Revenant

17 minutes ago, gherrmann44 said:

10 cents! This must have been long before hyperinflation! It will make for an interesting narrative when you get around to writing it up. Otherwise at the price you got it, you just cant go wrong. You drive a hard bargain!

The zimbabwean dollar experienced double digit annual inflation almost from the time it was created. The top just blew off 10 years ago. But, when this coin was made, it was about on par with an American dime.

30 minutes ago, Naked Angel said:

Congrats Revenant!  A top pop is a top pop no matter what kind of coin.  I don't think I've read a journal about it, what got you into collecting the Zimbabwe coins and currency?

Well, I was coming back to coin collecting around 2006 / 2007 during the run-up to the worst part of the hyperinflation (2008). That (collecting silver coins) lead me to sites about Austrian economic theory and lots of articles about the Zimbabwean hyperinflation, and that really captured my imagination and attention at the time. 10 years later it still fascinates me.

1 hour ago, Goldenboy#1 said:

1st, the link you sent was not for a $10 eagle, it was for a $5 eagle

I consider $475 to be reasonable

Yes, I realized that, which is why I went back and removed the link from the post. Good luck finding the coin. I'll let you know if I run across one.

What do you consider reasonable?

11 hours ago, jackson64 said:

I find those labels annoying actually. I have a few yearly sets and I like the holders to match ( for the most part.).. Having a complete set of Burnished ASE's SP70's but one of them is in a weird blue labeled holder does not give the set the orderly feel I like...…. ( I also have a complete Proof Ike dollar set but 2 of the labels are "photo labels" and the coins are in the holders backwards.

I've written posts about the annoyance of some foreign coin sets where 25 of 30 coins put the queen's bust on the label side but 4 or 5 coins have the reverse on the label side???? Makes no sense.....

Yeah... All the label variations make it very hard to make a set with consistent look / presentation unless all of the coins are slabbed / acquired in a short span of time. With modern sets that are issued over 10 years like the presidential dollars or the Queen's Beasts it seems nearly impossible. Even the generic gold / brown labels change design too often for that.

1 hour ago, Naked Angel said:

Thanks Revenant, I didn't realize it has been that long.

I'm pretty sure the last year was either 2005 or 2006 for NGC.

2 minutes ago, Naked Angel said:

1000% agree with you rons.  The whole first strike label is especially scammy, because it is literally impossible to know what coins were struck first.  The mint strikes a certain amount, in this case 30,000, but releases them all at once.  How can you possibly know what coins were "first strikes"??  Somebody tell me if i'm wrong...

Which is why "Early Releases" replaced "First Strike" over 10 years ago.

From NGC's page:

"NGC offers the First Day of Issue designation for select coins that are purchased within one day of the first day that a mint makes a new coin issue available for sale. In most cases, NGC will make the First Day of Issue designation available only to submitters of bulk quantities or at select trade shows. In cases where the First Day of Issue designation will be available instead to all submitters, an article with submission instructions and grading fees will be posted to the NGC website prior to a coin’s release. In all cases, the First Day of Issue designation is available only by special request and will require a higher grading fee."

"To qualify for First Day of Issue, coins must be purchased within one day of the first day that a mint makes a new coin issue available for sale and must be received by NGC or an NGC-approved depository within one week of the release date. NGC will require that the submitter provide adequate evidence (including purchase receipts) to demonstrate the date when the coins were purchased."

Their rules just are what they are. *Shrug*

As far as how the dealers got 10+ when it was one per household? Simple: You make people an offer that if they buy it and resell it to you you'll give them a mark-up of a certain percentage or amount over their cost to buy. They make all of their employees order one and resell it to the company. There are plenty of ways.

28 minutes ago, Naked Angel said:

Thanks for the comment gherrmann44..it’s funny you should say that about your retirement portfolio.  That’s what I tell my wife too, that I’m not just buying for kicks and giggles, it’s part of our retirement.  It doesn’t always sway her, lol.  Fortunately I’m far from that day.  Here’s the PF 70..

I almost have the opposite understanding with my wife. I make it very clear that, while some of my purchases have a fair amount of gold or silver value supporting them, I'm not banking on them going up in value and I hope I never have to sell them.

No. I never dress up and Shandy hasn't in several years. I may decide to invest in an outfit at some point but that'll come later. Right now I'm paying off student loans and cars and my coin budget is meager enough as it is. Lol

I am very much looking forward to paying off my loans in 12 months and the first car in 18.

Good story / post.

One of these days, if I ever complete it, I'd like to re-holder my 10G set to make them all match. I think some of my coins in old fatties might pick up a point if I try for it at that point.

Tracking down an 1880, 1885 and 1886 for that set is... Not trivial.

3 hours ago, Just Bob said:

I would add, "well played by the coin flippers," also.

Agreed with both of you. But people knew they were coming and when. And 2,000,000 minted per coin is not a recipe for a true rarity. That's plenty to satisfy demand, when you consider that, even amongst avid collectors, only a few will want them bad enough to pay high premiums.

I feel like PCGS did more to drum this up than NGC, but maybe I'm biased.

I really can't hold it against them for taking the fees from the flippers. It's how they pay their bills, which means, ultimately, it helps keep this place running and free for us to use.

On 10/15/2019 at 10:51 PM, Just Bob said:

Congratulations - on both presents! I know you must be proud to see your work recognized. Well done. 

