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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant

    Moving along and almost there maybe.

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    A couple of days ago my Venezuela & Italy submission finally hit grading / quality control. I'd said about a month ago I was hoping to have grades by yesterday or maybe sooner but it was not to be.
    I'm increasingly accepting that waiting longer than the advertised turnaround time is partially the price I pay for submitting things that are rarely submitted and which they probably have to put extra incremental effort into grading vs, say, a monster box of American Eagles. Like I said in a previous post, I'm pretty sure I "lost" about 3 days on this one just with them doing some research and variety attribution before the coins even got in the system good.
    I am still very much looking forward to filling out that 500 Lire set.
    The 1995 500Lire coin I got as part of a 4 coin lot for $2.65 and the coin looks... okay. It does look uncirculated. It does have good looking surfaces, but the brass / bronze-like center has a little bit of discoloration on it as is common with these so I'm not 100% in love with it. It was worth $2.65 for a shot in the dark and I will be keeping it in my back pocket as a part of a possible 2023 submission to build out the set the rest of the way.
    I still have not gotten the 2000 and 2001 I bought off someone in Germany but I can't say that is entirely surprising.   But I will be looking forward to seeing those.
    This is my first day off in 2 weeks where I haven't been using nap-time to do work on a project that had to be rushed through because an old client / project had had the bad idea of spit in a regulator's coffee and earn themselves a lot of frustration and pain on their permitting process. This rush project was on top of two other bigger projects that were also demanding attention! Right now! Because everyone's problems are important!  But... once I fill out my paperwork and put in for it on Monday, now that things are slowing down a bit I'll probably get a few hundred in OT pay and I might get to use some of that on something nice for myself.
    I'm also coming up on a vacation with 5 days of no email access. Yay! The way it should be.
     
    Just thought I'd add, Ben has lost like 3 teeth in the last month, including his two front teeth. He also started Kirate / MMA this week. The net result is... amusing.

    A kid in a Gi, missing his two front teeth.  
  2. Revenant

    A Slow Parade of Dancing Elephants

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    When I was starting to shop for the 50 & 500 Lire coins, I used to start my Italian project for Shandy in November of last year I noticed that the same seller had MS66RD and 1 MS67RD 1962 Rhodesian Penny.
    It’s an interesting coin – it features two dancing elephants.

    It got my attention for 2 reasons:
    1)     As a Rhodesian coin it is closely associated with the work I’d been doing with my Zimbabwe type set.
    2)     As I had been wrapping up / mostly wrapping up the Zimbabwe set – because, yeah, I could and I may yet try to upgrade and improve that set but on a practical level it is more or less finished and future changes will be slow and gradual in comparison – my wife had said that something she’d enjoy seeing me tackle was Turtle coins (Ben’s nursery theme was turtles) or Elephants (Sam’s nursery theme).
    I actually have signature sets on the PMG side where I’ve started slowly slowly working on Turtle and Elephant thematic sets.
    The fact elephants, as one of the African “Big 5” feature on so many Zimbabwean notes make it even more appropriate as a Sam-inspired set / project and those Zimbabwean notes have started the foundation of that thematic set.
    Anyway… (I digress a lot. This is a thing. I’m aware of it.)
    At the time (Nov 2021) the seller was only offering the MS66s at a price even resembling reasonable and had the MS67 listed with a BIN of $300. Hard Pass. So I waited.
    Fast forward to January 2022, the seller finally listed the MS67 for ~$45. I looked at it, said, “I could do that,” bid and won unopposed. The first coin in what has become the set.

    I bring up all the forgoing because, while there are many themes / threads in this journal and a lot of sets I talk about at various times and over time, they do all tie together and interconnect and, since 2016, that connective tissue tends to be my wife and sons inspiring my collecting and these various newer sets are oftentimes born out of love for them.
    A couple of months after that I found another seller offering an MS64RD and MS65RD 1963 for $40-50. I decided to go for the MS65RD. I won it unopposed and the MS54RD went unsold. The seller later relisted the MS64RD for a lower price and I thought about bidding on it at that point just for fun, but… I didn’t, and someone else took it.

    In some ways I later regretted not going for it because later they popped up with an MS66RD, for the same price I’d won the MS65RD at, and… I won that one… because maybe I’m crazy.
    In retrospect I can’t help but think the MS64, MS65 and MS66 could have been an interesting looking grading set… but, I’m crazy. Anyway…

    At that point I had 2 dates of what is only a 7-date set, and I’d become aware of another seller that had a 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962 and 1963 in grades ranging from MS63 to MS65RD mostly. The eBay seller has the same username as a user here in the registry that at one time had a set in the category for these coins, but that set was curiously not as complete as this eBay seller’s inventory would suggest it should be, and it was since disappeared – or this person just changed their username here. Hard to say… Anyway.
    The selling price on these things was, to put it nicely, somewhat above the market rate, and, even though they took offers, and I tried, they weren’t willing to come down enough to make the coins a good “Fair Market” buy and this honestly had the feeling of dealing with a collector that honestly wasn’t all that motivated to sell.
    None of us know anything about that, right?
    After a couple of months, having some cash and just wanting it, as much as anything just to have all of the later dates, I bit the bullet and gave them what they wanted (less $10) for an MS65RD 1961.

    And so, there’s date #3.
    And now we come to the present (day).
    I’ve been watching their MS64RB 1955, their MS64RB 1957, and their 2 MS65RD 1958s…. If I just got them I’d have a 6/7 complete set. But, while I knew I wanted these, and while I was tempted to just get them, because, “what’s $200 in the grand scheme?” I just had a hard time pulling the trigger knowing the price on these was just probably high.
    But, my birthday was coming up, and I knew Shandy hadn’t gotten me anything yet because she had said she needed to get something ordered, and so I messaged her about them and was just like, hey, “if you want an idea / suggestion…”
    She asked me to send her the links so she could “look” at them.
    I’m like, “Okay,” and send the links. We’re each staying with a kid in different rooms at the time waiting while a kid falls asleep.
    I’m expecting her to look at them and for us to have a conversation later about which 2 or the 3 I like more and where I can tell her about the fact that I’m sure we could easily get $10 taken off each coin if we put in an offer and then maybe she might order them later.
    I’m really thinking she might get me 2 of them and then I can snap up the 3rd out of my spending money.
    What I did NOT expect her to do was just use the links to just pull the dang trigger and snap up all three coins for $225 – didn’t even ask for an invoice to try to combine shipping. She just snapped them up.
    So, then I just come downstairs, having picked up the other 4 coins to show her and to talk about it, and I start telling her about how we could probably haggle down the price a little and she gets this weird look on her face and I’m just like, “What?!?” and what follows is this horrible, awkward, hilarious conversation where I’m just like, “No! You didn’t and she’s just trying so hard to be evasive about it and she’d been planning to taunt me and tease me about it later about getting more Italian coins instead and then finally she admits that she got them. So… Anyway… And what followed was lots of awkward teasing for ruining the surprise and awkward, sheepish, “thank you”s…
    She has this little facebook girls-group chat with like 4 other women and they spent part of the rest of the evening laughing at me over this, but it’s cool. I told her she could tell them and laugh at me. She was going to be making fun of me all night anyway.
    So… Yeah. Assuming she actually still gives them to me and doesn’t chose to enforce the household rule we gave to Ben wherein if you find out what your gift is early it goes back, and you don’t get it… In a month I’ll have a 6/7 complete set of these coins…
    I just have to laugh. It’s a funny story that will now live with and probably get integrated into the Registry set as I build it now. I’m going to be happy to have them, I’ll be happy to stop arguing with myself internally about it now, they’re a gift and now I don’t have to feel bad about “overpaying” and, what’s $30-40 in the grand scheme?
    … and this is the set I’ve been quietly working on in the background this year while I’ve been submitting and talking about other things… because when I got that first coin in January I didn’t want to do what I’ve done with past sets (Zimbabwe, the 500L) where in the first year of a set I buy 1 lone set and go into December with a sub-50% complete set that can’t be in the running for the “New Set” Awards, because, while I’m by no means a shoe-in, it is at least nice to know you’re in the running and eligible for consideration. When you’re going to put in the effort on a set.
    Side note, but, even though these coins were produced before the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in Nov 1965, these coins reference Queen Elizabeth II but they don’t show her portrait like the coins of many other commonwealth countries. It has the Elephants instead. However, because her name is on the side with the elephants, I consider the elephants side to be Obverse and the side with the denomination and date to be the Reverse. However, this is another one of those coins where NGC tends to flip-flop on which side of the coin is on the label-side of the holder. As I get shots of these taken I’m going to be posting images with the Elephant side consistently in the Obverse photo position, regardless of how the coin is presented in the slab, the same thing I do with some of my Australian silver, which as the same issue.
    And… side note… because, I have no self-control some days, I also bought a half-penny, dated 1958. MS67RD, one of the finest examples currently graded by NGC. It has Giraffes. I think it is neat. I am crazy and sometimes have no impulse control with money in proximity to shiny objects.

