Revenant

I told my wife today, “You know, it’s really kind of amazing: You combine antibiotics, with steroids, NSAID pain relievers, expectorants, nasal decongestants, and antihistamines, and a few hours later you feel a lot more comfortable!” I’ve had a sinus infection kicking my butt more and more for a week and a half and I finally went to the doctor today to get help being it. Drugs! Am I right? Yeah… Now that you’re all convinced I’m a pill head… I was walking out the front door to go to the pharmacy to get my meds when the FedEx guy got out of the truck and handed me the envelope with this and a 1923, MS64 Peace Dollar – it’ll go great with the Morgan from 2020 and the American Eagle from 2021. So, in the last few years I’ve brought you: “Gradually, Then Suddenly” (PMG Best Presented Note Set – some of you may not be much aware of this one) “The First Casualties (Causalities?) of Hyperinflation” And: “Turning Pain into Suffering” I think I can now announce my latest melodramatic working title: “Brought Forth with Pain.” We return to our roots with “Gradually, then Suddenly,” in that this is a clip from a quote that will be at the core of what I hope the Theme of the new set will be: “Debts are like children – begot with pleasure but brought forth with pain.” – Moliere I think this will be a two-parter, as I’m going to be looking at two currencies that, based on what I’m seeing, will probably be split in the registry into two competitive categories – one of these sets / groups has a competitive category already. One doesn’t seem to, yet – but I’m going to ask for one soon!

The joy is in the research and the reading, the sharing of a story, and cuddling up in bed and looking at coins with my wife to pick the best one. When a set wins after that it is very nice though.

Congrats! I got mine today as well. The Peace dollar will be really nice with the Morgan from 2 years ago.

I don't actually have one of these graded yet 🤣 - though I am planning to submit one of each in the coming months to finish that set.

This is less about having a new slot added and more about having a slot edited. The Venezuelan type set for the 2007-Date coinage has separate slots for the 2010 and 2011 25 Centimos and labels both "Independence Anniversary" Reform Coinage, Type Set, 2007-Date, Circulation Issue Sets | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) The text on the 2010 coin is listed as "Dawn of Independence" where the 2011 is "Signing of the Independence Act." The reason I ask about this is looking at this you might not be blamed for thinking this should be 1 slot in a type set but the coins are actually a little different:

I always thought of the half cent as something of the distant past. The United States didn’t produce any after 1857. However, I’m increasingly aware of the fact that other countries have made half cents and half pennies of and on until relatively recently. I have a set of Rhodesian pennies and half pennies from the 1950s and 1960s. Finding out that these half pennies existed was surprising but when I think about it I can understand it. For a long time there the UK pound was worth at least or about twice as much as the US dollar. It looks like in the 1950s it might have been about 3:1. So having a 3 gram bronze coin that was worth maybe a little more than a US cent makes a fair bit of sense. And this same logic can probably be applied equally to the later Rhodesian half cents of the 1970s that came after the UDI - same weight overall but smaller, and without the hole. What I still can’t wrap my head around are things like the Argentinian half cents of 1985, released with the issuance of a new currency after their latest debt and currency crisis at the time. They only made them for 1 year, but, still, they made them – a half centavo. That 1985 date almost brings them into my lifetime. I’m not sure what the newest / last example of a half cent or half penny to be made was – and we may yet see new ones in the future but it would appear that I was long wrong to view them as relics of the past, now gone. I’ve been thinking about this and wanting to post about it for a while, but then my wife surprised me with my Valentine’s Day present a little bit early and she shocked me with an MS67RD 1955 Rhodesian Half Penny. A coin I was really happy to get as it leaves me needing just the 1956 for both the penny and the half penny sets from the Federation period. This also has me tempted to continue / expand into the 1970s post-UDI copper and keep building out a solid, more complete set of Rhodesian copper. I was really thrilled to get this as it opens up making that half penny set competitive for the top spot this year, maybe joining the penny set and the Zimbabwea type set in winning this year?? Maybe? It does definitely nix the idea of grading that raw 1955 I showed pictures of in my last post. That other one looks nice but it is not an MS67RD and i cannot compete with this one. This one is gorgeous.

