Revenant

On 3/16/2019 at 2:20 PM, Mohawk said:

That is undoubtedly part of it.  But I think you are also right on with too much of a good thing happening here.  The 1970-D Kennedy was a pretty cool thing.  So were the 1981 Anthony Dollars.  But most things since the advent of the State Quarters have been overkill and they've gotten progressively more ridiculous. 

It's been years since I heard / read this, but a while back I read something saying that the mint had issued so many coins / designs in such a short period of time between the statehood quarters the ATB quarters, the Lincoln 2009 specials, the new reverse, the Jefferson nickel redesign, the presidential dollars... that some people were finding it hard to tell the difference between real and fake coinage - there were so many designs floating around in such a short period of time people just didn't know what was what anymore. Kind of crazy to think about really and it goes to show you just how much I think they've overdone it in the 21st century.

In my last year of undergrad someone asked me if they could have a dollar to buy a scantron because they'd forgotten theirs at home, didn't have time to go back and needed to get to a test. Maybe I'm a sucker but I gave them the dollar - but it was a dollar coin. She took it at first, then stopped and asked me if it was a quarter or a dollar. I had to explain that it was a dollar.

The mint has really just muddied the water in a bad way.

20 minutes ago, Mohawk said:

Then definitely listen to it.  I've had situations in my life where I had a bad gut feeling that I didn't listen, only later to realize that I really should have.  But I've never had a situation where I listened to my gut and ended up regretting it.  I think starting a new job hunt is the exact thing to do here.  Also, you are so right that sometimes you just have to take the kick, take a moment to regroup and move on.  It sounds like you have a good plan for that.  Best of Luck!

At my last job I saw the writing on the wall but I didn't start looking because I'd been there less than a year - I didn't want to leave and look flighty / like a job hopper. I was hoping I could make it a year there. They laid me off after 9 months. I take my lumps but I try not to take them twice.

1 hour ago, Mohawk said:

First off, I'm so glad to hear that Sam and Shandy are both doing better health wise.  That's very good to hear.  That said though, I'm also very sorry to hear how things are going at your job.  It sounds like you have taken on more duties and responsibility, but your employer is not noticing it or that they are pretending not to notice in order to keep you performing those duties at little extra cost to them.  I've worked for several places like that, and it sucks.  I mean, why do we work?  There are many different reasons, but ultimately one of those reasons is to get paid and to get paid fairly for the work we do.  I think if you're seeing red flags at your employer, you should definitely act on that and start looking around for something else.  If nothing else comes of it immediately right now, you will at least know what's out there and what options may be available to you in order to make a move to a better place of employment.  I also think your plan to discuss things with your boss is a good one.  Maybe you guys can come to an understanding after all.

....

I'm really sorry that you're going through a rough patch, my friend.  I really am.  But it sounds like you have a good perspective about it, and the love and support of your family, which is the most important thing.  I hope that the rest of it improves quickly.

Honestly I think sometimes you just have to take some time, breathe, let yourself feel kicked in the nuts and then move on from there.

They, of course, have their reasons but other circumstances surrounding the situation that I can't really go into make this decision unacceptable to me in the long term. I honestly don't think they're doing this to be malicious, and it's a complicated situation, but I also can't just shrug this off. As Rick said, I'm not quitting and storming out, but I am writing a new resume this weekend and starting to put out applications. Given the nature of things I may still be there for another 6-8 months while I look in the background, assuming they don't let me go first - like I said, my gut says it's time to go based on everything I'm seeing.

42 minutes ago, MIKE BYRNE said:

I don't know Mr. Carr. But just looking at those two coins. I don't think I want to. No bar code, no cert number. That's a red flag my friend.. That's all it takes for me. Thanks my friend. Talk later. Mike.

I'm not saying you should like Carr, but, just in the interest of accuracy, those coins in the pictures in this post are not Mr. Carr's work. They're reproductions blessed by the Smithsonian.

39 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

I can't even wrap my head around a 20 Trillion note.  I saw one of them at my local coin shop the other day and I think he was asking 30.00 a piece for them, but truth be told, I have no recollection of how trillion it was, probably one of the lesser ones. 

Hmmm... Maybe a 10 Trillion note then. That would sound about right for that one but I see most asking for more than that for the 50 Trillion and the 100 Trillion.

And, yeah, they would have been the notes with the highest number of printed zeros in history except for the fact that they released the 100 Trillion at the same time, so that one took the prize.

16 minutes ago, DON PATE said:

apmex has a unc 100 trillion for $114.00

Yeah. Sounds about right, though I've seen some asking in the $200-250 range for ungraded uncirc 100 trillion notes. My point was more just that I'd initially thought $60 for a 20 Trillion was silly / over the top and apparently it's not based on the current market. My impression of it being over the top had come from a few years ago when I was getting them graded in 65EPQ or 66 EPQ for $25-30. 

The "you" in that case was a general / generic "you," referencing his statement.