    I finally got those reports issued for those big projects and put in my OT request – apparently, I just made it under the wire for payroll this month so I’ll get the money next week and not at the end of October. I told Shandy I was expecting to net about $500 on it after taxes. She said, “Well, that’s almost enough for a gold coin.” My response was I’d been thinking that would off-set the first month and registration fee for Ben’s Karate and maybe let me have $100-200 to have a little fun with. Kids are so expensive.
    I’m writing this as I’ve issued three major reports in the last 2 working days that together total about 2 months of work and about 1300 pages. And I finally get some time to breathe, relax, and drink my coffee as smaller things come in. It helped with making the day quiet yesterday in that the UK office was closed for QEII’s funeral.
  3. Revenant

    The Grades Posted!

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    My grades have finally posted! I checked early this morning and the submission listed as shipped! Yay!
    And the box is in the mail and so it will probably arrive at the house before we leave for a short vacation and won’t end up stuck in the Post Office until I get back – Double Yay!
    I also now feel especially smart for getting the last post out on Wednesday night because I don’t like to make too many posts on the same day or too clos together. I had a feeling these were about to drop.
     
    As I did with the Big Zimbabwe / Italy submission results I’m going to talk about the Venezuelan and the Italian Grade results separately, each in their own post, because 28 coins is a lot to talk about and the 2 countries make for a clean, easy, division.
    So here are the results:

    So… Getting the obvious pain point out of the way first… that 62… Man! Ouch! That stings and burns a little. I missed the mark on that one.
    Other than that one really really low point, I’m very happy with how these did.
    Only that one coin did not grade Gem (65) or better. Only 3 other coins got an MS65, so only 4 coins out of 22 got below an MS66. That’s pretty good for being not-a-pro and a lot better than I did back in the day. These results seem like they’re probably at least about even with what some more active submitters and dealers get based on things I’ve been seeing on eBay (more on that later). So I’ll take that as a collector with cornea scaring in one eye working with his wife. I’m not in this set to make money anyway.
    There were 3 MS68s and a MS69 though, which I’m very excited to see. Another 5 scored an MS67 with MS66 being the most common grade with 9 coins.
    It’s not lost on me that the low grades were heavily focused on larger coins like the 1B and 5B but the high grades were heavily concentrated on smaller coins – 1C, 5C, 10C. I’m wondering if I’m not giving enough attention to relatively small flaws on the larger coins that individually or collectively are still enough to pull the grades down on the larger coins. I feel like I also struggled in relative terms on some of the Larger Zimbabwean coins, hitting some of my lowest grades on things like the 50C and the $1 coins. But then, I also got some really good grades with those on the $1 and $2 bond coins. But that may have just been a factor of getting lucky with getting nice coins in my orders from the dealer.
    At the end of the day, I’m buying usually 5 to 10 examples of each coin and sending in the one we think is the best. If I just get a “bad” batch the best of the bunch is the best of the bunch and still only a lower-gem grade. So then is the take away to just not send in anything and buy more raw examples hoping to get something better rather than just sending the best I have gotten so far to fill the hole, lay a foundation, and maybe build from there?
    I feel a small measure of extra vindication with the 2007 1C, 5C and 25C coins coming back so high – There have been some coins already graded by NGC on eBay the last couple of months in MS66RD and MS67RD grades. I had seen these get listed when I was still planning and preparing my submission and I seriously thought about just buying those and taking the guaranteed MS67RD rather than rolling the dice on my eyes and skills. The problem I had was the sellers were asking $50-70 each for these 1C and 5C coins. There is also an MS66 12.5C and a MS67 25C that sellers are asking $65 each for + shipping.
    If the sellers had been offering guaranteed MS68s for that price, I probably would have been more tempted. I still don’t know if I would have bit at that price, but it would have been tempting. But with what they were asking, for an 66 or 67, it wasn’t worth it to me. I was happier spending $20 per coin to roll the dice and see how I did.
    I missed by one point on the 12.5C, but I did at least 1 point better on the three others. Overall, a big win for me.
    Edited to add,
    eBay also has a 2012 1B Bimetallic in MS66 with an asking price of $60 that I matched point-for-point. If I had bought those 5 coins pre-graded I would have been out about $300 and this entire 28 coin submission (including the Italian coins which we'll talk about tomorrow probably), set me back about $430 in grading fees (Well... and $150 in credits too i guess. But i got a discount there).
    I guess, yeah, I spent a chunk buying all the raw examples to search though, but I'd already sunk that cost in deciding to send these in vs buying pre-graded, and I enjoyed looking at them all with my wife, and I still have all those other raw examples too now.
    With Zimbabwe and now these Venezuelan and Italian coins, I've been enjoying collecting this way for these sets - looking at raw with the Wife and grading myself.
  4. Revenant

    The Italian Grade Results.

    By Revenant,


    Italian Coins
    So here we discuss the Italian coins – 6 coins that come in 2 sets of three: 3 coins to fill out the 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Birth Year Set and 3 coins to fill some of the remaining gaps in the 500L set she wanted. Though the 1986 500L actually fits in with both groups even though it was acquired primarily for the 500 Lire set / as part of that effort.
    Here are the grades:

    On the 1986 set front…
    With the 5 Lire and the 10 Lire, with MS66 and MS65 grades respectively, I don’t consider them a disappointment really, but I also don’t consider them a big win. I would have been happier with a SS and a 67. I was hoping they’d do a little bit better than that but… They’re solid enough and the coins look good in hand, which is why I wanted to try sending them in from the remainders of those Franklin Mint Sets I broke up.
    The 1986 200 Lire on the other hand feels like a solid win. Unlike the other two denominations I just talked about, the seller I’ve bought a lot of these Italian coins pre-graded from had several NGC graded 1986 200 Lires in stock. They just wanted $55-60 for them at minimum, and I was pretty sure I could get at least an MS65 submitting myself. I knew I had this coin, and I was pretty sure it’d do well, and now I have my MS67, which is at least for now the solo-finest example graded by NGC, beating the 6 MS66s and the 9 MS65s out there.
    I think most if not all of those other 200 Lire coins were graded by this eBay merchant and many/most of the 65s seem to still be in his/her possession – 7 of the 9 MS65s are currently listed on eBay. Not sure what the story is on the MS66s – none of those are listed at the moment. However, on the MS65s that seller likes to brag up that there’s “only 4 finer,” and there’s 6 MS66s now, to say nothing of my MS67. So, either they or someone else has submitted some of these and increased the population recently. But that seller seems to send a lot of 1980s Italian material to NGC.
     
    On the 500 Lire front, I am very happy about the MS66s on the 1983 and the 1987. Those are solid enough grades and they’ll make strong enough additions to the set to help keep it as a strong contender in the category for now and hopefully for a while to come. The one I’m really happy about though, oddly, is the 1986, the MS65, the lowest grade of the three. Why?
    The 1983 and 1987 were pulled from Franklin Mint Sets. I knew those were good and I knew they’d probably do just fine. It’s also cheap and easy to get more of those in high grades by just buying more of those Franklin Mint sets on the cheap and breaking them up. It’s much harder to find one of those sets with a 1986 coin, it’s much harder to find 1986 examples in general on eBay and so if this one didn’t grade well it’d be much more challenging to go out and find more.
    Also: This 1986 came out of a bag. It hadn’t been kept safe in a card for 30 years. So, I was much more worried about NGC dinging the grade for small marks or maybe giving it an AU58 for rubbing that I didn’t see or recognize but which they saw – again, I have a scarred cornea. I miss things sometimes. I cite that MS62 I’m getting back in this submission as my proof. Because of those worries, because this coin was important to both the birthyear set and the 500 Lire set, this was the coin that had me sweating and worried, and it got and MS65, and I’m pretty happy with that.
    Getting that lot of 24 500 Lire coins was Shandy’s idea also, as you’ll recall. My impulse had been to just get some more Franklin Mint sets at the time and look to maybe getting better 1983 examples. She wanted to roll the dice on those lots, and we got rewarded with this 1986 example.
    Again, these haven’t been the easiest thing for me to find in high grade. So, I’m glad I listened to her, and we got this one.
    Another interesting point for the 1986 500L is that it also had a pre-NGC-graded example on eBay that I could have gotten instead of self-submitting... but it was an MS63... that they wanted ~$50. That's one of those times when, while I don't begrudge someone trying to turn a profit on something, when you get an MS63 back you need to admit that you made a grading boo-boo and you're not getting your money back out of that coin. I just knew that - unless I'd missed some light rubbing the 1986 I had would at least match and probably beat an MS63 for less money and it did by 2 point. I also knew at that price that it would still be there later, and it is, but even of it wasn't, not much FOMO there.
    I did get the 2000 and 2001 500 Lire coins from German earlier in the week and they do look solid. I'm not sure how they'd grade out but I think they'd get MS grades and I like knowing I now have all the dates represented and I can fill my last remaining empty slots whenever I want and need - probably early to mid next year.
    Sorry! the following images are far from great - I just don't have the chance to break out the better camera and better lights right now so the cell phone gets the job! The coins are pretty clean and shiny - the alloys these are made of is just miserable to photograph though IMO.
    1995:

