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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant
    Should I add the rest of the family's coins to my registry?
    I've made gifts of a few certified coins to my stepfather and I'll soon be giving him a few more. I'm also going to be holding on to some coins for my niece until she gets a little older. So far I haven't had any of these coins as part of my registry, even though I'm the only family member with an account. I've been considering adding them because 1 it aids the inventory process and records the certification numbers in the event of theft or other misfortune, 2 it prevents other people from falsely adding the coins to their sets. My stepfather has even indicated that he kinda favors the idea. All the same, I've been reluctant to add the coins because as part of my registry they would inflate my point totals and rank. This may seem rediculous and trivial but it would feel like cheating.
    Being too hard on myself? Taking the registry too seriously? Should I just quit beating myself up and add the coins?
  2. Revenant
    Something funny the look at/think about.
    AJ Biddles noted earlier the Gardner is in a league of his own but I've long thought it was interesting that the relationship between points and rank followed a really nasty exponential decay model. Only the first 4 people have over a million, only 19 have over half a million, and only 357 (less than 10% of all registry members) have over 100,000. This is a crazy drop-off. The thing that I find interesting though, is that when you take this data and several other important points (50000, 25000, 10000, 5000, etc) and plot them with the points axis using a base 10 logarithmic scale you get a really nifty curve! Check it out I've attached it below.

  3. Revenant
    Why not capitalize the word?
    Maybe it's because I'm a WASP; maybe it's because I go to the most conservative university in the nation, a school that values tradition above just about everything else, but I think that some things deserve to be continued and protected.
    The line "In God We Trust" first appeared on our coinage over 140 years ago and if I recall correctly the law that authorized it was one of the last laws signed by Abraham Lincoln. About 40 years later T. Roosevelt felt much the same way as you do but for different reasons. He wasn't able to kill it and the phrase made it on to the lincoln cent that he helped push for.
    Now? The phrase has been present on our money off and on with various denominations for over half the time our country has existed as an independent nation. Something with that much history from a time when the country was overwhelmingly christian shouldn't be cast away readily. The saying of prayers and the swearing of oaths to a Christian God has been defended in the Supreme Court in much the same way I would expect this phrase to be protected. I believe the saying is that it "has become 'wrote.'" The phrase has been minted so many times, the prayers said so many times, and the oaths sworn so many times that they've lost almost all of their original meaning. Now they are simply a part of how things are done. They are part of the national tradition.
  4. Revenant
    That's a great coin VUMC409!
    I couldn't help but feel a little happy when I read VUMC409's post but for my own reasons. Just a few hours ago I bought 3 lincoln cents off of telecoin and I was really hoping that this was going to be a good seller.
    2 of the coins are for a collection I'm starting to help my step-father build (See the sets in my registry labeled "Wright Family Collection") and 1 coin is the first addition my humble lincoln cents set has gotten in about 6 months (The 1982 Lg Dt Zinc cent that I got a great deal on!).
  5. Revenant
    I've never understood this decision.
    Ever since I heard about the series I've never understood WHY the first spouse coins were done in gold. 1) The presidents are on "golden" dollars so making silver spouses makes perfect sense (to me). Making the spouses in gold was a money (greed) driven decision that has priced out a lot of people. 2) by making them in gold the mintage limit was set lower and many would be collectors found that there simply aren't enought to go around at times. Yes, there are the bronze medals, but those are medals, not coins, and silver is just soooo much nicer. Large (30+ mm diameter) silver coins are largely what got me to love coins in the first place.
  6. Revenant