Thanks! It was a very big, great surprise. I had a look back and I think this was only the 2nd month they'd done a set feature for the monthly news article like this. So it feels like quite an honor for the set - which is a small part of what has been my pet-project this year.

On 10/21/2019 at 12:09 PM, gherrmann44 said:

Good times, happy birthday, and thoughtful gifts! I got coins for my birthday once from my daughter. She ordered me the 2013-W West Point SAE set with the enhanced finish and reverse proof.

Thanks! Funny thing was, they were wrapped separately. I opened the proof eagle last. Having owned others, when I was unwrapping it I said, "this feels about the same size and weight as a silver eagle," and I was right. I think that surprised them.

On 10/25/2019 at 9:42 PM, thisistheshow said:

Happy belated birthday! 

 

 

Thank you! It was a good day!

Of course, the next day Ben spikes a 103 fever and it's back to dad-life. Lol

On 10/27/2019 at 8:54 PM, Iceman said:

Happy birthday.....I hope your enjoying your wonderful presents I try to get the birth years for the ASE in proofs for the grandchildren.   

It was a great day. I hadn't realized they had those sets or I might have gotten one for Ben. Maybe I can get lucky and snag one on the secondary market later on.

17 hours ago, Just Bob said:

Sometimes I read your journal entries and think to myself, "I really like the way he thinks."

Thanks! That's a great compliment!

11 hours ago, jackson64 said:

Crackouts are another story however, I have had some hit/miss luck with those ( but then the risk of a coin in a current NGC slab coming back as ungradeable is a big risk too as I have had about a half dozen NGC crackouts come back in a bodybag as "artificially toned" or "cleaned" when the coin was untouched from slab to flip to grader)

Yeah. This is probably one of the main reasons why that 1875 10G I have is still in a PCGS holder - the risk of cracking it out and losing the certification / grade it has is higher than I want to take.

To be MS70 I think they have to be "perfect" under 5x magnification.

Many of these coins are made of cery soft metal that's easily damaged.

This leaves a few possibilities:

1) It is as you say

2) There was a small nick or flaw on the coin that the first company missed

3) Somehow a small flaw was introduced between one company grading and another company grading - maybe even during the first encapsulation process itself. If you crack it out yourself and send it in for regrading then there's even more chances for a coin to get nicked.

On 10/6/2019 at 10:22 AM, Iceman said:

Congratulations....This is wonderful news and I wish you all the luck with your most deserved promotion.....

Thanks! Crazy thing is, and I've joked with my wife on this, TECHNICALLY, my job title didn't change, but I am getting new responsibilities and with him gone I've technically gone from #2 to #1 in the office.

11 hours ago, gherrmann44 said:

Congratulations Revenant! You most certainly deserve it! Enjoy that cruise with your wife! 

Thanks! Plan to. She's talking about it constantly.

2 hours ago, deposito said:

… that sounds like a lot of vindication...

Sooooo much of this.

2 hours ago, Just Bob said:

I know this has to take a load off your shoulders. There is nothing quite like the feeling of being debt free.

I remember you feeling let down when the raise didn't come through last spring, so I am glad that you were able to finally see it materialise. Congrats!

Yup. It actually so happens that this month one of my 4 student loans zero'ed out and now shows as "PIF by borrower." I'm hoping to see more of that soon.

On 10/4/2019 at 12:07 PM, gherrmann44 said:

If that much money moved into the Zimbabwe economy you'd see the exchange rate (Zimbabwe to foreign currency) significantly improve. Revenant, you might be rich then!

On 10/4/2019 at 2:00 PM, Iceman said:

Wouldn't that be wonderful......All hale the almighty Revenant  

Hah! I wish! But it ain't gonna happen!

8 hours ago, Iceman said:

I just got finished looking at your Zimbabwe notes Revenant......You have a very impressive collection....I loved the billion dollar and up notes....I would just get a kick out of have so many billions of dollars in my wallet......

Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

The sad truth of it though is that, shortly after it was issued, the $100 Trillion note was worth about US$2 and could barely buy a loaf of bread.

If you took one example of each pick number from P-1 to P-98, added them all up and expressed it in "first dollars" (only way to really add them up honestly), it would be $8,660,868,616,816,540,892,867,454,882.00. If you just naively added up the face values it would still be $180,267,755,317,238.00.

…. and that is how I determined that the current version of MS Excel only stores up to 15 significant digits in memory.

11 hours ago, Iceman said:

I wish all of you have the good luck I've had in the recent  few months.....

In my case that would probably be not seeing an 10G coins from 1880-1886 for several months until I might be able to afford to go for it! That and the Zimbabwe set have been my focus this year and it's usually not too hard to find things to add to that set. It's large, modern, and the notes are *mostly* pretty common.  

Wow. That's pretty! And not at all bad of a price for a nearly 80 year old coin.

The images from auction sites are likely to be the intellectual property of the auction host (assuming the company has an employee do this). If they get images from the seller they might belong to the seller. If they pay an outside photographer to take the images, who owns the image will depend on the agreement between the photographer and the auction house. This, of course, applies in the US. UK copyright laws are somewhat different.

You'd have to contact the auction house and see if they'd let you use the images (assuming they own them) in a free or for-profit book. They may or may not want to charge you for use.

I've dealt with this both as a photographer and as a scholar, sometimes wanting to re-use graphics / visuals from other papers / scholarly works. Sometimes a publisher will let you license a graphic for a few dollars. Sometimes the usage fees are absolute murder.

Congrats! That'll be the crown-jewel of a set for sure.