    2000:

    2001:

    Shandy asked me last night if I could go ahead and add the coins now or if I had to wait until I got them. I told her that the system lets me add the coins to my inventory in the registry as soon as they ship and technically I could add them in now, but I'm not going to because don't think that's how NGC prefers that we play. With them coming back now I have plenty of time to pop them in and image them and in the mean time I can be working on writing up text in Word files if I need to.
    Meanwhile she has started teasing me that the Rhodesian pennies are going to go back and she's going to buy some Italian coins instead... Looking at these sets and what's about to come in, I can't imagine what she thinks she'd buy and she doesn't usually like buying things like this unless I link her to it.
  5. Revenant

    Picking up more competition

    By Revenant,


    Italian Coins
    In some new, interesting developments, it looks like the 50 Lire category picked up 2 new sets in a day and I'm bumped to #3 for now. I think this happened just yesterday.
    I kinda had a feeling this would happen and that that would be a 1-year win when I made the set but had no plans to heavily develop it thus year - opting instead to focus on the 500 Lire set.
    I'm not ruling out building that 50 L set some more and giving the newcomers a bit of a fight. But the 500 Lire has always been the focus and flagship of this effort and my priority and it still is.
    On that front, I'm hoping what I've done - which will soon build that set out to 11 coins in the 14 slots - will be enough to keep that set on top a while longer.
    I'm still eyeing making it a complete 14/14 set.
    On that front, I was doing a bit of shopping and found 1) a seller with a lot of coins that included a 1995 500 Lire that looked really solid in the photos and 2) a seller in Germany that was selling these by the date and had 1 2000 and 1 2001 listed for sale. The coins are shown in flips in the pictures and I'm hoping they'll be in good condition when they come.
    I decided to spend ~$20 taking a shot in the dark. I bought all three.
    With these 3 coins I will at least have a representative piece for each date / year that is currently included in that set category.
    I may continue shopping and buying some things that look promising in the interim, but I think when my membership renews next year and I have $150 to spend I'll send in 1 per date ( the best of each that I find) and make that a full graded set of the non-comemmorative issues. 
    Then maybe I'll slug it out with someone over 50 Lire coins.
     
    Side note but a 14 coin set is an awkward number to display.
    Am I bum if I get a really fancy case / display for my Zimbabwe birds but not this 500 L set for my wife?
     
    2nd side note, but, as was pointed out to me on the PMG side, the RBZ has announced that they will be making 1/10th, 1/4th, and 1/2 oz versions of their "popular" new 1 oz gold coins and that those will be coming out in November. I think I will definitely be begging the wife for the 1/10rh and the 1/4th oz.
     
  6. Revenant

    A fun update

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    Work has had me crazy this week but I wanted to steal a few minutes and share something fun.
    My Venezuela submission took a few more days than I normally see as typical to go from just "Received" to being able to see the list of the coins. When the coins did come up I saw some variety information that I hadn't had had been entered in.
    Notably, one of the coins I sent in was the non-magnetic, non-steel, zinc-aluminum version (2001-2004) and not the steel version (2000-2002).
    I had not even thought to check this or test this personally. All of the other coins that I had from that batch / date range from those lots I bought from my Ukranian dealer were dated 2004. So they were after the date range of the steel versions and they had to be zinc-aluminum. So, In that context, it makes perfect sense that the 2002 10Bs were also zinc-aluminum and not the steel version - where there was such a version. Interestingly, it doesn't look like the 50B version had a zinc version. Those appear to have been steel consistently. Same thing for the 100B coins from 2001-2004.
    So I'm thinking the seeming delay might have been because they had to research these a little or look them up to see what and how to enter them in.

     
    This might seem like an odd thing to say but I'm almost more excited about the Italian coins than the Venezuelan coins this time because the Italian coins will be mostly completing established sets and they won't be much work. On the other hand, I have a lot of buying, searching, submitting, and writing to do before I can honestly say the Venezuela set is complete and I just don't even know how it's going to happen. If you can find these things for sale in MS at all you don't see a lot of listings saying if the coin is magnetic or not. How am I going to try to hunt these varieties in the wild.
    I'm more or less "on-hold" with building out that custom set for the Venezuela coins because, with how custom sets get built on the NGC side, it will be far easier for me to build the set if I just wait and enter the coins in as I build the slots. It really is jarring to me some days just how different things are for custom sets on the PMG vs NGC side. It was quite easy on the PMG side to build out empty slots for notes I didn't have yet but on the NGC side it feels quite awkward. I don't know if this is bias from being used to / accustomed to the PMG side or what.
    Also, now I can't help but wonder: The Magnetic nickel-clad-steel 10B is 2.33 grams. The non-magnetic zinc aluminum 10B is 1.74 grams. So if they have a reasonably accurate scale they could have told the difference by weighing it, but I just have this visual in my head now of them touching a magnet to it (through the flip to not scratch it, of course) to see if the coin responded or not.
  7. Revenant
    I finally took some time and got new pictures taken and uploaded for the Zimbabwe and 500L sets that are at least consistent across the board even if I don't necessarily think these are in every case the best images I've gotten of each coin:
    Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com)

    Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com)

    Now that I have nice photos of the Zimbabwe bird in the yellow of the $2 coins I decided to use that to fill the gap in my banner image. I'd originally left that corner open to account for the banner, but the current system with the banner image moving depending on where you look creates a bit of a "darned no matter what you do situation. The old banner looks just fine... until the rank ribbon goes away and you have a winning set entry and now you just have a gap in the corner. 


    The Zimbabwe set continues to be a living and growing thing as i recently found a snippet naming the type of tree depicted among the Great Zimbabwe ruins on the $1 coin so I added something about that type of tree.
    Last weekend I used some quiet time on Father's day and I finally got done looking at the last of the Venezuelan coins I have to pick the best ones. That might have been a sign that I was getting close to submitting, but then Sam got Hand, Foot and Mouth and Shandy tested positive for Covid the same day, so we're all just trying to get through the day.
    But I did, today, take advantage of sale on Memberships to upgrade my membership here, so I'll now have a $150 credit towards the submission I want to make... I just need to fill out the forms and mail it out...  
  8. Revenant

    Making Progress and Hoping for Good News Soon.

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    I actually managed to get my box to the Post Office on 8/12 and, since I decided to chance it on a Priority Mail Flat Rate box and not pay for Registered Mail for such a low-value submission this time, NGC received the box on 8/15.
    The submission is still not showing in the system yet, but, based on currently advertised turnaround times, I'm hoping I'll have grades by around 09/09 or 09/16 (3 or 4 weeks from now to be generous on my expectations vs 13 business days). 
    We'll see. In any case, that would put the coins back here earlier in the year than my first Zimbabwe Submission and that should give me a comfortable amount of time to get the new coins imaged and in the sets. The 500L coins and 1986 Italian coins at a minimum anyway.
    I'm less convinced that the Venezuela Set will be ready for "Prime Time" this year but starting to build that out as a Custom Registry Set is going to be next on my list of coin-related projects.
    My plan is to have a large number of slots in that Venezuela set representing issues and varieties that I do not have and I'm not convinced I'm going to be able to get them at economically attractive or feasible prices. So I don't know what the ultimate fate and state of that set is going to be. Because I started this thinking I could snap up representative pieces of everything and then I figured out how much I didn't know about and now I just don't even know how to get the stuff I now know about without feeling like I'm just massively over paying and over spending.
    Some days I wonder if it'd be easier to just collect US, but I think it would be way less interesting and fun (for me).  
    Edited to add:
    I've officially started building this set and posted the first of what will probably be many many drafts and iterations if the Zimbabwe note set, coin set, and the Venezuelan note set are any indications.
    Pain into Suffering - Custom Set (collectors-society.com)

     
    Edited to add, the submission showed up in the system as received this morning. 
  9. Revenant

    But those die cracks...