So... Saw this... Just wanted to share and laugh and have this to remember this later for the lawls... I was looking for a nice 1956 Rhodesian Half Penny... It's the last date I'd need to have a complete set of the Giraffe design from the 1950s and 1960s during the pre-UDI, Federation period (assuming I get the raw 1955 I bought graded). I see a new listing that shows a raw coin and says in the title "Collectable Grade." And then I look at the pictures... And... O.M.G... That is... special. Nope... Sorry. Throw it to the smelter. Just for fun... here is the 1955 I bought recently... On the fence on sending it in to fill the hole in the registry set or not. Marketed as UNC with bad pics and bought on a lark for $6 (cheaper than the shipping cost alone of the coin above). I need to take good pictures of the three graded ones I have now, both to improve the look of that registry set and to get nice shots as a basis for comparing to this and other raw examples I might get. At this point I have a 65RB, 66RD, and 67RD, which would be the foundation for a grading set, and a scale to compare against. On a random note: Shandy accepted a new role in her current company today. And it is going to come with a nice pay bump, and so we might soon be giving our spending money budgets a bump up... which might be more money for my misadventures... What it really means, more seriously, though is we'll probably be getting very aggressive about paying down her student loans... assuming the government decides it's going to get things in order and start asking for payment again.

The problem with collecting modern coins in type sets with many countries is that the coins look rather the same across the board. South Africa for example: Russia (I think this is Russian coinage anyway... if I remember right) Uruguay: Mexico: Others: Interestingly, when I've posted images in the past of the Zimbabwean Bond Coins and had people point out that they look like arcade tokens or make similar disparaging remarks, I've pointed out that the rest of the world (the US included) doesn't seem to be doing much better these days. I also find it interesting in that the Franklin mint sets (and my own writings) have called out the relative lack of variety in the designs of Venezuelan coinage, but, other countries have also allowed their coinage to become extremely homogenized in the last few decades. Poland is an interesting example with their coins from the 1990s looking basically the same as their coins from 2017. The problem I feel this creates is that, if you want to look to create a story and weave a narrative around the set in a registry presentation, you need to look beyond the coinage and the designs and what's featured on them. With the Venezuelan note set I actually got to have a lot of fun researching the people and the animals and places on the notes... at least until they stopped changing the designs or putting in any effort on them. But when all the coins are essentially identical, if you want to tell a story, you have to start trying to put the coins into a historical narrative. And, while someone looking for a country with really pretty, artistic, varied modern coinage might have a hard time in that pursuit, someone looking to study economic and societal collapse through the lens of coinage and coin collecting seems to have their pick of options these days... In addition to Zimbabwe and Venezuela, which I have now looked at and written on extensively, we also have extreme and growing economic and social stress in Argentina, Turkey, Cuba, Sri Lanka, Peru, and a few other places. Although, I couldn't help but think the other day that it could be interesting to do a large, multi-country set looking at Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Armenia, and the other post-soviet states. Possibly looking at that to examine the growing tensions in the area as we enter a kind of post-Russia era with Armenia and Azerbaijan's fragile peace (previously held together by Russian peace-keepers) starting to fall apart as Moscow's influence fades. At this point I'm petty sure what my next big project is going to be - I have an order in with one of the dealers that was big help in putting together the Venezuela set and now they're going to be my primary source for coins from a new country. My wife commented the other day about the amount of reading, research and writing - the amount of time and effort that goes into building out one of these projects - as I begin to think about ramping up for a new one. And... yeah. It's a lot, but it's a lot of fun and learning.

