Revenant

This is very true, but I think there is a bias towards some series that are more popular or in the news or more approachable to new people with the idea of attracting new people to join and encouraging more registry participation. I'm not even really saying this is a bad thing - in part because I don't really care about the overall rankings and so I don't care if they're accurate as long as scoring in a category is reasonably accurate / consistent. As another bit to support this - Didn't NGC introduce the idea of "non-competitive slots" for very rare, hard to get, expensive coins specifically with the idea of making it easier for lower budget people to compete with people with some of these very expensive coins in some categories.

They were actual posts / comments on the journal by a "user" that was probably just a bot posting copy/paste spam. Edited to add: The wife has no complaints

I don't know, there have been people periodically spamming some of my journals with advertisements of miracle cures for erectile disfunction... I'd bee happy to see those deleted and those accounts banned.

The funny thing is it can't be arbitrary if it is deliberately and consistently designed to achieve specific goal. The point system is very much (IMO) designed to emphasize certain popular modern sets / categories and use those popular categories to draw in new users and encourage participation. I will never forget what happened with the Presidential Dollars when they first started coming out in 2007. NGC put very high point values on them and put heavy point premiums on coins with the "First Day of Issue (FDI)" label / designation. After a couple of years, around 2010 or 2011, the hype and enthusiasm for the series had faded. NGC severely cut the point values on these coins around that time - I think the point values of many issues dropped by 50-75%. The values of the coins on eBay - especially FDI designated coins - tanked / totally crapped the bed. I think the points were cut and then the prices tanked but it could have been the other way around... it has been 10 years now and I forget that detail. The screaming from people who had held the top pop coins and the top sets in those categories was legendary. This place is ultimately a marketing and business development tool and the points system is designed to further that goal. Which is why I 100% agree with you that the overall points rankings are unworthy or a 2nd thought. At best you can hope that the points system results in the best overall set within a category getting the #1 spot. But even that is questionable in some categories / parts of the registry. There are other people that have commented on this but, I think where this place is at its best is with the signature / custom sets, the "Most Creative" award, the "Best Presented" award, the "Most Informative" award. Those kinds of things. It was a good feeling to get "Best Presented" on the 1932 set after all the work that went into that and the many many attempts I've made over the years at taking pictures of those coins. I've greatly appreciated the Journal award every time I've been given it, even though it has little to do with my collection and is more about my writing and my ability to tell a story.

They need to implement them in the new / updated registry and modernize the system. I think that would help.

I'm very sorry to hear all of that. I probably would have been posting more over here this year but Covid lockdowns have limited some of my ability to do some coin related things with the boys that I otherwise might have and I've been posting a fair bit about my Zimbabwe note set on the PMG side. That has been a major focus of mine for 2 years now and I put it with PMG to not bother those not interested.

Ah.... That stinks! Sorry he hear that. I have a USSR coin from 1924 that I thought I'd lost and it took close to a year I think but I did find it again. Hopefully you find it. Or get a great deal on a better one!!

Indeed!

I suppose so. The gold ETF in principle is supposed to be an alternative to owning physical gold but you're still betting on the price of gold, but the Gold ETF is seen as being more liquid and easier to get out of than physical metal. This thing with the fractional card owner ship (or with coins) seems like it would be a lot less liquid than a Gold ETF and far more speculative. I don't own gold ETFs though - I opt for gold mining stocks and physical metal.

You're looking at the wrong ranking. You're looking at NGC Coins and not All Coins.

The one that might get me is the programmable coffee maker.

Yeah. That second sentence doesn't go as far in negating the first sentence for me as it seems to for you.

That's a little sad to me. Learning that you're wrong means you learned something. Learning new things is good. Failure is good insofar as it teaches us / we learn from it. If you're never wrong and you never fail you can't be learning and you can't be growing. My art teacher told us, "If you're comfortable you aren't growing."

When did you do this? Premiums on low weight (1-10 oz especially) Silver and Gold have been insane since March. 30% premiums would have been pretty out of line in 2019 but have been quite common in 2020 - even with major dealers. But lots of silver bugs have been complaining about it and I wouldn't be surprised if many a LCS has lost patience with the grumbling. I wouldn't necessarily write someone off for this right now. You start off on the wrong foot with people sometimes. Just 2 cents.