    My Silver Eagle Deadline

    By Revenant,

    May 27th, 2008
    On May 27th it will have been 1 year since I started building my silver eagle set. I hope to have my set complete (up to date) by that time. There's no particular reason for it, I just think it would be neat to have it done in a year. The silver eagles aren't a hard set to collect in MS69 if you have the capital to devote to it. When it's "complete" I won't be done working on it though. I'll have to send a few coins in for review and I'll be replacing some, some might be upgraded to MS70 eventually. It just depends.
    Unlike Neverman (whose passion for this set never ceases to amaze me), completing the set is very important to me. People talk about "birthyear sets" but for me the silver eagles are a "lifetime set." They started minting them the same year I was born (I'm sure I've already said this many times). This makes the completed set VERY significant to me. Each coin represents a year to me and all the things that happened in it.
    I have 18 coins (See the set in my registry) with 2 more (the 1990 and 1992) on the way. I'll probably order 2 more (the 1998 and either the '95 or the '08) in about another week. The all important 1996 and 2000MS coins are still ahead of me. It's kinda funny that I could have aquired the set for much less money if I'd just bought the complete set from a dealer, but that would have been much less fun IMO. Also, It just never seemed right to just buy the complete set. I had to build it on my own or it would have never been mine. Does that make any sense?
    Edited to add:
    BTW, neverman, congrats on the new aquisition. As my step-father would say, "it's a good year."
  7. Revenant
    Time to order my Senior ring. The price of gold suddenly has me feeling ill...
    Well, last semester I battled my way through 12 hours of engineering course work in one of the hardest semesters I've ever had. I got a 4.0 for the semester. All A's, and something wonderful happened. I finally had enough hours to order my Aggie Ring. Getting this ring is everything to an Aggie. It is unchanged since 1894 and it is one of the most recognized class rings in the nation. The male ring is very large, very heavy, and made of solid 10K or 14K gold. Obviously the price varies with the price of gold. The recent price increases in gold have increased the price of the ring in 10K from $550 (2 years ago) to a mind-blowing $772.00 (And that's a reduced price because the Association of Former Students pays HALF the cost! It's a $1500 ring!), and I still have to pay tuition and fees and have money to eat. Well, my coin budget just went to $0.00 as I start shifting every spare dollar to the "ring fund." If I'm going to order the ring this semester I have to order it by February 8. If I don't order it this semester and the price of gold continues to rise then the price of the ring will go up again. I suddenly really, really, REALLY hate the price of gold...
    (Picture of a ring attached below)
    Symbolism:
    Shield at the top of Ring: Illustrates protection of the good reputation of the alma mater.
    13 Stripes in shield: Symbolizes the 13 original states and the intense patriotism of graduates and undergraduates of A&M.
    5 stars in shield: Refers to the phases of development of the student: mind or intellect, body, spiritual attainment, emotional poise, and integrity of character.
    Eagle: Connotes agility and power, and ability to reach great heights and ambitions.
    Proudest Member of the Fightin Texas Aggie Class of 2009, signing off. WHOOP!

  8. Revenant

    Thanks, Michael!

    By Revenant,

    This post is a few days overdue.
    I wanted to thank Michael for the trivia challenge and for the Barr note! It arrived in my mail box saturday. (To tell you the truth, I never knew what a "Barr note" was, just that it was supposed to be kinda special. Currency has never been my specialty.)

  9. Revenant
    My 2006 W Silver Eagle.
    Yesterday I finally got the coin I've been waiting on all week. I finally have my 2006 W Silver Eagle. I got one pre-graded MS69 by NGC with the Early Release label for about $93 after shipping. I only have 7 SAEs left unless you count the 2008 (which I don't, yet).
  10. Revenant

    The phenomenon is over

    By Revenant,

    I think the age of high dollar Silver Eagles is over.
    The silver eagles are much more popular now than they were in the early 90s and many more of them are certified than a decade ago. I think the age of low pop MS70s and PF70s that command thousands of dollars is over except for events like the 2006 W and 2006 reverse proof.
  11. Revenant
    6 months on the registry!
    Well, I've been here sharing my craziness with the rest of you for 6 months now. Today also happens to be the last official day of finals. My semester at college is over and I'll get to go home this weekend. Woohoo!
    To celebrate being here for 6 months and the end of what has been a very good semester grade-wise I added two new coins to my SAE set today. The SAEs were my first registry set so it seemed appropriate to build that set up some more today. It now has 17 coins and is 68% complete. I'm determined that it'll be the first registry set that I complete.
    I also hit a new all time high in the rankings, 2017. When some new purchases arrive I'll be over 6100 points and I hope to be in the top 2000.
  12. Revenant

    Hammer time!