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    I took a little time to try to get a few shots of one of these Venezuelan coin that I think is showing die cracks / die wear issues and see what everyone thinks, both using the Nikon with the Micro lens and the new Coin Microscope.
    Looking at this (50 Bolivar) in person, and looking at it in the photo with the macro lens and this lighting, that line along the back of the neck definitely looks raised above the design and not cut into it and so I'm thinking more and more that this is a die crack and not post mint damage. The fact that I have two of these with what look like identical marks re-enforces this for me as, what are the odds of that?

    The odd looking bits in the corners along the edge of the hexagon also look like they're the result of die state issues and not PMD. Overall, the coin looks very very clean with regard to what I think is actually PMD, and I think the coin could actually grade pretty darn well.
    Below I have some of the microscope images:

    Oddly (maybe not to those who have more experience with such things), I think the Nikon and the Macro lens did a better job of capturing the neck crack and making it more clear that it probably is a crack and not a scratch, but I find it interesting to see the texture and the details captured by the microscope in the rim areas.
    The below is a different 50 Bolivar coin's reverse:


    This is a 100 Bolivar:


    At some point I need to make a new banner image based around the Venezuelan Coins to compliment the Italian and Zimbabwean/10G themed ones.
  10. Revenant

    "Would you like to know more?"

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    Borrowing the title from that line in "Starship Troopers." Anyone else remember that movie? I hear it's 25 years old now?
    Anyway...
    I feel like I teased this concept months and months ago - probably close to a year ago now - but I never really delivered on it:

    I feel like I very much survive on a kind of "one step at a time" incrementalism some days. I got the coins back, I got them in the set. I uploaded new descriptions a while after that. Got new pictures posted a couple months after that. put these in the case a month or so after that, and now I finally drag out all the notes and the plaques during nap time today and took this picture.
    So there it is - my latest attempt at giving a "Best Presented" Registry set a physical presentation that lives up to the digital one. And I do look at it in person and in the picture with a lot of pride after about 3 years and a lot of effort to make it a reality.
    Some of the coins have "company" and some have "corporation' on the labels for NGC's name I think but I very much view the visual match of the slabs as part of the physical presentation for the sets. I just think it makes the set look better in person - going back to my justification for my "sin" of killing those 25 year old fatty slabs that some of my 10G set was in before 2020.  
    The title of the post comes from the fact that, as I was setting this up, I couldn't help but think, if this was set-up at a table at a coin show, with or without the awards, would seeing the coins and notes like this make you want to come up, check it out, and learn more about them?
    The case has an extra (24th) slot in it that I'm currently using to let the case store both of the $2 bond coins that came back as MS69s from that submission.
    I posted on the PMG side about the fact that Zimbabwe has announced they're coming out with new 1 ounce bullion coins to sell as inflation hedges. It breaks my heart that they're 1 ounce because I can't just casually throw down $1750-1900 for a coin, but I would have loved to have gotten one of those and used it to fill that 24th slot with something unique. Though alternatively I could buy and include one of these old 1989 silver rounds like the one Mike has recently posted an image of - assuming NGC would grade it. I don't know if they have ever graded one or if the "gradability" of those has been tested or confirmed. And it would need to be graded to work in this display.
     
    About 3 weeks ago I said on the PMG side that I was drawing up the forms to (finally) make a submission of Venezuelan coins and Italian coins to further my 500L set and to get that Venezuelan hyperinflation coin set off the ground.
    About 2 weeks after that I finally get the coins in flips with the right labels and bound them up and I'm working this weekend on finally boxing them up and printing a mailing label  Like I said, progress one very small step at a time!
    The new submission is going to actually be very similar to the last one. The last one was 22 Zimbabwe coins with 7 Italian coins. This one is going to be 22 Venezuelan coins paired with 6 Italian coins - 3 500L hole-fillers and 3 1986 coins to help me build out that year set.
    I think for now I'm going to hold off on grading another 2003 $10 Zimbabwe coin. The one I had looks better than the AU58 I have graded but I still think it would do MS62-63 at best and I think for now I just need to hold off and see if I can find better options for the $10 and $25 coins, letting those AU58s hold down the fort for now.
     
    Edited to add:
    I am aware that turn-around times on submissions have come down quite a bit in the last few months. But part of my concerns about getting this submission out and back stems from the desire to have time to get descriptions posted and pictures taken and uploaded. And that process sometimes takes a while or takes a while for me to find time to do it. So ideally I'd like to get the coins back well before December's deadline to have time to get the presentation on the registry sets up to snuff.
  11. Revenant
    My wife ordered my birthday present about a week ago. She was trying to keep it quiet but then Ben saw her and wanted to "help" and gave it away in a big way. I think she ordered something for my Zimbabwe note set but I don't know for sure so this has me trying to limit / hold off on major purchases for the next couple of weeks until she gives it to me.
    Ben has been very funny throughout this. First he insisted that he needed to get me a small present too that he had to pick out and then he kept talking about it. Then when it came in and the box was sitting in quarantine he kept talking about it being my surprise to my wife in front of me. Then, today, he and my wife open the box and hide the present while I'm still sleeping and he tries to tell me the box was empty and it was a nothing box. Riiggght. Because I was born yesterday... I've already been told by my wife to not expect much from this because he was clearly wanting to pick out things that are really more for him.  The funny thing is, even though he is as subtle as a brick through a window I still don't know what the presents are.  Not that Benjamin could read the pick number or denomination off a note, coin or label and tell me what they were if he wanted to... We're working on that though, slowly but surely. He's learning his letters. I need to train up my spy!
    New case levels and transmission rates for Covid have been dropping in my area so I'm trying to convince myself to fill out the forms, box some stuff up and go to the Post Office to send some stuff in to NGC, but I'm also reading that they're about 2 weeks behind in opening mail, which I find pretty de-motivating.
    Oh well. I just need to find some time and commit to start taking some steps. Even then, it may not happen until next week when Shandy and I have some kid-free  time for a week. It's hard to pull out coins, fill out paperwork and package delicate things for shipping when you have a super super helpful 4 year old and a 19 month old that is into literally freaking everything and wants everything in his mouth.... I wonder if a coin has ever been details-graded for having baby teeth / bite marks in the field or as rim damage. It's an interesting thought but not necessarily something I want to test. I might actually seize on that break / opportunity to motivate myself to knock it out - The kids go to their grandparents for a week on the 11th and I haven't been this excited about something for a while.  
  12. Revenant
    Thursday of last week, when everything was going down with Sam, that MS68 1986 100L arrived in the mail and over the weekend I won an auction for an MS67 1986 20 Lire. That, with the MS68 1986 50L I got last year, gives me (or will soon give me) 3 of the 7 coins for an Italian 1986 Mint Set, so I've gone ahead and made a custom set for that and popped in what I have so far.
    1986 Italian Circulation Strike Set - Custom Set (collectors-society.com)
    The MS67 20 Lire is the highest graded example out there right now. Not to say there won't be MS68s later but I'll take a Superb Gem Uncirc Top Pop for now over buying and submitting and hoping for the best - I get some good grades and some not-so-good grades on my own.
    I have a 4th coin for it - the 500 Lire - raw that I'll hopefully be submitting in a month or so, once I can get my act together.
    In a bit of retail therapy impulse buying I also picked up an MS68 1994 200L, because I showed it to her and Shandy thought it was pretty, and the seller combines shipping. This logic seems to hold up. I'm not going to be shot for blowing $80 on a whim this week.  
    I seriously, seriously thought about pulling the trigger on an MS66 1986 200L. If it had been an MS67 I probably would have gone for it, but MS66 just didn't do it for me. This sparked me to look at some coins I have from Franklin Mint Sets that look really nice. I have a 1986 200L, 5L and 10L that I think could all grade quiet well. So, since I'm thinking about sending in the '83, '86, and '87 500L anyway, I'm seriously thinking about sending in a 1986 5L, 10L, and 200L, and using that to finish up that set, making it, with the '86 500L, 4/7 self-submitted.
    So... actually. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure, right now, I have a complete 1986 mint set of Italian coins in high grade. They just aren't all NGC-graded yet.
    Some of this is causing me to expand into a couple of new competitive categories and some of this may ultimately lead to Shandy becoming a force in the Modern Italian registry. And I do mean Shandy when I say that - The other night, with the 1986 100L in hand, I laid all the graded Italian coins in our room to show her the state of it. We boxed them up at the end then then she scooped up the box and put it on her side of the bed saying something like "I'll just take this and put it over here." So... Yeah. I'm finding them and buying them but she very much claims them. I find it hilarious and love it.  
    With opening up these new sets, that for now are mostly just places to park and display single coins in the new registry - because custom sets don't work in the new registry for now - I'm only really invested in defending the #1 spot on the 500 Lire set for now, but I'll take any other wins I can get, if I can get them.  
    There IS a competitive category for a 1991 Italian proof set, and that does make me wonder if I could get a competitive category for this 1986 mint set if I asked for it, but... I don't know... that just feels a little too self-serving of a request for now.  Maybe if I keep making these posts and inspire more interest and activity in the Modern Italian registry... But it is my hope that I get at least a few years before the Zimbabwe set and the 500L set suffer the same fate as the 1932 set and now the 10G set. I guess we'll see. 
  13. Revenant

    The coins arrived!