I don't intend this as a whine or a complaint - just want that out in front - but, having seen this, I wanted to comment on it here, this being a journal and a record of my thoughts and a chronicling of my activities here. After 12 years of getting the "Best In Category" award in the 1932 mint set category, we've been bumped from the top spot in the rankings by a new set. For clarity - there has been a set that outscores us for years now (I think 5 or 6) but it has always been obscured / private / hidden / whatever so we've been the top ranked set - but not really the highest scoring set. The new set started adding coins about 10 days ago and just yesterday a new coin has been added that makes that set outscore us by a whopping 19 points. Really, the thing that shocks me as much as anything about this is that it took this long. I've been expecting / waiting on this for years. Interestingly, the new set is made up of 5 PCGS coins and 1 NGC coin, making it almost a mirror image of our set, which has long had 1 PCGS coin and 5 NGC coins - the PCGS coin we have is not the same as the NGC coin that they have. If memory serves we actually have an NGC graded example for that PCGS-graded quarter, but it has a slightly lower grade so we don't / haven't used it in the set. I think I'm remembering that right anyway. This new set has therefore been made possible in part by the rules change this year allowing new PCGS coins into US sets again. But I can't really complain (and don't intend to) - We've been benefitting from the Grandfathering - but to a lesser degree than this set - for the last 7 years. I shot a message over to Choya about it just to let him know and for the laughs. We'll see if this convinces Choya to finally upgrade that old MS63 Eagle to something with a little more teeth. I've been saying that that coin was a prime target for upgrading / improving the set for a decade now. Even if he does though, this new set popping up just about 5 weeks before the cut-off virtually guarantees that they'll get the "Best in Category" award this year as I simply don't see us moving on a $2000+ dollar coin in that short of a time frame. Because the set has only 1 NGC coin to our 5 we will still win the "NGC - Best in Category" this year (assuming nothing else pops up in the next 5 weeks), but we won't take both awards in the category, for the first time in almost a decade of having both awards on lockdown. It has been one hell of a run - 12 years without a single upgrade or change to the set other than new pictures and description updates! I've often wondered if there's another set in the registry that can claim that.

Your call - you own them - but I don't think I'd break them.

So, my next question becomes, do you have more of these you're planning to break???

In my OP I said I didn't want this coming to coins and it spun off from there.

I never thought I'd see a day where I was watching XOM drown slowly to defend a dividend. I work in oil and gas so my wife is opposed to buying the stocks of such companies. She doesn't want a downturn threatening my job and our stocks at the same time. But I digress...

Some of what you describe could be fun but you'd have to limit it to people with a minimum stake or the 10 or so highest stake owners. To use your horse example - surely you can't accommodate all 4,200 of those people at an event. I suppose there might be a natural limiter in that the small hands probably also wouldn't have the financial ability to travel to all of these things. Still, too many owners would be a problem. The Greater Fool theory of investing seems to be immortal. Bitcoin mystifies me, and yet, it has gone from $0.01, to $19,000, back down to $3,000, and back up to $13,000. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..." I mean, if there was some way for this to generate a profit I could totally see it. But... At least with owning gold I can see the logic of an inflation hedge / store of value. I guess some people would argue that rare coins and collectables have the same attribute / appeal but I don't think history supports this. Beanie babies... didn't end well. Baseball cards … have already crashed before. Comic books? Crashed. Magic Cards... mostly crashed I think. Lego sets? They haven't crashed yet but I know where I'm NOT putting my money.

Mkay. Obviously I'm not and don't expect to ever be a participant in that market - that's more than I earn gross in 10 years. I don't get it. I can't wrap my head around it. But I guess if it makes someone feel happy or it works for them and it makes them some money...

The horse actually makes more sense to me because that is like being a share owner in a business. The horse competes for purses and can be used for breeding purposes, etc. A baseball card or other collectable is a non-income generating asset. It's like owning gold or something else that just sits there. To me, it has the value of being able to enjoy possessing it and looking at it, but, if you never possess it and never get to look at it... what's the point? I guess bragging rights as you say but... That's a lot of money just to get to say you own a piece of something you can't look at or use.

About the only way I could see something like this working would be if it was kept by a third party custodian - who would probably collect a fee and keep it in a vault. This has the practical, financial implication of giving the asset a negative carry and the unfortunate effect of sticking the piece of history in a box, away from people who might enjoy it. As I said - joyless.

I heard about this recently: https://www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/collectable-offers-fractionalized-ownership-of-valuable-sports-memorabilia/ The idea of fractional ownership of a baseball card as an investment that you will never hold (and probably have no interest in as a collector). This can't possibly be good for collectables and hobbies. I don't like it for cards. I don't want it for coins. It's a hobby... this seems... joyless.

I don't know. It's an 1860 and Civil War era stuff has broad appeal. I could easily see anything from that period being in demand and commanding a big premium vs similar items from other years.