    By Revenant,

    My first foreign coin purchase.
    Until recently, all of my foreign coins have either been given to me by my grandmother, found in change, or given to me by family friends. As such, most of them have great personal significance.
    Well, several weeks ago I saw this awesome looking Russian 50 kopek coin that was a 1 year issue minted the same year my grandmother was born and I just immediately fell in love with this coin. I just looked at it and instantly wanted it. It also had the very agreeable price of about $10 after shipping so it was cheap enough to be an "impulse buy." So obviously there was only one course of action, I bought it.
    I got the coin about 2 weeks back but with finals and end of semester projects I just haven't really had the time to post anything about it. Below is the seller's pic because his looks much better than any of mine. It's a little worn and covered and small marks but this coin has great character.
    I have 2 finals tomorrow and 1 more on Tuesday the 11th. On the 15th I'll get to go home and have a nice 4 week vacation.

  13. Revenant
    Thanks for viewing my sets!
    I did a little checking the other day and realized something kinda surprising. Even though my Presidential Dollars set isn't the highest grade (mostly only MS65FD) and even though I only just the other day got the Thomas Jefferson coins (3 months after their release), my set comes in as number 9 out of 343 for having the most views (I'm only in the top 80 by points).
    This made me both happy and a little embarrased. Until today only the Washingtons were imaged and those looked terrible. Well, today I replaced all the old images and added new images of the Adams and Jefferson coins. The new pictures are much much better and I'm think any future visitors to my set page will find it a great improvement.
    Below is one of the old pictures, just in case anyone wants a basis for comparison.

  14. Revenant

    No smooth edge proofs

    By Revenant,

    You won't find a smooth edge presidential proof
    Unlike the presidential business strikes, which are made with a 2-strike method, the presidential proof coins are made in a single strike process in which the edge-letters are added at the same time the obverse/reverse designs are added. As such, it isn't possible to find a presidential proof that has 'accidentally skipped a step' in the process and avoided having the edge-lettering added.
    Even so, I wonder if we'll see people trying to remove the edge lettering and market them as "errors."
  15. Revenant

    Rotating Sets

    By Revenant,

    Moving from one thing to another and back again.
    (I'm sorry I make these longer every time don't I?)I've always had ADD so I've never been able to do one thing exclusively for too long. My coin collecting is no exception. Instead of having one main project I have several and I switch between acquiring coins for different sets. Late last month I picked up some SAEs, then I bought a MS63 Morgan for my type set (which may ultimately get upgraded to a MS64 but I liked the look of this 63), and just this last week a I picked up a pair of Jeffersons for my Presidential Dollars set. Next up in this "set rotation" are another certified lincoln cent and then another coin for my 1955 year set. Busy, Busy, BusySomething I forgot to say in a previous entry: I have a great deal of respect for any man that enters into and stays in a marriage. It demonstrates a willingness to always put this other person before yourself, something I know I'm personally not nearly ready to do yet.One last thing: Searcher, you're the best! The message you sent today meant a great deal.HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!(Bulgarian Pre-Euro coin seen below)
  16. Revenant

    My niece

    By Revenant,

    Trying to be a good uncle,
    In just 2 days my first niece, Cara, will be 3 months old. I hope I?ll make a good uncle in a few years but we?ll see.
    I was on eBay last week looking for Jefferson MS65FD and MS66FD dollars for my presidential dollars set. It occurred to me that the Jefferson dollar was released on August 15, just 6 days before my niece was born. The ?First Day of Issue? coins are basically as old as my niece. I thought it would be cool to get one of these and give it too her when she?s old enough to appreciate it. So, when I purchased a MS65FD P Jefferson, I picked up an extra one for her. I don?t know how long I?ll have to hold on to it before giving it to her. I was thinking I?d let her have it between 5 and 10 but Mom wants me to wait and give it to Cara until she?s 21. I don?t think I want to wait that long? This isn?t the only thing I?m planning though. In a few years I think I?ll give her some penny albums with some pennies to go through (with a few rolls of wheats dumped in to make things interesting). I might also get a ?D? coin for her and some 2007 SAEs. I?ll go from there if I think I?m getting somewhere. I think that if I try this with all the kids then I?ll get at least one collector in the next generation of the family.