In looking at the description for my Venezuelan set again it occurred to me that I never really closed the loop and brought it all back the coins and the set, so I ended up adding a paragraph towards the end that brought my discussion back to that set. But the whole thing got me thinking about an old routine from Ron White, when he stops, seemingingly in the middle of the joke, with no punchline to wrap things up. It just stopped and he said, "Joke not funny! Need Punchline." It was a bit funny making that change, however, to a set that just won an award, and it made me think of a recent conversation where someone asked me if I still work on and add to these sets. And the answer was, of course! The Zimbabwean note set has probably had about 20-25 notes added to it since it won an award in 2020. The Zimbabwean coin set was only about 14-15 coins at the time when it got its award in 2021 and it still needed several additions to bring it up to a complete 23-coin set. As I continued to find more information on them, I also continued to build out my descriptions on both those sets. The Venezuelan set is only about 66% complete and I need to add several coins - most of which I already own in raw form - to make it complete, And I want to make it complete. I don't know that I'd say I'll always consider these "open." I remain open to upgrading the Zimbabwean coin and note sets in the future if coins and notes come up, but I consider both to be pretty idle and not really active projects anymore. At a minimum I'd say both are on a firm hold until I get an itch to try to improve the few lingering weak points in the coin set or go on a massive overall to push the average grade on the Note set up. But I definitely don't just drop these things once they win something. I think where that becomes a problem for the person asking me about this is they were wondering if I'd ever consider publishing these things and the writing and research in a physical form, and to do that I think I'd have to reach some kind of final state beyond which further additions and alterations are unlikely. Although I suppose you could open up the idea of editions. Edited to add: I guess I should visit the main page more often. I just saw the announcement about DW Lange passing. That... is a bummer. He always seemed to have a great sense of humor about things when he posted on the boards and it was always nice that he took the time.

It gets one step worse in that the system is different for signature / custom sets on NGC / PMG. I built my award-winning, 130-note Zimbabwe set on the PMG side as a custom set. And I'm used to dealing with it... then I come over to NGC... and it's different... and somehow even worse... and I just don't want to deal with it. The Venezuela set that just won was supposed to be a signature set that included some additional, earlier coins. Then I just nope'd out on dealing with that. 🤣

It's a balance I'd say. It's a lot easier to stand out on a budget when there aren't 2,000 other sets like with Morgan Dollars. But the other side of that is you have to be able to find and obtain the coins at reasonable prices, so dealers have to believe there's a market, so people have to at least kinda have awareness of it (or it helps). Right now Ben only seems to care about the Switch, and Roblox, and Kirby and Super Smash Bros... The gold coins do seem to spark something for him but i think thats mostly because he knows they're valuable. 🤣 I'm not sure there's a coin set to build with him there. Maybe i need to talk to him about it more but I worry about him running his mouth at achool. Sam just cognitively isn't there yet and I don't know when he will be. So for now I think I'm on my own.

The fact that it would be a signature set and that I'd have to build it in that archaic system is probably the main reason I'd have for not wanting to do it. 🤣😭🤣 I would love to fully build out my "Golden Nickel" world gold coin set but I just hate that system so much... 😖 Anyway... if I did the turtle set I think I'd want to focus on coins struck for circulation. I wouldn't want it to be just modern NCLT. And modern NCLT is most of what I see. Feel free to let me know anything you come across. I can start taking notes regardless.