You talk about a lot of this from the perspective of an informed numismatist but I think you fail to appreciate that that's probably significantly less than 1% of the population. Those rounds are potentially very dangerous.

28 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

You can fool any FOOL with anything so Mr. Carr's creations are no more concerning, to the integrity of the hobby, than a thousand other fantasy pieces out there.  Has someone bought one of these Carr fantasy pieces thinking they were rare and valuable, maybe.  Is it a widespread and dangerous thing? I think not.  If I show my 1918 Peace Dollar to any numismatist, they would immediately know it was fake and would never think the coin was any kind of rarity. Plus, if the government was all that concerned, they would have put a stop to Mr. Carr a long time ago. 

You make a lot of assumptions that aren't necessarily valid and draw a lot of conclusions with precious little support.

As far as your statement about fools, I'm reminded of a statement by a reformed con artist where-in, if you think you can't be fooled, you're the guy that he (as the con artist) wants to meet, because chances are he can prove you wrong and that confidence is his friend, not yours.

26 minutes ago, Mohawk said:

I just don't feel right even supporting the original works of someone who I view as a counterfeiter.

I don't think I'd ever buy his stuff but I think if a family member bought one of his wares and gave it to me as a gift I'd accept it with a smile.

I'm with you and Rick though - I'd rather it be real. If I'm spending my money on it, it's probably going to be real (unless I'm fooled, which could happen).

I don't know about "no one can ever be fooled." It makes me think of the coin scam that Jimmy runs in "Better Call Saul." Saying no one could ever be fooled assumes the buyer knows enough about coins to know that genuine coins of that date weren't made. Most people don't and won't and a con artist or someone with no morals or ethics could easily leverage that ignorance.

Nothing against the man or his creations. They sound wonderful. I wouldn't mind owning some for what they are. But there are lots of uninformed people out there and lots of clever con men.

3 hours ago, Just Bob said:

(I won't mention including the various types of currency picturing Lincoln, because, in addition to the different five dollar bills, you would have to find an early 1860's ten dollar greenback.)

Aim high - fail spectacularly (which is to say, maybe you don't hit it, but you build / do something awesome along the way). I think you can't let the prospect of 1 expensive or hard to find coin / note keep you from trying to build a set. The 1932 mint set my step-father and I built doesn't have and will probably never have a 1932 double eagle unless we win the lottery one day. When I started my Netherlands 10G set I knew there was a very good chance I might never be able to get an 1887 or 1888. The set now has both.  I may never own / find an 1879/1877 overdate for that set, but the set is still pretty great at this point IMO. I feel like the idea of not letting the "key date" stop you is especially important when you consider that almost every coin series seems to have at least one or two coins that are very hard (if not almost impossible) to get and which are very expensive - the Lincoln cents have the 1909 S VDB, the Washington Quarter has the 1932, 1932-S, and 1932-D, the Mercury Dimes have the 1916, the Barber Quarters (if I remember right, I've never collected these) have the 1893, the Double Eagles have the 1932 and 1933... the list goes on.

8 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

I had abandoned the NGC site back in 2012, or thereabouts, and assumed my old account was long gone.  I signed up, with a new account so I could create an inventory of my slabbed coins. I saw that old journal entries were still viewable, found mine, and the rest is history.  The Beaw's Den is now Mokie's Den.

 

Interesting. I know that my account, for lack of a better word, was "split" when they switched over to the new system into "Revenant" and "Revenant1." I asked and they merged the old and new accounts for me and gave me my original name back (didn't like the "1" much). They also did this for all the other old forum users that ended up with their accounts split like that. If you can show that the old "Beaw" account is really yours they might be able to merge the old journals into your new one / new account. (I emphasize MIGHT here. This is pure speculation on my part based on abilities they've shown in the past. I don't know if this is actually something they can / will do in this case). Of course, that assumes that you'd want them merged, but it's a thought.

Congrats on the retirement. I hope you've been enjoying it.

Welcome back then! What made you make a clean break from the old account and start over?

15 minutes ago, Mokiechan said:

I would take up that offer if I was sent a coupon.  You're right, I get a lot of bang for my Free membership, I feel like 15 (or 25 thereafter) is a small price to pay for so much fun.  But I want that coupon first. 

I have no idea how widely or narrowly they distributed that offer. Maybe the spam filter ate it?

Side note, but, as I found out when I registered, if you sign up for auto-renewal they'll give you $5 off your renewal, so it could be $20 / year thereafter if you set it up for auto-renew. So, quite inexpensive potentially.

For some reason (I can't tell ya why, honestly, maybe it's just seeing it in actual silver), when looking at this picture, it looks a lot better to me. The spots don't seem nearly as unsightly and the face / eye doesn't seem so weird.

5 hours ago, MIKE BYRNE said:

I haven't been able to get my pictures up on a journal that will come in time.but info add it to my set in British tokens and medals of the 18th century.