    By Revenant,


    Family
    The box came with the Zimbabwe and Italian coins yesterday. With the kids in bed and the chores handled we sat down together to take them out of the box.


    She joked about me and my hoard and how pleased I was, but I was surprised by how quickly the 500 L coins were pulled away and how happy she was to get to handle them and look at those.

    I went at one point and got the other 500L coins, the previous submission of Zimbabwe coins and a couple of empty boxes I have. I gave one of the boxes to her and she was thrilled to realize she was getting her own box for her group of 10 coins - but, seriously, 10 coins is a decent number and a lot to handle as loose slabs. So it made sense, but it also made her really happy.
    When I handed her the box she actually perked up more, smiled and said, excitedly, "I get my own box?!?"

    I also had to pull out all the old coins, lay the out, order them, and there ya go: the largest collection of NGC Graded Zimbabwean coins in the world - because no one else has been crazy enough yet.

    After we were done looking I got on my phone and popped all the cert numbers into the sets at last. Shandy called me crazy because of all the "TOP POP" coins, but most are top mostly because there are so few graded, and her newly expanded set isn't short on Top Pops for now, for similar reasons. But she may have a point that the Zimbabwe set is now complete (but very much working on the 500L set) and that set now presents just a wall of "Top Pop" only broken at one place for now.  My "cute, dopey, derpy set of (well-presented) Top-Pops" fullfilled!
         
    She spent the rest of the night referencing "my" (her) coin collection and pointing out, "I think you love me." 
    I did good. She's happy. Her with the 1990 that her family brought back, that is now in an NGC holder as an MS67.

    So, there you have an "unboxing" story, that is really more about the moment than the coins.
  14. Revenant
    Earlier in the week I'd been watching a 1983 Italian 500L graded Ms65 by NGC. The staring bid was $10 + $5 shipping and it had no bids.
    When it was about 12 hours out from ending I bid $20 hoping to win it for roughly the cost of grading and keep it until and unless something better came along - maybe one I graded myself.
    Then, about 15 minutes before bidding ended, someone bid $15, then $16, then $17, then $20, then something over $20... I don't know if this was a shill or someone that actually wanted the coin but nonsense like this is why i increasingly hate bidding before the last minute.
    I was going to bid $22 at the last minute to try to take it back. But the eBay glitches, doesn't let me bid, and it ends with me losing the coin for $20.50.
    I was not happy at the time but I can't help but wonder if eBay saved me from myself and did me a favor. For $26-27 or more I think I'm better off submitting one on my own with an '86 and '87 soon. It was attractive at $15-20 just to fill the whole for now but it's a lot less attractive at $25+.
    As it is I do have a 1983 that I think could grade out pretty well - maybe beating that MS65.
    Anyway...
    I've been a little more successful with a few other coins lately. I got an MS67 1997 500L and an MS68 100L from 1986. Neither fits into the 500L set I'm currently building in the registry because the 1997 was one of the circulating commemorative years. But both are nice coins, the 1997 is closely related to the main 500L set and Shandy liked it, and the 100L is one step closer to making an Italian birth year set for us, which I think could be cool.
    My in-laws were over at the house recently and I used the opportunity to pull out the graded 500L, show them to both of them and point out the coins they'd brought back that are now incorporated into it. I think my father-in-law liked seeing that I'd made a little something of / with that bag of coins and that I'd pulled that bag of foreign coins into something like that. I'm not entirely sure he understands my practice of "spending money on money" but I do think he thought that was nice.
    I still have not gotten to take pictures of all the new Zimbabwe coins and I want to take some pictures of some Venezuelan Coins I've been looking at lately to share but my weekends and days off keep going to other tasks lately - including cleaning out the garage. Something I've made solid progress on recently.
    Ben seems to have lost interest in Pokemon go for now so it's just us adults that continue to be addicted to catching them all / collecting them all and completing our pokedexes. 🤣 From talking to others this seems common. The kids get into it, the adults do it with the kids and then the kids abandon it while the adults still work obsessively to complete the game. 🤣
  15. Revenant
    To borrow phrasing from my wife, Somethings have been odd with Samuel for a while. After getting a fast MRI (which had been delayed by him getting sick the day before the scan) the doctor wasn’t convinced by those results but was concerned by our observations of his behavior and wanted a CT. After getting a CT this morning, they told us to turn back around and come to the ER. We suspect a clog / slow failure – all four ventricle spaces have enlarged; some have nearly doubled. But they’re just going to have to go in tomorrow afternoon and check it all out, but it’s basically a shunt revision by another name. We’ve been at the hospital all day.


    My wife has, in the past, laughed at me for dropping bits of news like this and then moving on, making relatively brief note of them in otherwise longer posts but I often struggle to say much on these things other than, “Well, this happened.” I can’t claim to want to go into too much detail beyond the basic facts and I don’t know that many others would want that either. The Zimbabwean note set was built in 2019 as a monument to my stress relief efforts and this place remains my escapism. At the same time, I feel like these events have to be acknowledged here as I discuss these sets and these projects since so many of these projects are so tied to my family and ignoring these events here would rob these sets and posts of some very important context.
    I had not planned to follow up the last post with this one, of course. Shandy and I have been slowly looking through the 1989, 2002-2004, and 2007-2016 Venezuela bolivar coins. At this point we basically just need to look at the 2018 Boliver Soberano denominations (2 denoms) and the 2021 Bolivar Digital coins (3 denoms).
    I’m very happy with the coins we’ve been picking out as the best of the bunch. I’ve gotten a large number of coins from a variety of dealers that tend to supply good stuff. From these I’m culling together a set / collection that I think will be rather nice when it’s finished and put together – hopefully in the form of a custom registry set, if I can find the time.
    Having acquired 10-15 examples each of many of these I've frequently adopted an "heir and a spare" approach, picking out the one we think is the best and picking the one we think is the 2nd best, if there is a clear 2nd best, and setting it aside as well. I don't know what I'll do with the spares / 2nd stringers in right now, but I figure it doesn't hurt to have it / have them picked out for later reference.

    However, what I’d wanted to talk about is that some of the 2002-2004 coins – the 2nd batch of such coins that came from Ukraine the other week - have a lot of what look like die cracks on them. In a couple of cases there are what appear to be rather large cracks. I want to take pictures of them and post about this with the pictures – including breaking out and getting to play with a usb/wi-fi coin microscope I got a couple of months ago that has been mostly sitting in the box on my desk.
    If I remember right I was looking at these back in February or March on Amazon and then I got a lightning deal offer on this one for about $22. At that price I figured, even if it turned out to be complete garbage, it was worth a bit of amusement playing with it and looking at a few coins with it. My initial play involved looking at some graded coins in slabs and I'm decently happy so far with the focus adjustment feature and the way it allowed me to focus on the coins through the plastic of the slab. I have yet to test it with raw coins but I figure if it can be adjusted to give good visuals through a slab that's an encouraging/promising start.

    Having gotten that microscope out of the box earlier this week and played with it briefly, I’m still hopeful that one of these days soon I can get closer looks at those Venezuelan coins, confirm those are cracks and not scratches, and share some pictures.
    My timeline is clearly slipping on getting all these picked out and sent off, but turnaround times are down as Mike has recently reminded me and so I think I can still get this together, out, and back before December, even with life being crazy.
     
    On the 500L front, I guess the seller I bought that MS68 1982 500L from back in November of last year finally got tired of listing his top pop, finest known MS69 for $300-400 and having it not sell so they listed it for $39.99 + $3.50 shipping. With little else to do today but play pokemon on my phone and wait in a hospital room today, I bid on it and won without anyone bidding against me. It is interesting to me that someone bid on and beat me on that 1983 MS65 – spending $25+ on an MS65 – and these MS68s and MS69s continue to get no competing bids at $40-50. It does make me wonder if the other bidder in that 1983 auction was a shill or something because I have to think if a MS65 is interesting to you at $25 then an  MS69 should be interesting at $43.50, but maybe I’m wrong there.