For the first time in about 2 years, I’ve received a grading credit from NGC, and I’m actually faced with thinking about how I wanted to use it. A couple of years ago I knew I wanted to reholder the 10G set and I immediately saw that credit as a chance to build a graded set of Zimbabwe coins for a registry set. Last year I knew before I even finished the Zimbabwe set that the next thing I wanted to do was Venezuela – and I even went out-of-pocket on most of that because I’d already used the credit finishing Zimbabwe. This year, though, I was thinking it’d probably be a smaller, lower-key year, of just using the $150 credit from the membership to try to fill out most of the rest of the Venezuela 2007-Date set and the last three coins of the 500 Lire set. $150 - $10 for an invoice fee leaves you with $140 which will pay for about 7.5 coins, which then just leaves you paying like $12 + Shipping for 8 coins, and 8 coins would have finished the 500 Lire set and left me with only 1 hole (a coin I still don’t have even in a raw state) for the Venezuela set. 1) VEN 2010 25 CENTIMOS - INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY 2) VEN 2010 50 CENTIMOS - BANCO CENTRAL - 70TH ANNIVERSARY 3) VEN 2016 10 BOLIVARES 4) VEN 2016 50 BOLIVARES 5) VEN 2016 100 BOLIVARES 6) ITALY 1995 500 Lire 7) ITALY 2000 500 Lire 8) ITALY 2001 500 Lire But when you add in the $500 credit it starts to look more like this… 1) VEN 2010 25 CENTIMOS - INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY 2) VEN 2010 50 CENTIMOS - BANCO CENTRAL - 70TH ANNIVERSARY 3) VEN 2016 10 BOLIVARES 4) VEN 2016 50 BOLIVARES 5) VEN 2016 100 BOLIVARES 6) ITALY 1995 500 Lire 7) ITALY 2000 500 Lire 8) ITALY 2001 500 Lire 9) ZIM 2003 $10 (If I can find one that seems worth sending in…) 10) ZIM 2003 $25 (If I can find one that seems worth sending in…) 11) VEN 2011 25 CENTIMOS - INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY (If I can find a good one, which I think I can) 12) … 25) And with the $150 credit… 26) … 33) There was this Raw / ungraded 1955 Rhodesian Half Penny that looked good for $6 on eBay and I’d been considering buying it and sending it in to get to 4/5 (80%) on that Half Penny Set. If it graded well, it could even put me in the running fort the top spot in the category. I’d been looking at that and when I found out about winning the award I just went online and got it. I hadn’t considered at the time but because it is from the mid-1950s and not mid-1960s it would have to go in under economy ($23) and incur its own $10 invoice fee, so the incremental cost of that coin would be $33 and not $19, but it could still be worth it if the coin looks like it would grade well when it comes in. So that could eliminate basically 2 of the blank spots above – if it looks good enough – but that doesn’t really solve “the problem” of those potentially 22-25 blank spots in that list. Now, don’t get me wrong – this is a fantastic “problem” to have, but for the first time in 2 years, I’m going to have to think about how I want to use this. Before the announcement was made and the question became “real,” I’d toyed with the idea of looking through some of the Italian coins I have in my binder and see if there are some 5 Lire, 10 Lire, 50 Lire, 100 Lire and / or 200 Lire coins I could send in and possibly add those two and strengthen those Lire sets. But the more I think about it the more I’m not sure that idea appeals to me. The reason being that I don’t think I’ll get much of the normal “fun” I get out of these sets by doing this. The best part of these sets for me usually is researching them, researching the design elements and the history of the different coins and designs and the historical context and building the presentation of what have now become 2 “Best Presented” sets. As you might imagine, I think the reason why those sets “work” is that I have really enjoyed making them and building them out on the registry and that part is usually what I get the most personal “value” from in spending my hobby money. And I think that’s an area where the 5, 10, 50 and 100 lire sets fail – because they’re 50 year runs of the same design. So, there’s not nearly as much there to look into and a lot of that work is ready done and built into those sets. So, I don’t think there’s enough meat on those bones for me to sink my teeth into. Those side sets work as fun side projects to buy some new coins for here and there where they come up but I’m not convinced they’d hold my interest and keep me happy as a main focus for a year or two like the Zimbabwe and Venezuelan Sets have. The 500 Lire and 200 Lire circulating commemorative sets hold a little more promise in this regard with some fun designs to research and comment on, but these things do not hold up well and trying to find them in high grade, looking good, for not much money, can be a bit of a difficult thing. But… the other thing about those sets is, if I’m being honest, I’m hoping that certain dealers will continue to enable my laziness on those. The other thing about that is that we’re talking about 22-25 coins. The first Zimbabwe submission – the one that won the award – was only 14 coins. The Venezuelan submission – that didn’t even fully feed into the 2007-date set – was only about 26 coins. A submission of that size just calls out to me to use it to build “the next set” - the next big research project, the next great adventure of buying hundreds of raw coins and filling another binder with pages and flips… But… what set is that going to be? An obvious standout for me has been Turkey – they’ve been going through a pretty major long term inflationary crisis that has gotten much worse in the last few years and it could be a great new project, continuing my theme from the last two. Another one that could be a great continuation of my recent theme is Argentina… There could be some fun here with just snickering about the gap between the official inflation rate and what the apparent actual inflation rate is. Of course, building either of those sets in the way that I want would depend on finding large quantities of their coins in good conditions at reasonable prices so I could do what I’ve done with the last 2 sets. So far, with Turkey, it has not been looking good / promising. But then, the other question becomes, do I want to stick to theme or go with something else? Is now the time that I decide to build elephant or turtle thematic custom sets for one or both of my boys? But if I do that I wonder if I’d be better going for turtles over elephants as a focus. The Zimbabwe set (Notes and Coins, making it collectively HUGE) is so strongly linked to Samuel. The Rhodesian Pennies with the association to Zimbabwe and the elephant theme also have a strong link to Sam. If I keep pounding projects like that, I might risk a day in the future when Ben is going to look at me a bit sideways… Even though he is my namesake “William” and therefore the 10G set is something I mentally have going to him one day. So maybe it’s time to build a Turtle set? The main problem there is I’d be starting from Zero pretty much, and I’m time-limited on getting a group of coins together and ready while the credit is still good. In the meantime, I think I'm going to see if I can get some more raw examples of the 1995, 2000, and 2001 500 Lire coins. I have examples of each, but I know they're not going to get super-high grades. So I think I'm going to try to find some better alternatives while I have some time to shop.

