Revenant

Thanks! Congrats on yours and good luck to you. We'll see if they're feeling like being nice to me this year. The ones I feel like I have in the running this year are primarily the 61% complete Austral Set, trying to follow in the footsteps of the Zimbabwe and Venezuelan Sets, possibly with a Best Presented or Best New, and the 500 Lire set. I think if they were going to acknowledge the 10G set they would have done it by now, but I could be wrong. I think this year is going to bring 12, which is quite impressive for me given that I've averaged about 3 per year for the last 15 years. Almost half of that is just what I've been doing in the Modern Italian categories for my wife though.

So, I've always thought the expression "It's all over but the crying" was a funny one, in part because when something is over people can be crying because they're happy or because they're sad. You see it on awards shows all the time with the happy cry, but, given that televised award shows are often for TV and movie stars who are, after all, professional pretenders, it does make you wonder sometimes how much of the happy crying is genuine. What I never knew, however, but what a little bit of quick googling has now taught me, is that this is apparently the name of and a line from a Hank Williams Jr break-up song from 1947. Which was... a bit before my time, if I'm being honest. I am now wondering what the broader cultural awareness of this song and the cultural origins of the phrase seem to be. Am I not aware of this song simply because I'm not 60-80 year old or is this something that most other people in their mid-30s currently are aware of and I'm just out of the loop? But, anyway... The registry awards are now closed. I wish everyone luck. I'll resist the temptation to make the obvious Hunger Games reference. I thought I'd take the occasion to follow-up on a post from last year. After I won in 4 Modern Italian categories last year my wife had jokingly asked, "So, 6 next year?" My response at the time was that I'd be happy to hold 2-3. It looks like the end result is going to be 5 for this year - Very solidly not bad. I guess we'll see how long people let me continue to get away with this. I think the only set in that group that it would REALLY annoy me to see get knocked down from #1 would be the now-100% complete 500 Lire set that includes two coins her family brought back from Italy. That one I really would want to defend. Somewhat to my surprise, the 1932 set was not challenged or bumped after the CAC points were removed, and, for the first time in 3 years, it'll take the top spot, and take both the overall and the NGC award, bringing that one up to 25 Best in Category awards earned over 16 years, which goes far beyond what I ever expected for that set. For a little context - I've been in the Registry for 15 years from 2007-2022 and earned 48 Best in Category awards, and literally almost half of those are on that 1 set. Some of my recent efforts are starting to change that. I think this is going to be my best year ever in terms of BiC awards and a few more years of this might help make that set less of an out-sized contributor, but I do still find it kind of amazing. But I think it continues to be a source of pride for my Father-in-Law. I can't remember if I ever talked about this at the time (looking back, it would appear that I did not), but a year ago I gave my stepfather a 6-coin glass-lid Volterra display case as a Christmas present - very similar to the 5 coin case my wife gave me a year prior. When he saw it and saw that it held 6 coins he understood immediately and there was zero need to explain exactly what the idea for it was. And yes, 6 slots would do - because short of winning the lottery we are never getting that $20 Double Eagle. But! If we ever do win a couple of hundred million dollars, I will gladly buy a new custom 7-coin case. And at that point I doubt I'll ever have to worry about that set losing the top spot in the category ever again, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the old coins in the set - like the MS63 $10 Eagle - got some upgrades. I tried to talk my Stepfather into some MS67RD pennies over the years I think but he hasn't bitten so far. For my part of the crying, I think the main thing I wanted to get done that I failed to do was that I failed to get pictures done and update the presentation fully on the 5L and 10L sets. Like I said before though, I was pretty sure that was dead as soon as Sam went into the hospital earlier than expected. I also did not get the turtle coins fully imaged, and I have not set up anything for showing off that effort as it moves forward, but I've known for a while that that was going to be more a "next year" thing that I was just starting to work on this year, so I don't mark that as much of a failure. I think the major focuses for next year will be to: 1) bring the Austral set closer to 100% if I can - it closed this year at 61%, there are 5 coins that I'll need to find and grade, and I've managed to pick up a raw example of 1 of those 5 so far. 2) do more with coins from the short-lived Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and maybe spread into the Republic Era that lasted from about 1965-1980 - an interesting period given that the country was in a Civil War for pretty much the entire time. But I do want to try to fill in this gap between my Federation-era sets and my Zimbabwe set. This year though, given that I have "A Tower of Towering Giraffes" and "A Parade of Dancing Elephants," I think you're going to see "A Bouquet of Flame Lillies" and maybe "A Leap of Vigilant Leopards." 3) do more with Turtle coins. I really am working on a few things with this, picking up some various raw coins where I find promising examples. Much like with Sam, I'm going to build this I think, even if all Ben ever does is roll his eyes at me for it later. 4) work on my "Golden Nickels" set. I realized recently that I only have 5 coins listed in that little custom set I have, even though I've added several coins to the collection in the last couple of years and I think I could actually have 10 coins in that set right now. But I think the extent to which I've ignored and neglected this set is a testament to how much I don't like the old Custom set system at this point, which probably bodes poorly for the turtle set, if I'm being honest. Because, yes, it is sometimes fun to make these statements, call the shots, and see a year down the road if I actually kept to plan and did what I said I was going to do. But that's my ramble for the day. Lots of laugh emojis just because I'm feeling silly and trying to relax after last week.