    In any case, I'm continuing my commitment to that set and trying to build it up into something brag-worthy for Shandy with every opportunity that crops up to improve it at a price that feels sane.
    Do I regret popping for the MS68 last year at almost exactly the same price? Nope. Not really. That one was available last year when I needed it to get that set started where this one was not available at a price I was at all willing to pay. Now I get to improve on the set with this one and I feel pretty good about both purchases and what they accomplished for me / helped me accomplish.
  16. Revenant
    The other day over the weekend I decided to finally pull those 500 Lire coins I'd ordered out and look at them to see if I'd gotten anything good / promising. I'd been wanting to look at these for a while knowing it would be kind of shot-in-the-dark and I might have something good or I might have gotten nothing. I thought I'd sit down and look while Shandy napped with Sam and Ben watched TV.
    But, somewhat to my surprise, Ben took notice and wanted to look at them with me and was asking if these were my gold coins and if they were "real gold." I told him, "No. They're an alloy that looks like gold in the middle." He saw a 200L in the same page and asked if that was gold - nope. Brass alloy. So since he seemed really interested in seeing the real gold ones I went and I got out the actual gold ones, which he claimed he thought were really cool. I showed him the 2016 and 2019 for their birthyears, which he seemed to think were neat, but when I asked if he thought there was one or two that were more interesting he couldn't / wouldn't pick one and he didn't want to ask about them even though I offered to talk about any of them he wanted.
    He, of course, wanted one - he'd wanted a 500L coin before the gold ones came out and I'd let him have one that he picked from an old batch. That 500L coin is now on the couch or between the cushions or something. I was just like, "No. You're going to be a lot older before I let you have something like this. " "How old?" "Like at least 18." "No! Like 8 or 9!" "Not happening."
    You can see the 500L he picked in his hands, still in his soccer jersey from the game that morning.


    He made some comment about how the gold coins could "make a dollar" which makes me pretty sure he has no clue just how expensive those are and that 1 of those coins is about 2 years of his allowance. Of course, one of the first things he did was count to see how many there were - he can count to 100, as he finishes his Kindergarten year.
    As you might imagine, I didn't get to actually look at the 500L coins well, or for very long. At the end of nap time I was feeling pretty disappointed with what I had seen because a few very nice ones I'd seen where for dates we already had well covered and I'd seen some that didn't look good at all. And I didn't get to look at these again for 2 more days, looking at them at night using a flash light to read the tiny little dates on them.
    However, when I finally did get to look at them I felt a bit better about the outcome. We'd gotten 25 coins when I'd been expecting 24 - but one of those was a 1994 that was one of the circulating commemorative years that doesn't fit into the registry set I'm building. From the remaining 24 there was only 1 1987 and 2 1983s, and I don't think any of those are nicer than the 1983 and 1987 I got from the franklin mint sets. However, there were 3 1986-dated coins, and a couple of those actually look pretty nice. So that might be the big score from the purchase / lot.
    I also got in those 2003, $10 Zimbabwe coins. I do think they are nicer than the AU58 I have but I think the seller calling them Gem Uncirc was a bit of a stretch. I think MS63 is more likely. I still might submit one with the 500L coins though just to try to improve that AU58.
    I got a chance to take images of the new 500L coins recently. Shandy also noticed and pointed out that, while the pictures of the old coins are nice and while the new pictures of the new coins are nice, the color balance on the images / color tint doesn't quite match, and I'm not sure how to fix that. I think to get a perfectly consistent set of images that I'm happy with I'm going to have to just re-shoot the whole group at the same time just because I'm not that good at perfectly matching things up between shoots and the human eye can pick out some small and subtle things when they're right next to each other. This is the approach I've taken with the 10G set - shooting them all again all at once - and this is probably the approach I'll take with the Zimbabwe coins, But I don't want to go that route with the 500L set just yet because if I do that I'd like to wait to send in and get back these next 2-3 coins (1983, 1986, 1987) and have the set a little more complete for that kind of effort.
    I would not have expected that it would be a month after getting the coins back and I wouldn't have taken shots of all the New Zimbabwe coins yet or popped them into that new case yet, but life has just been a little busy lately, including at work, and Sam and Ben have been home sick a lot lately - usually one and then the other and then the other again.
  17. Revenant

    So... She actually wants input on this?

    By Revenant,


    Italian Coins
    So here's kind of a funny thing from the other day.
    I sent Shandy a message saying, "Hey, you care if I just go ahead and order these Italian sets?" and for me it's more, "do you care if I spend the money on this?"
    She's okay with it but she wants to know if she can look at the pictures first to see if she thinks it's a good one - generic pictures though so we aren't going to be able to make a quality judgement on individual coins like that, so just go ahead and we'll see.
    But after that I basically explained, most of these things that I find online that don't have generic pictures are pug-ugly or way over-priced. So I basically have three options right now: 1) Either buy more Franklin mint sets that have 1983s in them (and some other things that might be useful later like for a 50L set) or 2) buy more lots mixed date lots of 500 L coins from this one person I've ordered from and hope for good things - nice 1983 and 1986 and 1995 coins. The last time I ordered from this person we got the 1984 that just came back as an MS66. We also got a 1987 that was kinda "Meh." So we might get more good things. We might not. Option 3 is I just watch listings and wait.
    She favored getting more lots of 500 Lire coins and seeing what we get. So that's what I did - we'll be getting 24 more 500 Lire to look through soon.
    But, I just couldn't help but find it interesting that she is now sufficiently invested in this set that she wants input on purchasing decisions. 
  18. Revenant
    Go into the auction already knowing what you'll pay.
    I realized that I tended to go nuts on auctions pretty early on and I've subsequently found 1 way to prevent over bidding. I look at the item and decide well in advance what I'm willing to pay. (Note: That's what I'm willing to pay, not what any price guide says it's worth though I may consult the book.) In the heat of the moment I'll sometimes go 1 or 2 dollars over, but not more than that. Yes, I'll moan and groan went it's something that I want really bad but I'll usually remember that set price and stick to it... no matter how much I don't like it at the time. I almost never regret it later whether I won or lost.
    Oh, and I'm a college student so you know my collecting budget isn't huge.
  19. Revenant

    What's this then... Oh! I thought this was never coming!

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    So yesterday there's a knock at the door and I see it's the mail carrier, and he has a small package. As I'm walking up I'm wondering what this is and thinking I'm not really expecting anything.
    When he gives it to me it's the 2nd set of 2002-2004 Venezuela coins from Ukraine!
    I had completely forgotten about these things. I've been busy and I hadn't thought about them or thought to check the tracking in weeks. The last tracking update I'd seen had them in Kiev on April 6th. Then, while I wasn't paying attention, they were scanned in New York... on May 4th... nearly a full month later.
    So... here they are!


    Funny thing being that I'd recently been through the older Venezuelan coins from the late 1980s and picked the ones of each of those 5 denoms / types that I like the best, but hadn't gotten past that. These 2002-2004 denominations were going to be the next ones I looked at. Now I can get these out and into flips and look at all the available coins together. 
  20. Revenant

    On to Venezuela?

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    The first of the packages of Venezuelan Coins from the Ukrainian dealer arrived. The box that came was the 2nd one shipped, containing the 2021 Digital Bolivar Coins. The first package is still showing it was last seen in Kiev. I guess we'll see on that one – but I’m mostly considering that one a lost cause after over a week with no updates. I’ll just be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong. But at least I already had some of those from a prior order and dollarwise what I got this weekend was the bulk of the order.
    For a package that started its journey by leaving a war zone, the “last mile” to my house seems to have been almost more dramatic, at least with regard to the tracking history. It was supposed to be delivered a week ago on Saturday, then USPS didn’t actually attempt and said it would be delivered on Monday. Then they scanned it as being at the post office and didn’t try to deliver on Monday. When the NGC box came on Tuesday I was expecting that knock to be about the Ukrainian package, but, nope. Then, finally, on Wednesday, when I was about to just file a missing package report, it finally got delivered – but by then it had kind of had its thunder thoroughly stolen for the moment by the certificates and the graded coins coming back.