Congrats to you as well! 🎉

Thank you! To you as well! Like I said, the first was 11 years ago, so you could be forgiven for having forgotten. 🤣🤣

This was also my 3rd - 2nd in 2 years but the first one was 11 years ago now, which is crazy to think about in it's own way. I think getting 1 is pretty prestigious... 🤣 It might be worth looking into what % of the user base even has 1. In the history of the awards I think NGC has only awarded about 600 major awards and a lot of those are concentrated with several of us having more than one and a small elite few like Gary having ~10. So I think it's only in the range of 200-300 users (out of ~13,000) that have one of the Major awards. Granted, most of that 13,000 has few coins and may not even have eligible sets, but it's still a small percentage.

Honestly this outcome makes me a lot less confident on that. The judges just don't seem to respond as well to the personally themed projects like the 10G set and now those Italian sets. I seem to win awards for the sets that are more focused on the coins and the historical context of the coins. Which makes sense but Im not sure it portends good things for that undertaking. I guess we'll see. 🤷‍♂️ In either case, some of that $500 credit is going to go towards filling the last 3 slots in that set with the best examples I can find. I'll be proud to bring that to 100%. I can ALMOST bring the Venezuela set to 100% now like I did Zimbabwe last year but there's still 1 more coin I'd need. I guess more on that later.

Thanks! Anything new and big you're working on for down the road or are you continuing to focus mostly on the penny set that won last year?

Thanks! You should check out his Ukrainian note set on the PMG side. Ben is a healthy kid and just shrugs things off like you'd expect a kid to. Sam continues to be more complicated, but we managed to stay out of the hospital this time, albeit with the help of steroids, inhalers and a whole bunch of drugs and support. I'm not going to be surprised if he ends up with an asthma diagnosis and he just generally does not seem to deal with respiratory infections at all well.

