked cool and I spent about $10 snapping these up alongside the Italian coins, thinking they would make interesting companion pieces for that 1913 Gold 20F coin I have. While a lot gets made about the expense of this hobby and how expensive it can be to duke it out in the Registries, collecting 20th century modern coins raw can still be very fun and inexpensive. You can get coins from 110 years ago for $4 - or less. I think I could have “done better” shopping at coin shows but, with gas getting close to $3 a gallon in Houston, there’s something to be said about not having to drive 30-50 miles to a coin show and pay at the door to get in and hope the dealers brought what you’re hoping to buy. All in I think I spent about $300 getting hundreds of Zimbabwean coins slowly over a span of about 6 months and I've gotten a lot of fun and joy out of looking through them, alone and with Shandy, to find material for grading for that set. And I'm going to like having a lot of Raw ones in addition to the final graded set when this is all said and done. It wasn't originally my plan to have quite as many as I now do... but... I'll take it! I had been tempted to go a ‘little’ nuts and get a bunch of these “Flying Liberty” coins in a variety of dates, but I managed to dial myself back. I always have a problem with my eyes getting big and going off on wild tangents and having “scope-explosion” problems. In some respects that fact that these are cheap – cheap enough to be seen as minor impulse buys – becomes its own problem when you are a collector and you think things are neat and you just want everything. Small purchases can add up quickly – it's like the coin version of getting coffee at Starbucks every morning (and lemon cake... yummy, delicious, lemon cake... where was I? ). Of course, part of the REAL reason I dialed myself back - on this - was so I could “go nuts” in another area. More on that in a few days – I do try to keep these entries smaller and digestible and space them out as to not be overwhelming. As some of you may gather as I post my next couple of entries, I haven’t had the best success at making myself stick to my normal budget in the last couple of months (October and November) and Shandy hasn’t tried too hard to stop me – once or twice even encouraging me as with the Kookaburra. But, she knows everything I do, and I ask permission and not forgiveness… which is probably why my head is still attached to my neck. As part of looking at these ‘new’ (100+ year old) French and Italian coins and looking at all the raw Zimbabwean coins I also grabbed out and had another look through the binder with most of my raw world coins, including a lot of modern Italian coins, British coins, French coins, Greek coins, Indian coins, Argentinian coins, and German coins, some from her family's travels, some from my family's travels and some from our travels together. And there are some of these that I just really enjoy looking at.

Same. There are a couple of sets I've thought about trying to make but that system just makes the whole prospect of it seem miserable. The Custom set set-up on NGC isn't even the same as the one I've managed to teach myself and get used to on the PMG side, which makes it just that much more jarring and frustrating.

My suggestions would be the Coin Marketplace forum, eBay, or Etsy. Some subreddits may get you some bites too. I wouldn't expect / hope for much more than 1-3 dollars. I think closer to 1. But I could be wrong. I'm just basing that on my recent experiences on eBay.

Yeah, because it comes back to not wanting to make change for it. The 50 may have changed over time. I remember the signs when I was younger at many places like fast food places that would say "No bills larger than $20 accepted." But I can't remember seeing that recently.

Yeah... but the vast majority of merchants of all types won't take 100s or 50s because they don't want to make change for them and the 100 is heavily counterfeited relative to things like the 5, 10 and 20, to the point point that 5s are bleached for the paper to make more convincing fake 100s.