    I had also ordered some more 7-coin sets of the Bolivar Fuertes coins from a dealer in Utah I got Zimbabwe coins from. I'd bought 5 sets of these from a dealer in Turkey before I saw that this Utah dealer also had them - and at a lower price if buying several sets. I decided to order more just to have some from another dealer / source.
    The coins from the Utah dealer are very nice and may well be better than the others from Turkey. I have all the coins labeled with what dealer they came from. It will be interesting if all the "Best" ones we pick are from the new sets when we finally go through these.
    I've been holding off on going through these with Shandy in part because I wanted to have them all together first - or as close to it as possible. But I've felt the desire and need to start moving on these growing as the Zimbabwe submission moved closer to being done and home - time to fire off the next round, right? And that this point I really have almost every thing I wanted and needed and I don’t feel like holding things up for that 2nd Ukranian package that may never come. So if it ever does I’ll just do what I did with the many, many waves of Zimbabwe coins – pick the best of each group and compare the best of each group against each other until I arrive at 1 coin to submit.
    I’m yet to find someone offering either just the 50 Bolivar Fuertes coins or sets that include the 50 Bolivar Fuertes coin at a price I consider reasonable for these. The jury is still out on what to do about that and I may just proceed without them for now, just like I initially proceeded without the $2 and $5 coins with Zimbabwe, and proceeded the 2nd time with Zimbabwe without a new / better $10 and $25 coin. Sometimes you just have to make progress where you can and wait for better opportunities on other things.
    This may be one of the more egregious cases of “scope explosion” I’ve ever pulled on myself. What started as getting 1 of the new 2021 Digital Bolivar coins has turned into:
    -          5 Denominations of the Original Bolivar from the 1980s.
    -          5 higher denominations of the original bolivar from the early 2000s.
    -          7 denominations of the Bolivar Fuertes coins from ~2007
    -          3 later denominations of the Bolivar Fuertes added ~2016
    -          2 denominations of the Bolivar Soberano
    -          3 denominations of the “Digital” Bolivar
    25 denominations spanning 3 redenominations and 4 currencies over about 40 years… Yeah… So much for one little coin… I’m a lunatic, but you knew that already.

    I'm thinking I’ll try to get these out with some 500L coins in May - if I can convince Shandy to let me get away with it. We cracked open a couple of Italian Franklin Mint sets the other day for a 1983 and 1987 500L for that set. The 1987 looked great once I got it out but the 1983 looked a little disappointing once we got to see it bare. So now I’m looking into a couple of options on trying to get another, hopefully better, 1983.
    I also found a seller offering what they described as “Gem Uncirc” $10 Zimbabwe coins for the first time. So, I ordered a few of those, which should be arriving any day now and I’m hoping for good things. If those look good I’ll probably add that to the Italian coins and the Venezuela coins if and when those go out to resolve one of the last major weaknesses of the Zimbabwe set.
  21. Revenant

    Zimbabwe Round 2 Grade Results are in!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    TL:DR – The coins did great and I’m thrilled and freaking out a bit about some of these! XD So “Thank you, NGC” on the hard work and the much faster than expected turnaround.
     
    I need to give major props to NGC, who have pulled off a major turnaround, brought turnaround times down and delivered me grades on these months sooner than I was thinking. It was only about 5-6 weeks ago that I was saying I might not have grades for another 4 months from now.
    I’m hoping this also means that they’ve succeeded in expanding capacity and their 60-hour weeks are also a thing of the past.
     
    Since there are 29 coins in this submission, and 22 from Zimbabwe, I’m just going to talk about the Zimbabwe coins here and talk about the results on the 500L in a separate post. Even then, I’m not going to go into has much detail and discussion on each of these things as I might with a 5-coin submission. I’m just going to hit on some of the high notes (if I can stop myself).
    Here are the results, with my guesses and Shandy’s so you can see how we did. We both like to be deliberately conservative in our guesses to try to not get our hopes too high. So, we tended to be low when we missed, but it also makes the ones where we got lower than we guessed just a touch more disappointing.
    Shandy had made it clear that she’d never let me hear the end of it if she beat me, so I’ll gladly take a narrow win that still leaves both of us with our dignity. I think she’s learned a lot, and quickly, and she’s quickly gotten very picky about which ones she thinks are good enough.

    I’m really thrilled with these results. Only 3 coins are in the “disappointing” column – there were 4 MS64s but I don’t consider the 1997 $2 a disappointment because that grade was in-line with expectations. The same could be argued of the 2002 dime for that matter, which, if anything, beat expectations / did better than we’d guessed and hoped. The 2002 $1 also came back with the grade I guessed – just below the guess Shandy made. So maybe only 1 of 22 can fairly be called a disappointment – that 1988 cent I’d had such high hopes for.
    The 1997 $2 is worth calling out. At MS64 it easily beats the XF45 that is the only other NGC graded example eligible for that slot. It also beat Mike’s guess that it would get at least an MS63. I’d initially hoped it might do better but… It is still by far the best I’ve seen. Most of the 1997 dated $2 I’ve been able to find are just… so… ugly. I’m very grateful to Mike for this coin. I’m not going to be in a rush to try to upgrade this one and I doubt it would be all that easy.
    I don’t know if it’s better or worse that 3 out of 4 of these MS64s are still better than anything else I have for the slot. Meaning 3 of these 4 still earn a spot in the top set. Meaning 3 of 4 clearly weren’t a “waste” / complete misfire – they still improve the top line set and in so doing achieve what I’d hoped for in sending them in. We got several MS66 and MS67 grades, including some on some key coins, but those weren’t on coins that could fully paper over these sub-Gem coins.
    Having said all that though, I had really hoped for an MS68 on that 1997 5C, and, while I got an MS67 on the 1980, that MS65 on the 5C is not what I’d been hoping for there. So maybe that’s disappointing too, even though the 1980 makes up for it.
    The 1980 10C getting an MS66 feels like a big win and vindication on sending it in. It did, in fact, beat the MS65 I already have. This can be bitter-sweet as it knocks out the first coin bought for the set, but it also means the top type set will be 100% self-submitted – no bought-pre-graded coins. The thing that makes this even better is the fact that the 1980 5C got an MS67 – a staggering, fantastic victory in its own rights to me - and the 1980 50C and $1 got MS66, meaning that I have 2/3rd of a 1980 year set in MS66 or better now – but that just means I’m now having dreams in my head of adding an MS66 1980 cent and 20C.
    The MS67 on the 2002 $5 coin just feels so great and cleansing after the disappointment of those nasty examples from the now long-ago first purchase of 10-coin sets. The same is true, albeit to an obvious lesser extent, with the MS66 on the 2002 $2.
    It might seem strange to some that I just feel so happy about MS65, MS66, and MS67 grades on modern coins when the prevailing wisdom with moderns tends to be that you need MS68s for it to be worth it/ to be competitive, but I’ve long felt like I would be thrilled / happy to have the set mostly comprised of MS65 (Gem) coins or better and to be complete. It is now complete, with mostly MS65 or better coins. I’m happy. And these results are 1) consistent roughly with my guesses, and 2) far better than what I got when I tried self-submitting with my stepfather the first time 14 years ago. Suggesting that I might have actually learned a LITTLE in that time, in addition to taking damage to my corneas. Lol
    I’m blown away by the results on the Bond coins. I can’t believe how well the $2 coins bond coins did – coins I got from that seller in the Ukraine, small aside. I am suddenly extremely happy that I went ahead and sent in both of those. EXTREMELY happy. I don’t know what I’ll do with the 2nd MS69. When I was looking at the pop reports / census for clues and saw 2 MS69s I had to pick my jaw up off the floor realizing those might be mine and I might have scored a HUGE win. I was thinking I’d be happy if I got MS67s that matched most of the rest of the Bond Coin sets. I just could not get myself to hope for MS68s or MS69s even though they looked darn near perfect because I’ve never gotten grades that high on circulation strike coins. To get those 69s on both $2 BCs and a 68 on the $1… Mind Blown. So happy on these. My first self-made circulation strike MS68s and MS69s.
    Overall, this is going to leave me with a very solid type set that I think will be well positioned to defend its title for a while, though it will certainly be possible for anyone with the funds, the time and the determination to overtake this set. The overall strength this gives to the set and to the bond coins, however, does re-emphasize the fact that at some point I will need to address the weakness of the $10 and $25 coins to bring them more in line with the rest of the set.
    The overall strength of the Bond Coins is also going to make me feel more pressure to one day get the 50C bond coin up to a MS67+ to match the standard set by the others in that group / sub-set. With 7 bond coins I do think that sub-set could make for a nice set / category on its own and there are plenty of categories out there with only 6-8 slots – just look at some of the mint sets. But I think there will have to be more collector interest in those before NGC agrees to that. I feel lucky enough to have the type set category to put these in, given how thinly they’re collected in graded form (Mostly just me and my crazy).
    I’m very excited to get to upload some descriptions I’ve already been working on for these. As with the last set, each coin will have some general information on the design / landmark it depicts followed by a narrative on how that coin came to be in the set. These descriptions will heavily copy each other and borrow some of the narrative from my journals about all of these. I’ve worked carefully to keep track of what group of coins / sets / dealers each coin came from so I could build that into the narrative for each coin and have these descriptions emphasize the journey and the hunt of a 100% self-submitted set that I’ve made by looking at the coins with my wife. I think that’s part of what won this set an award from NGC and I think it’s very core to the charm and the appeal of the set as I’ve made it. I’m also really excited about taking good photos of all of these in the holders when they come in.
    The case Shandy got me for these has been sitting in the closet in the packaging, waiting for me to be able to properly fill it. I’m very excited by the prospect of being able to pull that out, put all the coins in, and lay it out. I think I’ll need to put up pictures of that in future entry – Maybe include the plaque for the set in the image.
    Can you tell that I’m excited about this? XD
    So, in summation - I’m thrilled. I consider this a big win. But it also leaves a few things unresolved and opens a few more thoughts / dreams. I think I’ll be on pause with this for a while, but I’ll likely have to circle back later to tie up some of those loose ends – the 2003 $10, the 2003 $25, the 1980 1C.
  22. Revenant

