Revenant

There's a store near my office that has a small display of ancients but all their stuff is graded so I don't think you'd be game. Lol

Personally I think chatting with you has made the last year of working on the Zimbabwean note set much more enjoyable and I think more participation and a greater sense of community could be great, but I am largely resigned to what is. I don't expect things to change. But I'm still going to poke them.

I didn't say it was unusual. I just think it'd be fun to have a conversation. That bit about the z coins being part of large submissions I had considered, but I still think that explanation lends itself more to more people and / or dealers submitting.

Xan Chamberlain must have gotten a box in the mail yesterday. This set popped up last night with just one coin and now the other 7 coins from that submission that got added to the census about 2 weeks ago have been added. It also looks like he has a $2 coin that popped up in the census the following week when my coins were added.But I'm not seeing in his set (yet, anyway) a 1999 10C in MS64 or an older-type $1 coin that popped up in the census the same week as my coins and that $2 coin. What I'm seeing in our two sets only accounts for 22 of the 25-27 MS coins that I think have been added to the Zimbabwe census in about the last 6 months. And if I remember right, some of the others were $5 coins and it wouldn't really make sense to me for him to send in two of those in such a short span of time - again, not saying that he didn't. I don't have nearly all the facts. I'm just thinking with my gut here. Add in the fact that there were MS graded coins out there before April 2021 and someone submitted the MS65 10C that I have... there's someone else, out there, right? So, I think there is still some mystery to dig into in that I think there's a third person getting these graded. It's either that, or Xan submitted another 2-coin submission a while back (or a submission with 2 Z coins) and then got 2-3 more graded about a week after this coin going group and those coins hit the census with mine, and then there was a 1 coin submission that hit the census on 10/5 with a single 1983 cent. I'm not saying it is impossible but it would be odd to me to see someone send in 3 small submissions in the space of a month and about 4 in about 6 months for the same country. I guess I'll see if a 1999 10C coin, a 1983 Cent, or one of these other new-to-the census coins hit Xan's set in the next couple of weeks and if the census keeps going up. So there is officially a little competition and a little life in that category now. I wonder if he used part of his 2020 grading credit to do this just like I did. Especially given the timing, I wonder if he got the idea for this from me and I'm wondering if he'll read this... It's always funny to think about. I wonder if he'll chime in or drop me a line / a message and shed some light on it for me. He collects some older Rhodesian Coins but I don't see that he participates on the PMG side with the notes. I wonder what brings him into it and why he decided to go down this road. I wonder if there could be some fun chats about it. But, I think the same thing about Adrian123456, and he seems to prefer to watch in silence too. Adrian has a fantastic, nearly complete variety set of the 2003 Emergency Bearer Checks (P-21 to P-23) that I think is one of the more impressive sets in the PMG Zimbabwe Registry - getting all of those varieties is not easy and he's had to compromise on grade on some of the type-a's even though the notes themselves still look quite nice in his scans - or maybe he uses PMG's scans. I'm not sure there. I wonder if Adrian could be submitter #3, but I think he'd list / register his if he were... You guys should talk to me. This could be fun. Just talk to Mike. He can attest - I'm not crazy!

The proprietary software my company uses to do most of our work gets usually 1-2 major updates a year with new features and such. It tends to get better over time and the new features are nice, but sometimes weird bugs pop up that we mostly resolve in beta. The unfortunate thing here is that we're all unofficial beta testers.

I have the same problems. This place is probably in near constant Flux as they work on underlying stuff to improve the site and add new features. Sometimes you accidentally break things and that seems to be what may have happened here. I'm sure they'll get to patched at some point. It's annoying in the mean time but maybe something good is coming down the pipe.

"Indebted" I think is the word you want here.

I think it was Canada that made some huge gold coin as a 1-off or 2-off design that was a literal museum piece from the start and they sold 1 more of them to a private party. Odd stuff...

I think you'd just get "Trillion," That's the route Venezuela took with the 1 Million Bolivares notes. That's actually the approach most groups take, which is what makes the P-91 Zimbabwean note so unique - they were the only ones shameless enough to put 14 zeros behind a 1 to spell it all out! Incidentally - a random fact I've become aware of in recent reading - apparently the 2003-dated $10 and $25 coins were not released in 2003. They were released in Aug 2008, after the 2nd redenomination, with / alongside the new 2007-dated 3rd dollar banknotes. So instead of being valued at 10 and 25 ZWD, they were valued at 10 and 25 ZWR, which was equal to 100 Trillion and 250 Trillion ZWD.