  17. Revenant

    Explosive Growth

    By Revenant,

    I think I have a problem...
    Well, I started collecting slabbed coins about 5 months ago and today I realized something, I have 43 (44 will be here in about a week) certified coins. For the first 3 months of collecting I was on summer vacation and didn't have anything to occupy my time. I added about 10 coins a month for 3 months reaching 32 coins by September 1st. After that my collecting has slowed to about a coin a week for 2 months, and that's with me working as hard as I can to take it slow. I've added about 1000 registry points a month for 5 months. When I get coin #44 I'll be over 5000 points. I've spent about $2500 in the last 14 months building up my collection (both raw and certified). I think that without realizing it I've gone completely insane. Even realizing this I can't help but think about what the next purchase is going to be.
    I feel so guilty about having spent so much on something frivolous in such a short span of time.
    In all fairness to myself though, I'm a college student with no bills to speak of other than food and I've still been managing to build up a reserve of a few hundred dollars cash from being completely broke at the end of the summer. I'm also financing my collection solely through my part-time job without outside help.
  18. Revenant

    Silver Dollars

    By Revenant,

    Everyone's favorite coin
    Dollars have aways spoken to me in a way that's completely different from anything else. First, they're big! Second, by the time I was small the large dollars had completely disappeared from circulation and the first time I saw a significant number of silver dollars was in a coin store when I was less than 10, and when you're that young those big shiney silver coins are just so impressive.
    When I started collecting last year the first thing I did was to buy some raw Morgans and Peace dollars. They're mostly EF/AU, not terribly valuable but they're neat. They have character and they'll make a nice silver investment later. After that my interest expanded. In a few years I hope to have partial certified sets of Silver Eagles, Morgans, Peace Dollars, Libertads, Maple Leafs, Britannias, Pandas and Modern Commems. I love large type silver coins and I think that going forward they'll dominate my collection.
  19. Revenant

    Overhaul

    By Revenant,

    Complete remodeling needed.
    I've taken the first steps towards revamping my SAE collection and getting that closer to completion, (I hope to be 100% by 1 year after the first coin was bought, about 7 months from now. I'm currently only about 50%.)
    Looking at my registry collection in general though, I'm convinced that I'll need to completely rework things. I need to update with all the new images and I think I'm going to redo all of my half-assed descriptions.
    Unfortunately this all gets to wait about 40 days until this nightmare of a semester finally ends.

  20. Revenant

    SAE Victory

    By Revenant,

    Making progress.
    Last Friday I picked up a 1989 Silver eagle which has been shipped but hasn't arrived yet. Well, tonight I pulled a double, winning the 1988 and 1991 in a set of dutch auctions. This was partially to advance my set and partially to reward myself after a series of test grades all came back very good.
  21. Revenant

    22 Mercury Dimes

    By Revenant,

    Looking back to 14 months ago.
    I found this old entry in another online journal I keep and thought it was worth revisiting. This was written only about 2 weeks after I started collecting, about 14 months ago, and the intended readers were non-collectors.
    "22 Mercury Dimes:
    Well, I still can't believe it. I was in a gas station convenience store and the guy in front of me paid for his 2 beers with 22 Mercury (1916-1945) dimes and 6 old Roosevelt dimes from the 40's and 50's. Now, what's the importance of this you ask? The Mercury Dimes, and the older Roosevelts are all 90% Silver, 10% Copper. They are honest to god SILVER dimes, at least 62 years old in the case of the Mercury's. The guy left the dimes and left before the clerk even looked at them. The clerk was shocked; she didn't even know what they were. I stepped up and told her that if she'd give me the 28 old dimes and 2 more from the register then I'd give her 3 1 dollar bills. This meant that she didn't have to explain these "strange" coins to her boss so she was more than agreeable. Now, what do I get out of this? I promise you those coins are worth more than 10 cents for 1 thing. For another, I just love old coins. win-win.
    It occured to me about 5 minutes after I obtained them that these may have been stolen from some collector. Again, that's a strong maybe. It does emphasize an sad truth to coin collecting. People steal old coin collections, don't know what they have and the coins are spent just like "normal" money, without regard to the age or relative value of the coins. The other, legal, end of this equation is that people inherit old coin collections or hoards and, unlike the deceased family member, they don't attach meaning or value to them; so the coins are just spent.
    Either way, it just kinda makes you sad."
    2 weeks prior to this I would have been just as confused as the clerk as to what these coins were. The previous week my grandmother had pulled out and shown me Granddad's old stuff and there were about a dozen mercs. I decided to research what those strange dimes were. That's the only reason I knew what I was looking at at the gas station.
  22. Revenant