Well, upon further investigation, there is also a 1 Lire.

Well, Sam was vomiting (because of headaches) and not eating this weekend, so... While we were supposed to go into the hospital in 3 weeks, yesterday we went ahead and took him to the ER, and they ended up admitting him. We're still there, probably looking at a 2nd night here, trying to figure out what's going on as Neurosurgery seemingly looks for any problem or solution that is not the shunt or his head, when we're pretty sure it's the shunt and his head because he keeps saying he's throwing up because his head hurts. We spent about 7 hours waiting in the lobby because they're swamped with mostly RSV cases, so not much happened there. But, once we got a room I got to pull out a laptop while Sam was on his tablet with us, and I got my last four Austral write-ups drafted and finished. So, there is now at least what I'd consider a finished draft of what I wanted for that set up and online for viewing. I'm sure I'll want to work on it, tweak and adjust it over time, but the idea is up there. My wife's joking response to this was, "So, See? This was all you needed!" Yeah... Sure. Totally, Dear. I mean... I was pretty sure I was going to be able to get those drafted out and up in the next week without this, but, yeah, I tend ot work on this stuff and make progress as a distraction when I'm stuck and waiting on these things. The Austral set is up. That said, unless we get out of here before this weekend, I would say that my plans for getting new pictures posted of some new and old-ish Modern Italian coins before the 1st are probably shot.

I like small pans / small sets and projects but I definitely don't necessarily need more except as I declare some more or less finished - like I've now more or less declared an end to the work on the 500L, the Zimbabwe set, the half penny and penny Rhodesian sets. I'm happy to go for the type coin for the 2L for the 1986 set but I'm not going to mess with a date set. I'm not even fully committed to a full date set on the 5L and 10L. Mostly dabbling for a bit of fun.

If I remember right you only need to be 50% complete with at least 50% of the coins being graded by NGC to be considered. If you check those boxes you're in the running. It definitely makes it more likely if you have pictures and comments/ remarks on every coin and a description for the set.

If you look at my recent journals, one of them has a photo that shows my set-up. I forget which entry off-hand. I'll probably be taking some more photos soon though and I might try for a better shot specifically of how I'm shooting these days. I have some new Italian coins to shoot.