Well, NGC and PMG announced the awards today around lunch time. Let me first say Congrats to Mike. I was happy to see so many familiar names, but I was most happy to see his name pop up on both the NGC and PMG side. Also congrats to many of the others I've often seen on the forums: The Welsh Dragon, ChrisInJesup, Physics-fan3.14, libertad1998, lehigh96, Ray USMC,... Hopefully I'm not missing anyone there but, gosh, it is a long list these days. NGC is increasingly generous on that front. But, in saying that, please don't think I'm marginalizing the accomplishment - there's like 13,000 users and they give out about 45-50 plaques a year and I think only 1-2% of users have ever gotten a major award in the ~20 year history of the awards. So, Congrats! It's a cool thing. I am very happy to get a New Best Presented Award for my Venezuela set! I really was not thinking that would get a Best Presented this year. I thought If I got a Best Presented it might be for the 500 Lire set. I thought if that Venezuela set would get something it would be a Best New Set. - Don't ever think I have a crystal ball, I'm often wrong. However, the 500 Lire set did not win this year, so Mike's crystal ball also clearly is not perfect either, at least this year. And, now, instead of waiting until my membership renews in June, I need to get on getting the rest of the coins for that set ready to go in. Or... I might end up waiting until June anyway and spending the Reward Credit and the Membership Renewal Credit at the same time. Time to finish that set and have a set so nice and dominant it sits on the top spot for the next 10 years, right? The judges got me chuckling a bit this year with the comment about "Revenant documents the circuitous ways in which he built his collection." I mean, admittedly, I do drone on about how these sets were built in the coin descriptions. I do often wonder if I drone on and belabor this a bit too much and it might lead to audience tune-out . At the same time, the lengths that I have gone through to build these sets (Zimbabwe and Venezuela) are the main reason why I think they might not have a serious challenger for the top spot in the category for a long time - at least on the NGC side. On the PMG side, thanks to certain specific dealers, there's enough graded material to make those much more approachable. But, on the coins side, if you want to build these sets out, you can't just open your wallet. You have to do the work - at least for now. This may change in the future. You haven't heard from me much lately because December was full of, among other things, kids being home sick all day with colds and such. But, I'm also shifting to a lower gear for now on the coin and note collecting side. Part of this is just because I've mostly finished most of my main projects for now - I just need to send in some coins to fill some holes in the 500 Lire and Venezuela sets. But, I don't know that I'm going to have a lot to talk about until and unless I find some cool new thing to build out in some epic way and add written and photographic flourishes to. I do have a few ideas... Shandy did surprise me on the 25th however with 2 new Rhodesian Half Pennies. That's a nice little set to build but emphasis is on little - it's only 5 dates / 5 coins and I now have 3 of them. But I may be emphasizing trying to get the last 3 coins to finish a half penny and a penny set from that last period where Zimbabwe was still part of the Commonwealth of Nations. I'm also considering messing around with ~1970s era Rhodesian cents from the Civil War era - the civil war lasted like 15 years... which sounds... hideous. Another contender might be spinning off from those Dancing Elephants (Rhodesian Pennies) and building an Elephant themed set. I recently rain across a 1941 Liberian Cent design with an elephant on it. From what I was seeing (haven't confirmed) I think it might have been struck in the US, at the PA mint, which immediately made me think Coin928's set / collection.

So far they show little inclination to mounting a serious challenge in that set, but we'll see. They could always change their minds. 🤣😅

Well, I think that's $250 face value. With them being mint sealed rolls you might get a premium ($30-40?) Selling them individually or the right person that wants it might give you $350-$400, but presidential dollars didn't catch on with collectors or the population like the State Quarters did or like the mint hoped, so they haven't seemed to hold up in value over the years - quite the opposite. I mostly see the values way way down.