I've referenced in previous entries that I've been having trouble sourcing some $1 Bond Coins at a reasonable price. All the other sellers I found offering the $1 coin were calling it "rare" (nonsense!) and asking $10-15 each for them. I've been trying to acquire multiples of all of these - usually 3-5 of each denomination - to have a better chance of getting a really nice one. But $10-15 each felt... rough. $6-7 is about the max I'll pay for these raw right now. But the other week I found a seller that had 5-coin sets that included the 5C, 10C, 25C, 50C and $1 bond coins for $7 w/ free shipping. If you bought 4+ sets you'd get them for $5.60. That would get me 5 sets, 25 coins, 5 $1 coins, for $28. The listing said the coins were pulled from bags the seller got on a visit to Harare and that the 5C, 10C and $1 coins were uncirculated but the 50C and 25C were mostly circulated - some only XF. But some may be uncirculated. At that price, already having coins of the other denominations that I like, if the $1 coins were good, it would be worth it. Even if the other 20 coins were "trash," it's still cheaper than just buying $1 coins anywhere else on eBay right now. So, I went for it - 25 more bond coins! I now have the coins in. The 5Cs, 10Cs and most importantly the $1 look great - as good as what I got from the other seller. I was very happy with the decision to go for these when I saw those $1 coins. I was happily pointing to them with Shandy before even really looking at anything else. I've set aside the 2 best $1 and $2 coins - Shandy looked at them with me! That was fun! Those will form the start of a new 2022 submission, hopefully. Adding an extra wrinkle to this, the seller advertised having a mix of 2014 and 2017 50C coins... All 5 of the ones I got were 2017s! The ones I had before were all 2014s. Two were clearly circulated, but the other three look pretty good. One of them in particular looks nice enough to maybe send in to have a 2014 and a 2017 graded for my set. But, if I go that route, I'll have to make a signature set in the registry to list them together in 1 set. The 25C coins... yeah... those were no good - circulated. They look XF. Not worth bothering with in any case but especially with the one I graded coming back as an MS67.

Just for fun, I set this up with two remote controlled flashes on either side of a soft-box with the coin set back into the soft box. The room light was on but it is not bright (certainly compared to the flashes) and the soft box shades the coin so essentially 100% of the lighting for the shot comes from the flashes but I'm not sitting in a dark room or using hot lights. I set the camera to f/16 to try to get the whole coin in focus, focused once and then set to manual-only focus so I could just flip / swap out the coins and hammer through without refocusing each time. Proof: Reverse Proof:

If you ignore him you don't have to see it anyway. Just saying. Not encouraging mass-ignores. Just saying I think there are ways to "dull the pain."

I mean... Biden's administration is just talking about something that they talked about when Obama was president and Biden was the VP and the same nonsense was going on. They didn't do it then and they won't do it now because it is the nuclear option. It is crossing the Rubicon. If you do this you can't even pretend like Congress and the Legislative branch matter anymore and it just becomes 100% a clown show and they will NEVER do this because of how this could be used the second the shoe is on the other foot. Just my 2 cents.

I may need to steal this idea for imaging my Presidential Dollar proofs That has given me hell

Some are definitely better than others. Some I definitely hope are more place holders I'll get to improve on later.

Well, I'm sure they'll look into it for you. Good luck with it.

Mind saying a bit more? Types? Country? Years? We can't even use cert look up without grades.

How big is the new file? I had a problem with this recently and couldn't make it work until I realized the new file was 4.18 MB. I made it smaller and it worked.