Some of you may recall that, when I started buying graded Modern Italian coins in late-2021 to build sets for / to celebrate / in honor of my wife, one of my initial wants / goals was as 1986 Mint set for Italian coins. I haven't talked about it much recently because... it just came together quickly and I completed it easily and... it was built but doomed to rot in the purgatory that is the custom set feature in the old registry. Seriously though, how do you even brag up a custom set these days? Is there even an easy or clear way to access them from the New Registry site or am I right in thinking you have to go through the old Collector's Society site? This is the single biggest thing that keeps me from getting excited about building a turtle themed set. I'm just worried it will get no visibility or attention. Anyway... That set included 7 coins. - 5 Lire - 10 Lire - 20 Lire - 50 Lire - 100 Lire - 200 Lire - 500 Lire What you do NOT see there is a 2 Lire... Done, right? RighT?!? That's every coin that is in the Franklin mint sets from the period... So that's a full set, RiGhT?!? They wouldn't lead me wrong, Right? So, then what is THIS!?!?! Well... it would appear that Italy DID make 2 Lire coins in 1986, but they did not make them for circulation. They only about 73,200 of these to go in BU sets and made about 17,500 proofs to go in Proof sets. It DOES totally make sense to me that they would not be striking 2 Lire coins for circulation at the point where they're striking 500 Lire coins. It does make sense to me that the Franklin Mint would not have included very limited release coins for these little collectable cards - 1) how would they have gotten enough of them, even if they cornered the market on the BU sets? and 2) why would their target audience want sets that included coins that they would not have seen in their travels or used if they went to the country? It kind of goes against the concept of those sets / what it seems like those sets were trying to do. Anyway... I found this thing on eBay and the seller was offering it for about $36. It would cost at least $19 (plus shipping) to grade one myself, assuming I could find one worth sending in to try with, And finding and buying that raw coin would cost a few bucks soo... at that price, why not just take a guaranteed MS66? They only made 73,200 of them, 37 years ago, and I imagine that many or most of those are still locked in sets and not available for me to try to pick up as an individual piece. And I've found that trying to buy those old sets can get pricey. So, I just bought it, and this will go in with the rest of the set once I get it. Coin #8... The 2 Lire coins from 1986 did not circulate and they were not strictly speaking struck for circulation, but they're BU / MS coins, and I am going to include this one in that set for my wife. I've shown her this denomination / type of coin before and she thought it was interesting and neat. I just hadn't gotten one because I didn't think they had them in 1986 and getting a random 2 Lire didn't fit in with anything else I was working on or trying to accomplish, and I had already started a lot of fires / had a lot of pans in the oven for this. I wonder if I should just bite the bullet and ask to see if the Registry gods would make this a competitive category for me... I would just ask for a Republic era type set and use that for a mint set, but every time I try that lately I get a set with bunch of slots for coins (especially circulating commemoratives) that I don't really want to collect, and given what I know about the circulating comems they did with the 200L and 500L that would almost certainly be the case, and I know there'd be a 1000 Lire slot in that set that I do not want in this set. Edited to add: There is also a 1 Lire, also only made for BU sets with a mintage of 73K. I guess there may be some more work to do.

And honestly I prefer it that way. I want my sets to be my showcase. I wouldn't want a public comment section.

Yeah. World NCLT is a very different market than Modern World circulating coinage. With a lot of what I've been playing with the last few years, the grading fee is 50-75% of the cost I'm paying. So that model just absolutely does not work for me,

I was active from around mid-2007 to around 2010, when the rigor of my academic studies and lack of funds made it difficult to impossible for me to participate here for a few years. I didn't really come back until 2016, after my son was born and I had a full-time job that paid me good money for a while there - and then I was absent through most of 2017 because I was broke and unemployed. I've been most active here since late-2017, when I had a job and money again. Between those periods, ~2012 they introduced the new registry and redesigned chat boards and new features for the journal. Between 2010 and 2017 I grew and changed a lot as a person. I matured, became a husband, became a father, started paying all my own bills. My writing style changed and matured. So if you think my approach to journaling here is worth studying or emulating, I'd focus on the period from Jan 2018 to today.