    The 500 Lire Grade Results

    By Revenant,


    Italian Coins
    So here is the 2nd post about 1 submission, splitting off the 500L coins to give them their due, befitting a group of 7 coins (decent sized group in their own right by my submission standards) and a group of coins that represent their own, very important project.
    And here are the results - Shandy and I picked the ones to send together when we had more than one of a certain date, but we didn't play “guess the grade” on these because we didn't have a big selection of graded coins in different grades to look at with Zimbabwe. We just had 2 coins - a MS67 and a MS68.

    Hands down the big win here is the grade on the 1990 - the highest grade in the submission going to one of those two super important coins that they brought back from Italy nearly 30 years ago. And it is a legitimately good grade - not just the highest grade in a low scoring submission. 😅 An MS67 is dang good for something that spent 28 years in a bag. That 67, combined with the 1992 in MS67 and the ’82 and ’85 in MS68, gives the set a strong core.
    The 1991, also crucial for the same reason, didn't do as well but it did good enough. An MS64 is high enough for it to not be too much of a liability to the set point / score-wise.
    With both of those I thought they would grade well but you never know when a grader is going to feel there's a bit of wear that you didn't see and then you get an AU55/58 - like that 1875 10G I posted about seeing on eBay some time ago. These grades are going to help these coins stay in the set as the sentimental core of it while still keeping the set strong.
    I had hoped the 1992 would match the MS67 I bought last year but it just missed at a MS66. However... I still feel like this coin is more attractive than the MS67. So, I think this is actually the coin I'll keep in the set for now unless I need points and adding back the MS67 could make a difference. 😅 But, the MS67 does look mighty fine in the images I got of it. We’ll see.
    The result on the 1985, while not a bad grade IMO - I would have been pretty happy with straight 65s to fill out the set - basically confirms I made the right choice snapping up that MS68 from the same year.
    As to the other 3 - two MS66s and a MS64. Again - solidly "good enough." Two of three hit the MS65 threshold I wanted for filling the set with gem uncirculated coins or better and two of them did 1 point better. The one that missed only missed by a little.
    Now I just need to cut up those Franklin Mint sets and send in that '1983 and '1987... and find an '86, '95, 2000 and 2001...
     
    Some other fun updates that are somewhat related:
    The certificates arrived from NGC - I pulled them out of the mailbox the same day I posted about the Zimbabwe grades. It's possible they were sitting there for a while. Life was a bit crazy, and I wasn't checking the mail - almost late paying the water bill!

    I told Shandy that, since I took a picture with the plaques, she needs to hold these.
    For those that thought it would have been great if the Zimbabwe coin award had still had my little typo on it, you may be happy to know the distinction of immortalizing that goes to the "Best in Category" certificate, which are generated and printed automatically.

    I've been working as hard as I can to get the descriptions for all 29 of these coins fleshed out and finished and uploaded into my registry, but not adding them to the sets that they're for. Once they arrive I'll pulse out full group of coins (the ones that made the cut anyway) into the main sets and then I just have to get good pictures of everything! 😅
  23. Revenant

    Signs of life and rays of hope.

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    I placed that order for the Venezuelan Coins from the Ukranian dealer about 2 weeks ago and hadn't heard a peep since. 
    At this point I'd mostly written if off, thinking it increasingly unlikely that anything would come of it and just wishing the dealer well.
    Today though, to my surprise, I got a shipment notice for 1 part of the order - the older 2002-2004 coins, but not the newer 2021 coins.
    I'm happy to see a sign of life from the dealer. I'm glad to see something indicating that they're still alive out there.
    I still don't know if I should have my hopes up for the coins making it out of the country. I also don't know if I'll be getting all of it (and they just only sent the tracking number on one item but it has all the coins) or just the older coins, if they do make it here.
    I guess I'll see if I get any more tracking updates and / or another tracking number later.
     
    Edited to update (3/30):
    I got a shipping notification and tracking number for the 2nd part of the order today and something on tracking saying the first package is with the carrier.
    I'm wondering if things are a bit safer around that area currently or if they just decided to go in and process orders. Hopefully this is a sign that they're feeling safe enough to conduct business in that area.
    I suppose another possible explanation is that the war is making it harder to actually ship packages / give them to a carrier even when picked and ready.
    It is amazing how much of what makes life function you get to take for granted in times of peace and how quickly that can be lost in war.
    Hard to know much of anything really. But hopefully they make it through.
    It is a great irony to me that the areas getting destroyed the most in this are the areas that most favored economic ties to Russia over the EU, and Russia is likely literally killing the friends they had in Ukraine. What's left of that country after this will likely never again see themselves as "one people" with Russia as Putin contends.
     
    Edited again to add:
    My Zimbabwe / Italy submission has made it to Grading / Quality Control Yay! I think based on this I might know grades in April sometime!
  24. Revenant
    A few months ago I posted about a new set appearing in the Netherlands 10G set that had a coveted MS64 example of the 1879/7. This left me with a lot of questions and now they've just given me a lot more information and a lot to think about.
    The member has added 5 more coins to the set, including all the rarer dates, including the 1885 and the 1886 I've long looked for... and they all have the same invoice number... numbered -001 to -005.
    They almost certainly submitted these themselves. So they're almost certainly building this set from scratch. Which I think means they probably made that MS64 1879/7 themselves.
    Which would mean this person has taken the path I have now long avoided taking to finish my set. They have subsequently upgraded/ replaced it but they had an 1887 coin that is a prime example of why I've been hesitant to buy raw and self-submit these - an Unc Details grade for cleaning.
    I can't speak for them, but that would have hurt. That would have been a disappointment to me. A big one. I'm guessing it stung them too because they already swapped it for an MS66 top pop. 🤣
    I'm thinking they must be buying these raw now - possibly through European sellers on MA Shops like I thought I'd have to do. I have to think if they were submitting a raw set they've had for years then the whole set would have shown up graded all at once. Or at a minimum submitting the 1879/7 solo would feel a bit odd. But I could be wrong there.
    The more important question I feel this leaves me with is - what do I do about it? Because I have to think that with all the rarer dates accounted for now the rest of the set is coming and the pace of things definitely seems like they're gunning to win the category in 2022. And I'm going to have a hard time keeping the top spot if his set is 100% complete and mine is 72%.
    I've won with that set for 6 years - every year that Ben has been alive so far, and I'm keen to defend that title if I can. But even if I throw down the cash and send in the coins I'm not guaranteed to hold onto the title - especially if this person has enough cash to throw at the problem fast enough. And I'm not sure I'm eager to throw down hundreds if not thousands of dollars over this and completely abandon / derail other projects. So, the more I think about it, the more I think the better path is to stay the course, stay patient, do nothing, and let them take it if they want it this year, and maybe for a few after that.
    I've known for years there was a risk of a set showing up at the 11th hour in November and unseating my set. Props to this guy for doing his set building in the open early in the year and showing his hand.
    Edited to add:
    Speaking of Ben and 6 years. Today we celebrated Ben and 6 years of parenthood.


  25. Revenant
    Ben has been off for Spring break all week and Shandy took him back to the zoo.  While he was there, he asked for this "gold" "tiger" (Lion) coin, which she got for him, and she said Ben was showing some interest in the penny crushers again, but she hadn't brought pennies and quarters so they couldn't do that.
    The elongated cent albums kind of dropped out a couple of years ago when COVID hit and we stopped going anywhere, including the zoo, so we weren't getting any pennies. I guess we'll need to see if that / those make a comeback.