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. Ha! No. I want to win, and get the certificate, and in 15 years show Sam a pile of certificates for almost every year since he was born - even though I missed 2019. I think the big question is going to be "do they have any other surprises already far along in the pipeline at NGC?" Even if all the other 11-15 MS coins that have been graded in 3-4 bits in the last 6 months all belong to this person I think I can win in a head-to-head. Looking at recent grading, I'd win some slots by a bit, we'd tie in some slots, they'd win in others. There are 5 slots that there are coins out there for that I don't have. With the bond coins, there are 6 slots that only I can currently fill, and my Bond Coins are solid. So even if all those belong to one person, I think I can win. But if they have 5-7 Bond Coins out there that they sent in July that will come online in late Nov, my goose may well be cooked. I think it is unlikely that the same person has been doing all this and sending in multiple $5 and 50C coins two at a time. Or that this person owns all of the other coins graded pre-2021. Most of us aren't that wasteful or inefficient. So there's that. I also don't know how likely it is that they sent in Bond Coins already. The fact that their 8 coin submission didn't include Bond Coins makes me think they may have no interest in them or in competing with me on this - because I was very clear in May that I was sending some in. If I can survive this year I think with what I'm working on for next year I can stay competitive. Obviously I do hope for a Best Presented Award for this down the road, but I really don't think it'll happen in 2021 for several reasons. The competition is much tougher over here than with PMG for one and I think I have more work to do in 2022 before they'll give it to me - maybe not until 2023 or 2024 or 2025. I don't know. I guess we'll see. I'm just going to build the set I need to build and hope that maybe one day they'll pat me on the head and say I did good. But I doubt I've done myself any favors by so repeatedly and publicly saying that if they wait just 1 more year I'll probably fill 3-5 more slots or more.