I don't pay attention to PCGS coins at all just because I don't like buying them because my artist brain likes for things to match and visually seeing a mix of slabs is like nails on a chalkboard for me. You're talking to someone that paid over $100 in credits to reholder a gold set just so all the slabs would look the same. Have I seen an increase in participation? I guess it depends on what set you mean. In the 10G set I think I was THE first set created and for a while there were under 5 sets. Now there's over 30 sets competing. In the modern Italian and other sets I participate in? No. Zimbabwe - it's still just me and Xano, even after I made a splash by winning a major award with it. 5 Lire set? - I'm the only set. 10 Lire set? - Me and 2 other people. 200L Set? - I'm the only set. 500L type set? - I'm the only set. 500L date set? - me against 1 other person with 1 coin. Austral set? - Only me. Peso convertible set? - Me against 1 person with 1 coin. Yeah... I'm seeing more of these things show up on eBay as graded coins. But in a lot of areas that is not translating into Registry sets. I mean... you say that... but... I still don't see you with a Zimbabwe type set, or a penny set... or a half penny set... You're in the game on the notes side but you have not made an appearance on the coin side. Remind me what your mailing address is sometime soon. Maybe I can send you some of my extra Zimbabwe type coins and you can join me and Xano. I'll get that type set started soon, just so you can dream of taking shots at me.

Short of them quietly sitting on some coins in the background I think I pretty much sniped them for this year by buying the only two coins available on eBay that had significant point values attached to them. Yeah. They could probably get several things on very short order and pull ahead of me, but I'd be surprised. If they decide to fight me for it I imagine it will be next year. All in good fun though. I get to collect an extra scalp / certificate for Shandy this year. I am expecting and hoping for a fairly chill week in the hospital on an ICP monitor ending in an in-and-out shunt revision. I could be wrong, but I'm telling myself it will be RELATIVELY easy.

The family and I celebrate my birthday this week / this weekend, and, this year, unlike last year, neither kid is in the hospital, currently - and I'll take the win. However, we do now know that Sam's in-patient time is going to start on November the 13th. So there's that to "look forward" to. I now have my historical blurb sections on 4 of my 8 Austral coins written or at least mostly written - these things tend to go through revisions over time and I'm still very much working on them. For my birthday, Shandy got me an MS66 Rhodesian 6 Pence coin from 1955 (you may note that this is also one of my birthyear set years that I worked on with my step-father). Now, if you want the funny on this, I'd thought this coin had a turtle on the back of it and that's one of the reasons I put Shandy onto it. I thought it would be a fun addition to the set of turtle coins I'm now unofficially, officially, building. It turns out I was wrong. It has a cougar / mountain lion on the back of it. The FIJI 6 pence from this period has a turtle on it. So... That's a little funny... they're both 6 pence coins, from the 1950s and have Elizabeth II on the front. I buy Rhodesian coins a lot and I got myself confused. Often wrong. Rarely in doubt. But I'm still happy to have the coin. This may end up being the start of an Elizabeth II, Federation of Rhodesia an Nyasaland type set, which, let's be honest, we all know was probably coming at some point. But this has Shandy encouraging me to get the Fiji 6 pence and a Rhodesian 3 pence to pair with the 6 pence. So maybe I fail upward? I could definitely see the turtle set(s) / turtle coins and a Rhodesian type set being the focus of my coin collecting efforts next year now that the Rhodesian pennies, Rhodesian half pennies, and the 500 Lire set are all basically done. On that note, Shandy said jokingly that "all of your sets (or at least the ones I am really into and talk about) are either very full and complete or very hard to find coins for." Hmmm.... How about that, folks? In the course of our conversation, it came up that the same seller that we've bought a lot of these Rhodesian coins from has just a lot of coins from different places and years and just a lot of cool, random old stuff. I made the comment to her, "Ya know, if you ever see something of his that looks interesting, even if it isn't something I'm collecting but you think it's cool and I'll enjoy it, you can go for it and surprise me." I'm not saying I'd want her to buy just anything or from anyone, but when it's a seller we've bought from a lot that offers generally reasonable prices, I'm down to let her take some risks on her own. Speaking of coins that are hard to find, I did manage to find a 1990, 1000 Austral coin that looks pretty good (advertised as uncirc, but I have a hard time telling sometimes with the old steel / aluminum coins) and that may end up getting sent in for grading next year to add to the Austral set. I need to find the 100 Austral and the 500 Austral to try to complete that set. Doing all of this work and making a banner image for the 10L set recently also got me looking at some modern Italian coins and I ended up picking up a 1953 and 1954 10 Lire coin for that set. They're both pretty big wins and additions to the set and they put me ahead of the guy that beat me in the 10 Lire category last year. Those two coins are enough to over-come the 1951 he has in that set. He had another coin in his set that had his point total up to 106 but 24 hours after I added my new coins, he removed the other coin he'd had in his set. I'm not sure if the two events are related but the timing was interesting. It'll be interesting to see if he comes back later this month or next year and we slap it out over the category a little. It's very funny in the registry to have sets like the Morgan dollars where there are literally thousands of sets and building a set that gets anywhere near the top can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and then simultaneously to have quiet little, "backwater," modern categories where a couple of guys can "slap it out" a little with 10% complete sets for a couple of hundred bucks. That's all from me for now. There will be more forthcoming...