    My Silver Eagles

    By Revenant,

    My most important and most frustrating set.
    I've wanted to build a set of Silver Eagles since I found out they existed. They're cool coins and they started minting them the same year I was born. It took me a long time to decide how I wanted to collect them, but I settled on getting them graded as NGC MS69s. I might collect the proof coins after I finish getting the Mint States. I spent tons of time trying to win online auctions over the summer to build the set... and half of them came back with milk spots and return policies that basically tell you to take it up with NGC.
    The 5 or 6 eagles I have with spotting are going to NGC in November for appearance review once I finally get to visit home for the firs time in 3 months. I know I'll be able to deal with the problem but this had really sapped the momentum from my efforts to collect these coins.
    I have to say that enthusiasm is contagious and that reading all of neverman's posts have spurred me to get back into collecting my SAEs. I just ordered the first new addition to the set in 3 months and it'll be followed by more new coins for the set in the coming weeks. Dealing with the spotted coins will be a minor set back, but I plan to immediately replace any of them that don't come back and I plan to move drastically closer to a complete set by years end. Thanks for your infectious SAE joy, neverman! I think that was just what I needed.
  23. Revenant
    I really think that the rule should be 90%.
    It's always seemed to me that in order be #1 a set should truely be complete. The registry points are an arbitrary system designed by a group of people that thought they knew the best way to rank coin sets using a function of (supposedly) multiple variables. I've never seen their algorithm and it may be the best ranking system that can be realistically achieved, but it may not be. However, no matter the case, it is extremely short sighted to say that 1 or 2 coins is better than a nearly complete (or complete) set based on some arbitrary system.
    Personally, I've never really subscribed to the whole top coin for top dollar philosophy, at least in the the context put forth by others. I believe in buying what I feel is a nice coin for what I feel is a nice price. I collect mostly Moderns at the moment, and for me the best coin is rarely the MS70. I like MS69s. Not only are they significantly cheaper and kinder to my college student budget, but I think having at least 1 or 2 flaws can be good for just about anything. It's the little flaws that make us who we are. It's the little flaws the make my 69's slightly different from every other coin. Does it really matter that I can pay two or three times the price and get a "perfect" (according to who?) coin that gets me 10 times as many registry points (big whoopy!). When I started collecting I actually thought that MS70s were a myth since perfection is a scientific and engineering impossibility, then I found out people had MS70s! Funny thing being? They're only flawless up to 5x magnification. I'm a Chemical Engineering major and I'm being taught to think on the atomic level (care to guess how many flaws there are in your "perfect" coins?). In all fairness though, I do have 1 MS70, purchased for a special and specific reason.

  24. Revenant

    My first MS 70

    By Revenant,

    The allure of perfection...
    I think the idea of "perfection" features really prominantly in the thinking of coin collectors, not just in the concept of MS70s, but more abstract standards of perfection. Building the "perfect" set, and finding that "perfect" coin (that's rarely an MS70) is the thing we're all after.
    As a collector I'm not usually very concerned with MS70. The only things that can even be found in MS70 are modern proof/uncirculated strikes that were never even meant for circulation. This has lead me to the belief that the "perfect" (ie MS70) coin is really just a myth. Even so, I have recently purchased my first MS70 and as with neverman, it's a bullion coin. I purchased a "perfect" MS70 2007 1/4 Oz Gold American Eagle. It's truely an awesome looking coin and I'm very proud to have it. It was purchased for my 21st birthday (which was just yesterday as it happens) and it was important to me in this one particular case for it to be MS70. For all the other modern issues, MS69 or PF69 is just fine by me.

  25. Revenant
    It always seems to be the men...
    Is it just me, or does it seem like it's always the males the are into coin collecting? And even when a couple collect coins together it seems like it's usually the guy who's REALLY into it and the woman considers it a simple point of interest. Now, I'm not saying that there aren't/can't be female coin collectors that are just as serious as the guys, but it just seems like it doesn't happen nearly as often.
    If this indeed is the case then we must ask ourselves a very serious question, why? Is it that guys are more into history? That seems unlikely, but possible. Is it that guys are more into art? This seems highly unlikely. Could it be that women simply have "better" uses in mind for the money? This would seem extremely likely. Or could it be that there is just some other reason possibly linked to the absence of a Y chromosome which forces us to conclude that most girls just don't get it?
    As it is, I've never met a female coin collector, atleast not one that is into it nearly as much as I am.
    On happy note, to those that are still reading at this point, I became an uncle just over 2 weeks ago. I still can't drink legally but I have a niece.