I was checking last night, and these still showed as being in quality control. This afternoon I opened my laptop, and the submission tracker page was open in a tab I left open last night when I shut the laptop. It auto updated / refreshed, and I saw “shipped” flash across my field of view as I was closing the tab, and then I frantically re-loaded the page, wondering if I had finally gone crazy. I’m guessing this is the result of some back-office people in the shipping department working on the weekends and working long hours to get things out faster. That being the case, they have my thanks for that. I have whined… and vented… at length, but I know they’re working hard, and they have my Thanks for this one. So here are the grades, at long last (I was totally right about the grades... the 2nd time...): 2863257-001; 1997 1C MS65RD (Top Pop, Pop of 3 with 2 in grade) 2863257-002; 1999 5C AU58 (Top Pop, only one of this year graded, but there are Mint State examples from other years as of a week or two ago.) 2863257-003; 2001 10C MS61 (Top Pop, only one from this year graded, but there are better mint state examples from other years as of the other week.) 2863257-004; 2002 20C MS62 (Top Pop, 2 in grade now / for now) 2863257-005; 2002 50C MS63 (Top Pop, w 2 in grade I think). 2863257-006; 2002 $1 MS63 (Top Pop, but there are better mint state - MS64 - examples from other years now) 2863257-007; 2003 $10 AU58 (Top Pop. Solo Finest. Total Pop 3, 2 others in AU55) 2863257-008; 2003 S25 AU58 (The only coin in the set not considered a Top Pop, because there are mint state examples in this year.lol) 2863257-009; 2014 1C MS67RD (Top Pop, Pop of 1) 2863257-010; 2014 5C MS67 (Top Pop, Pop of 1) 2863257-011; 2014 10C MS67 (Top Pop, Pop of 1) 2863257-012; 2014 25C MS67 (Top Pop, Pop of 1) 2863257-013; 2014 50C MS66 (Top Pop, Pop of 1) 13 of 14 are considered TOP POPs, even though some feel like technicalities. My prediction / post about "A cute, dopey, derpy, set of top pop coins" is made manifest - for now. While, yeah, you always hope for mint states, I can’t really call the AU58s a disappointment. I knew those were very unlikely to grade well and there was a good chance they could come back with AU50-55 grades. So in that respect the AU58 is a “coulda been worse.” All three of those probably wouldn’t have been graded were it not for the fact that I just had some credit and I decided to just roll the dice with what I had - a shot in the dark hoping for a 61 or 62 - and fill in some gaps. If nothing else they fill in some holes for this year and, if I can find some better examples soon, I’ll get upgrades / new coins in those slots later. The 10C coin was also in this category but that “shot in the dark” paid off with a MS61 - but obviously I’ll still be looking to improve on that later. As funny as it is, two of the 3 AU58s are still considered top pops in spite of the grade because there are no other coins of that type from that year graded. There are higher graded 5C coins but not from this year, and the $10 coin narrowly beat a couple of AU55s to claim the honor (for now) of sole Top Pop. As hoped / expected, the Bond coins come out like rock stars (IMO anyway) with 4 of 5 scoring MS67 grades that I am very happy with, and the laggard still scored a 66. Some might only be celebrating if they got 68s, but, seriously, I’m thrilled that they did this well. Not even one 65 or lower from that group. As horrible as this may sound, the last time I sent in a group of coins with my step-father with high hopes in 2009 I was shocked by how bad they did, so this was a nice change - lots of 63s and 64s.. Maybe I’ve learned a little. The fact that I was also right in my feelings about those AU58s supports this too. I’m also thrilled with the MS65 on the 1997 cent , tying the other MS65 that had been graded before and beating the MS64 that someone graded that popped up last week in the census. As far as the others, its about the same - they did about as well as I’d expected, mostly with 62/63 grades. I knew these weren’t gems, but I don’t know how easy it will be to find gems, they’re the best I have for now, and I’ll build from this base as I’m able. You've endured enough of my complaints about this submission. You will hear no more. The set will soon "go live" with all the descriptions I've been researching and writing for 3 months. I’ll use NGC’s images - which they graciously auto-insert into the set in the new registry - until I can take my own. I have to wait for NGC to populate scores for the Bond coins as those slots haven’t been fully built out yet. Once the whole set can be entered I’ll paste in my descriptions from my word file. I hope it's worth the wait. I hope those that follow this enjoy the latest arm of my now 3-year effort to build and present one of the better and most complete Zimbabwean coin and currency collections. Try to be kind. I am still very curious about the other person grading these. I wonder if the other person grading these is going to make a set. I wonder if we'll see it soon or if a new set is going to pop up around 11/30, just before the cut-off. Someone out there has a bunch of proofs graded that they don't list in the registry, but, somehow, I doubt this is the same person. The timing feels too suspect. Whoever has those proofs has had them for a while and hasn't listed them. But, if it is the same person, we'll probably never see those coins registered and never know who it was / is. I’m still wondering who originally graded the MS65 1980 I bought a year ago was and were the rest of that submission went since my coin is a -004. I'm going to just have to hope that my 13-coin submission and my 14-coin set holds up against what they bring this year if they do, and bolster it next year with my next submission (or two). For this year I'm just already out of time. Never thought I'd say that at this time of the year, but there's no dealer stock to snap up, and anything sent in after about late July isn't going to be finished in time to be used for this year's competition. I wonder what this other person might have in the pipeline already ... I have a feeling I'll be watching and waiting nervously for the next ~60 days. Especially after what happened to the 1932 set last year. But I'm going to post my set, display it proudly and hopefully let it shine. I'm not going to hide my hand. It will be both funny and mildly infuriating if, after all this, again, I can't hold onto or reclaim the top spot against someone that I might have inspired to build a set in the first place. But, if I did encourage the participation of someone else, that is its own victory and compliment. Since there is now more than one registered coin, and the scores of everything might actually matter, if they don’t do so automatically when adding the Bond Coins, I will see if NGC will look at and update the scores on everything before the deadline / score freeze. I don’t care about the absolute point values, but it doesn’t make sense to me that an AU58 $25 coin gets 67 points and a 1980 MS65 10C gets 16, especially given that older pre-switch-to-steel-clad coins are much harder to find. That 67 points doesn’t make sense when a 1997 1C in MS65RD only gets 28 points. I have not run across anything that would make me think that the $25 coin is that much more desirable or rare than the lower denominations. If I do pick up a last-minute competitor, I think I’ll feel better if I lose if the scoring feels reasonably fair and consistent. And… this $25 coin having an out-sized point value would be very bad for me if the MS62 graded a week before mine lands and snags 94 points. Lol That coin / slot is one of two coins (with the 5C) where the other submitter got a much better grade / coin than I did (3-4 grades better) and having that on the coin with the highest scores in the set is potentially very damaging for me. Sorry this entry ended up being so long. Thanks for hanging with me if you did. Thank you, NGC! I’ll shut up for now… at least about this submission. I’m just getting started talking about this series / this set. Edited to add: NGC is on it today with the coin queue and the Bond Coins are in the set now: So there it is - the dopey set of 13 Top Pops. It is nice to be able to hide the empty slots and focus on the coins I do have.

You corrected me first.

The word conservation - as opposed to preservation - includes repair as well as simple preservation.

It's worth pointing out that you wouldn't conserve art or anything unless you expected to enhance it and make it so that it can be enjoyed more and longer. That said, part of your question was "how did this get by NGC?" The answer would seem to be that NGC and their sister NCS are not hypocrits and do not details grade people for something they themselves probably do some version of, if done well.

You're preaching to the choir, My Dude. Oh well... Maybe next week. They can arrive in the mail right around my birthday. Didn't think that would be a close call at the time I sent these in.