I find the problem I have with shooting down at something flat on the table is the camera itself making unattractive shadows. That's part of what ultimately got me on the ring light set-up I'm using now. It gives good results that are also more consistent and reproducible than a lot of what I've done in the past.

I am now happy to say that pictures are up for both the Austral coins and the Peso Convertible coins. I'm very happy with how these came out... But I'm thrilled to say I have a banner image now: I always try to be mindful of how these look on the PC and my phone... One thing that was important to me was having a prominent placement for the obverse of the 10C coin, which features the national Coat of Arms. I've even gotten my historical write-ups done for 2 of the 8 coins - which I honestly consider the hardest and most mentally demanding of the tasks I've set for myself this month. The photos and the banner images are mentally much easier. The pictures in particular are mostly just a mechanical process of hammering through the shots and then applying basically the same processing to every shot at this point. Not a very mentally demanding task anymore. I've also gotten banners done for two other sets that needed them - the 10 Lire set (Finaly!) and a new competitive set that one of my new turtle coins can go into (more on this one later probably - that Colombian turtle coin is really rather impressive). At this point, my list of things I still want to do is shorter than my list of what I've done - always a proud place to be. The main thing is just that writing to be done. The rest of the turtle coins have had pictures of them taken but I haven't edited them yet. I'll probably use that as a mental break and reward for after a couple more of the write-ups are done.

Well... I don't lock the door or anything.