If the problem is you don't have the files on your computer or don't know where they're saved I can't help you much there, but if the problem is knowing how to use the site the snip / screen cap below might help.

The upper block is where you add files to incorporate them into the post. You click the "choose files" text (I highlighted this) to open up the dialog box and pick the pictures you want. If you don't do anything past that the site just puts the pictures at the bottom of the post. You can integrate the pictures more fully into the post and not have them just at the bottom but doing that requires a little more explanation and I'm not sure how best to explain that.

To add a banner image that shows up at the top of the link to your post you have to add that file using the "featured photo" option (I highlighted around the button) that is beneath the general image upload.

1 hour ago, gherrmann44 said:

I am so glad to hear Sam is doing better. As each day passes his chances improve and that is really good news! Is there anything new on the bleeding in Sam's brain? You're all in my heart and my prayers. Your pictures are very heart-warming.

No, no more brain bleeds and at this point they don't expect any more. They say that normally happens about 24-48 hours after birth. His probably happened about 36-48 hours after birth. Thanks!

1 hour ago, longstrider said:

Thanks Revenant. I fixed it,I hope. First journal entry. Can you tell?

Nothing wrong with starting out or taking time to figure out things. I've gone back and added pictures to some of mine in the past year or so as I've gotten adjusted to the newer format. I think the thing I had the most trouble with was figuring out the difference between the normal photo attachments / uploads and the "feature" photo which pops up in the banner for the post. That took me a while.

I tracked these down online with Google, just in case anyone else wants to see what he's describing.

1 hour ago, coin928 said:

 

Thanks for the reference!  The source of this information is no big secret.  The web site  Mark Your Coin describes privy marks, mint marks, and designer marks for quite a few countries including the U.S. 

Well, it managed to stay a secret to me.

15 hours ago, gherrmann44 said:

I explore the halberd for my Wilhelmina I 10 Gulden set in my write-up of the 1913 coin. https://coins.www.collectors-society.com/WCM/CoinView.aspx?PeopleSetCoinID=1641694 Additionally, I also name the mintmaster represented by the seahorse privy. The way I understand a mintmaster is that it is the approximate equivalent to our chief engraver.

Well, I may need to go back and do some more reading there. Many of our coins have the initials of the designer but a symbol representing them is a little different.

Edit to add: I know I've checked-out your set-description in the past and looked at your photos but I don't know that I've ever gotten around to digging into your individual coin descriptions much, so if it's in there that might be why I've never caught it.

3 minutes ago, Mohawk said:

 

It's also great to see you posting about coins again, my friend.  The worry and stress levels must be lower......I'm glad to see it.

Cheers!

~Tom

Lol Well, I think the "Samuel Likes Money" post, which I found rather funny and amusing, was torpedoed by what went down with the baby but that was more one of my posts about fatherhood-and-the-coins. There will probably continue to be a mix of those and ones like this as I go forward.

38 minutes ago, Just Bob said:

It looks like van den Wall Bake made some slight changes in the lettering placement, size, etc. I wonder if this was for aesthetic reasons, or if it was to further differentiate his coins from Taddel's.

Yeah... With things like that, when talking about 130+ year old coins. I'm never quite sure what's a deliberate "change" and what's a normal, year-to-year, die-to-die variation. With modern coins these things can be reproduced with very tight tolerances but I don't know what the tolerances were like back then. While I take those shots and blow it up huge the coin is only about the size of a US nickel. So those are small variations.

1 hour ago, Mohawk said:

Thanks for the update Revenant.  I don't know what to say.....I cannot imagine how hard this is.  It has to be absolutely terrible.  As you know, I'm not religious and I don't pray, but my thoughts and best wishes are still with you and yours all through this, my friend.  If I were in your area of Texas and not just some guy sitting in New York State thousands of miles away, I'd do anything I could to help you and yours through this.  As it stands, all I can do is offer you my best wishes, which I do again, wholeheartedly.

Thanks. I appreciate the sentiment. This is clearly going to suck from start to finish but hopefully he'll pull through.

In Illinois you actually get something that can be called "Winter." In Texas... I don't know what you call this. "Not Summer," maybe.

Point of curiosity: Did you send them into PCGS again or did you send them to NGC? I guess without it specified I'd assume they'd go back to PCGS but I didn't want to assume. I know the general consensus seems to be that if you take any coin from either service that was graded 20+ years ago and send it in you might get at least one grade higher but I've never been brave enough to test it. Sounds like you did okay though.

14 minutes ago, Mohawk said:

Thanks for the update Revenant.  Sorry to hear that Samuel had to be intubated.......you're right, that sucks.  But it'll help him heal....he won't have to work so hard to breathe now, so his body will have its energy for other things.  How's Shandy doing?

She's doing fine. Minor concerns make it sound like she won't be released until Saturday or Sunday instead of today which she's thrilled about. Even if she's released she wants to nap on the couch in the baby's room rather than coming home because she knows she can't travel back and forth much.