Be honest – how many of you remember that line from the start of Star Wars: Episode 3? I have bemoaned several times over the last few months that it is hard to get excited or get motivated about building a registry set when you… don’t… have coins… But! I find that it is much easier to get excited about researching and writing about coins for a registry set when you… have coins… and have pictures to go with "da wordy bits." I also gotta say - even feeling slightly disappointed at some of the grades - there’s a special joy and magic to an unboxing and it’s fun to have coins come home. In spite of that initial disappointment, I was very happy and noticed myself smiling when I opened that box Monday night. My wife also snuck this gem while I was in bed Tuesday night, working on getting the first images edited and posted to sets. I decided to start with the low-hanging fruit, hitting the 500L coins and the other coins where I just needed to do images for 1-6 coins to “complete” existing sets, before launching into the Argentinian coins and turtle coins, which are 7-8 coin groups for completely new sets. The part that does make these slightly more complicated though is trying to make sure that the images for the new coins match reasonably well with the old images of the coins that have been in the set a year or two, because I want consistency, but I don’t want to rei-image the entire Zimbabwe set (23 coins) because I’m replacing 1 coin. I don’t want to re-image the 11 older coins in the 500L set, just because I’m filling the last 3 holes. I will also admit to just wanting to be able to show off a completed 500L set to my wife. The images are up now. I’d encourage anyone that follows these sets to look at the Zimbabwe type set, the Venezuelan type set, and the Italian 500L set. The new descriptions are up to, and all three sets are now 100% complete (not that that’s new for Zimbabwe anyway). A fun image I’ll call out is the Reverse shot for the 50 Bolivars, which shows a reverse struck with a die with a shocking degree of wear that I’m just not used to seeing in modern US coins. Yeah – the coin graded MS66, and it has some scratches, clearly, but look at all those signs of die deterioration around the 5 and 0 in 50, around the outer rim of the legend and around the inner ring around the core design. Personally, I just find that very interesting and cool to look at. Side note: But the image she snuck of me on the computer is what it looks like when I’m just working on the laptop in bed at night. When I’m up in my office and taking the coins, the set-up is a little nicer. When I replaced my old laptop about a year ago I got a new one that is the same brand as my work laptop, so it can dock into the same docking cube as my work laptop and I can use the same monitor and speaker set-up without multiple docking stations or monitor switching. It makes the home office situation more enjoyable and fun. The images aren’t ready to go yet but I’ve taken images of the Argentinian coins today, again, finding myself just very excited and happy to get to snap those shots. I’ve gone ahead and gotten the images shot for Austral coins and Peso Convertible coins in 1 go. I’ll just be starting the editing with the Austral coins. There will probably be another one of these posts soon as the Austral and then Peso Convertible images go up. I do have a feeling that the Peso Convertible images will be edited before I hit the historical write-ups for the Austral set, just because 1) it's easier to cross that one off and 2) Again... pictures are fun. It's shocking - You would never expect a photographer to hold this opinion. I know. So, where does this leave me? … Since I also keep finding new things that need to be done or that I want to get done before November 1st, and some of these are smaller (images on 1-2 coins) than others (making new banner images for sets that I’ve apparently been neglecting). 1) Getting the coins programmed in and in the slots, (Except for the Austral coins) 2) Getting my pre-written descriptions posted on the coins (for the new $10 Zimbabwe coin, 500L set, Argentinian Set, and Venezuelan coins) 3) Getting pictures taken of the 500 Lire coins and getting those posted 3b) Getting pictures of the new 2003 $10 coin for the Zimbabwe set. 3c) Getting pictures of the new 1983 5L and 1984 10L coins for those Italian sets.. 3d) Getting pictures of our 1977 5L and 1984 5L coins for the 5L set since I apparently never did that… 4) Getting pictures on the new Venezuelan coins to maintain the quality of the presentation on that set, 5) Getting the Austral coins imaged and 6) Getting my historical write-ups for the Austral Set ready. 7) Making a banner / set image for the Austral set – which I haven’t made a banner image for this one yet as I usually use images of the graded coins, which 8) Making a banner / set image for the Italian 10L set since I apparently never did that… 9) Getting the Peso Convertible Coins imaged and posted 10 Getting the turtle coins imaged and.. 11) Starting to build some kind of signature set around that???? – More on this later but this is going to be mostly a pure signature set play... but I'm also finding some glimmers of where there might be potential for competitive set off-shoots.

I managed to make a little progress on my goals this weekend, which is pretty solid in light of the fact that the coins hadn’t been physically delivered yet and 3 of my remaining 4 points relate to imaging and editing shots of the new coins… 1) Getting the coins programmed in and in the slots, (Except for the Austral coins) 2) Getting my pre-written descriptions posted on the coins (for the new $10 Zimbabwe coin, 500L set, Argentinian Set, and Venezuelan coins) 3) Getting pictures taken of the 500 Lire coins to polish the presentation on that set, 4) Getting pictures on the new Venezuelan coins to maintain the quality of the presentation on that set, 5) Getting the Austral coins imaged and 6) Getting my historical write-ups for the Austral Set ready. But to this I have to add… 7) Making a banner / set image for the Austral set – which I haven’t made a banner image for this one yet as I usually use images of the graded coins, which Guess what Fed-Ex dropped at my door today: I’ll have to have an unboxing with the wife soon – probably tonight, possibly not. We also have TV to watch. I have the day off on Friday and I might try to use some of that time to get some pictures taken – assuming I don’t get a chance before that. The crush of things at work seems to finally be slacking off after some very hectic months this summer. Overall, I’d say it’s coming together, which is probably good considering I logged in today to post this and I noticed… Dun dun dun! ... The countdown has begun! We are officially in October, and this looks like it was (logically) set to start displaying when we were 30 days from the deadline. I think I at least have a framework for how I want to do the historical write-ups for the Austral set. The Peso Convertible set is officially becoming a “next year”-thing, I think. In the midst of this... we're also getting ready for another hospital stay with Samuel, albeit a planned one this time. To get to the bottom of his headaches and determine if it really is low ICP (intracranial pressure) we're going to pick a Monday when some of the best neurosurgeons in the country are... not on vacation or at a conference... and we're going to go in for them to put in an ICP gauge and spend about three days measuring the pressure in his head. At the end of that, we may go home without answers, we may have a shunt revision and replace his shunt with a programmable shunt, or we could be strapping in for a procedure called and ETV... which could have him in the hospital for 6 weeks... I'm mostly hoping for not that last one. I am very much hoping that this happens soon, so his headaches can stop. So that does have the potential to impact my ability to pull off some of this... but, hey, we all know I can take pictures and write some stuff in a fairly short period of time if I feel the need, and this has been a source of stress relief for me since before 2019, so don't count me out there. On a closing note... That $25 coin is clearly mocking me... I may have to do something about this...

They've established a clear, defined relationship between old and new grades that should allow NGCX coins to compete in the registry alongside the Sheldon Scale coins. So I'm sure it will happen. The question / challenge is getting someone to code it.

They spell out the logic pretty clearly in their recent article - Nothing is wrong with the 70 point scale other than the fact that coin collectors are the only ones that use it. Card collectors and the like use a 10 point scale and so they're hoping switching more and more to a 10 point scale will make the hobby easier to get into for new people and bring new people in. To this end they are expanding this to two of the most commonly known and collected US coin series. Coin collectors are old. If we don't bring in new people the hobby dies and their business model is toast. It seems like it could be a pretty smart move. But it also risks muddying the waters and confusing things and they have literally tens of millions of legacy coins graded on the 70 point scale that people spent billions of dollars grading and so they can't just abandon that without risking ticking off all us old grumps. It could be a big win for them. It could blow up in their face. I guess we'll see.

Yeah, and my wife agrees with you that I'm being dramatic. I know a 66 at least is far from terrible... but... I wanted more 67s! That 63 on the 10 Austral kinda hurts though! And.... the more time goes on... I'd love to get something in the MS65+ range on that $10 and the $25 coins from Zimbabwe but I really question if they're out there to be found. I don't think these were heavily saved or preserved because I think the notes were already sucking all the air out of the room by the time these were actually released ~2008.

Okay, so, after several rounds of going back and forth between “Grading/Quality Control,” “Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging,” and “Quality Control/Finalized,” the submission is finally finalized and shipped, and I have grades. On a few of them, all I can say is… Woof… For Italy… While these mostly are not great I can’t call most of these disappointments. Yeah… the 1995 is lower than I’d hoped for, but the 2000 and 2001 are better than I’d worried they might be. At the end of the day those were a play to at least get the set finished. All three coins are having to go through NGCs review process to add to the registry because none of those three have ever been added to the set before. The 5L was a disappointment – I thought that would do better. But I’m happy with the 10L. Most importantly - I have made the 500L set I built for my wife 100% complete, including coins her family brought back with them from Italy 30 years ago. I like it. The Venezuelan coins are where this hurts – Pretty much all MS66s, and so these fall short of what I needed to take back the #1 set with that Best Presented Set… So… maybe next year we’ll try to reclaim the title: The Argentinian Coins… Again… Overall not what I’d hoped for… but… They’re still going to let me fill out a set with a fun narrative. For the Austral Anyway… I’m taking another look at the Peso Convertible and realizing how many slots that set has for circulating commemoratives I have zero interest in hunting down. Lol The 63s and the 64s hurt… but the Zimbabwe set also started with some less than stellar and humble grades and such… and I’ve improved from there where I could. Once again... we'll call this a foundation to grow from... maybe... We'll see how much I feel like torturing myself and my wallet. Speaking of the Zimbabwe set, the $10 coin scored! Kind of! – It got an MS62. Which beats the AU58 that I had before and it is now the TOP POP, highest graded example graded by NGC. I had been hoping this would grade MS and not AU like the last one, and it did. So, this is kind of a win… but I had hoped it might MS63. Seriously though, finding examples.of these that do not look rough has been hard. I've been trying... for a few years now. And finally, we have the turtle coins… Mostly 66s. I can’t really complain too much here. I didn’t really expect too many super high grades here and I mostly just wanted these to maybe form the basis for a future signature set. Yes, high grades are nice, but they’re not essential for a non-competitive set…. that I’m not even officially building yet… and they’re still Gem Uncirc grades. But... Hey! That Tokelau Cent! MS67RD! Next goals will be.. 1) getting the coins programmed in and in the slots, 2) getting my pre-written descriptions posted on the coins, 3) getting pictures taken of the 500 Lire coins to polish the presentation on that set, 4) pictures on the new Venezuelan coins to maintain the quality of the presentation on that set, 5) getting the Austral coins (and maybe the Pesos) imaged and 6) getting my historical write-ups for the Austral Set ready. These may not all happen in this order.

By the end of the 1st week in October they'll have been in QC as long as they were in grading.

This week has had emails from annoying clients every day right at the start of the day. Emails from clients that don't communicate internally so that your Point of Contact agrees to something but then never communicates that to the rest of their team, so you get questions about it for months. Clients that expect you to be at their beck and call and let them have meetings with you on 15 minutes notice. Clients that want meetings to discuss or clarify things that are clearly written in the report... not that they would know that because they never read the report, even when you told them in an email what section or what page to look at... That kind of thing. However, I did get one bit of good news in the midst of this! Huzzah! We have made it to quality control! Grades soon! Maybe! - Probably! I saw that it went to quality control on Tuesday, early in the morning, so I'm hoping that maybe tomorrow if I'm very lucky or maybe next week I'll see grades. I'm thinking next week is more likely. Week after next is possible. But I'm definitely feeling confident I'll have grades and maybe coins to take pictures of by early October! Last week on Thursday I got a pink notice that USPS tried to deliver a package / envelope (LIES!!!) and so I was able to get out and collect it yesterday. As suspected it was my shipment of coins from a dealer in Hungary. The coins are 2014 issues from New Caledonia. I'm going to make this easy on me (be lazy) and use the seller's images to show the coins for the most part. I saw these online and thought they were very cool with the stylized, abstract turtle designs. What the above images don't do a great job of showing is that the 2F and 5F coins are a golden-colored brass material that I've seen a fair bit of lately where the 10f, 20f, and 50f are silver-colored and probably made of zinc or nickel or plated steel. I'm not sure which yet. The other thing I wasn't prepared for was the range in sizes involved - the 100f is actually quite massive, as is the 50f. I'm not sure my picture below is doing a much better job of expressing the color difference (the 100f is an orange brass colored ring around a "silver" core, btw), but it should give you a feel for the range in the sizes. I put the 2f coin at about 18 mm - same size range as a US dime - and the 100f coin around 38 mm - putting it in the same size bracket as a Morgan dollar, somewhat smaller than a lot of modern 1 oz silver bullion coins (~40-41 mm).