So I made my post a few weeks ago about picking up that 1981 200 Lire and I talked about wanting to get a 1980 because of the design of that coin and how fitting I thought it was for a tribute set to my wife. At the time I was hitting up eBay to see if I could find any of the 1981 graded by NGC - most likely from this same seller because this seller seems to be about the only one offering modern Italian issues graded by NGC. But I didn't find any. So that had me looking for raw examples to maybe grade myself for this set because, I really liked that design, my wife liked it, and I wanted to get it. Sadly... no luck! These things do not seem to age well if they get handled at all. I don't think they do that well wit oxidation and oils from hands and handling. Anyway.... I'd about given up for the time and I was feeling a bit bummed about it, thinking this might just be something that'd require time and patience... and then...! I found this: I've joked with others that this is one of those moments that gets the paranoid part of your brain going, wondering if the dealers watch the registry and what you post and what the holes in your set are and then the coins you need magically appear! But, then you take a closer look, see the cert#, realize this coin is from the same invoice as the 1981 I bought before, realize that this coin was graded before I ever talked about it. My fantasies and delusions of my own influence aside, this had nothing to do with me. The seller is just submitting and grading things and offering them for sale, as always. They just happen to be coins I want. So then, why did these magically appear after my post? Well, they probably didn't. They were probably listed and for sale the entire time. Why then, did I not see them? Well... likely through a copy and paste issue, the seller had them listed as 1000 Lire coins. And this is totally on the seller - NGC correctly labeled them as 200 Lire, and Italy didn't introduce 500 Lire coins until 1982 and 1000 Lire coins until about 1995. There are no 1980 dated 1000 Lire coins that I'm aware of. I just got lucky finding these because I did a broad look for "NGC Italy," just to see if anything interesting popped up. Since it was around Black Friday, everyone was marking things down, and the seller takes offers, I put in an offer for about 80% of their ask and they accepted. I'm going to cross my fingers and hope these folks keep making my life easy for me on this set: I gotta say though, the pictures the seller takes of these coins are so unflattering. They look so much shinier and more lustrous and pretty in hand than they do in the seller's images. As often seems to be the case with me, I'm finding these type sets with different designs more fun to build than long-run date sets that all have the same design. So, while I had thought that I might try making a play to retake the top in the 50 Lire set, this 200 Lire type set seems to be becoming my secondary Italian focus, having mostly built a solid 500 Lire date set. Although I'm very much also interested in a 500 Lire type set that includes the circulating commemorative years. While I was shopping for these, I was surprised to find that there are 1980-dated coins that use the more "standard," non-circulating commemorative design. So they issued two different 200 Lire designs in 1980. And this has me wondering waht other years this is true for. In other slightly funny news... You know how, back in May, I talked about how someone came along 15 minutes before an auction ended and sniped a 1983 500 Lire out from under me... Well, today, I looked at the one other 500 Lire type set in the registry... and it has one coin... a 1983... in MS65... that was added in May... right around when I lost that auction to the sniper ... But... I guess that means it probably wasn't a shill... There will be no mercy.

One of my wife's favorite reasons to laugh and roll her eyes at me (other than my nerdy coin-collecting ways) is that she thinks I'm far too polite to people that come to the door trying to sell solar panels and telemarketers... It's how I was raised. I try to be nice and civil and give people soft but firm nos. I try to respect the fact that they're just trying to earn a paycheck and a living, and I try never to abuse or be rude to them. And yet, lately, I find these people testing my patience. Around the time Sam got out of the hospital someone must have sold their contact list, including my number, because I have been getting absurd numbers of calls from coin and bullion companies trying to sell me things and these people are obnoxiously pushy. I'm not going to buy from them. 1) I don't buy from cold calls for companies I haven't done business with. 2) I'm not buying bullion right now. 3) anyone trying to sell me PCGS coins doesn't know me as a collector. 4) even to the extent that I'm buying numismatics right now I'm making myself happy in an extremely niche world modern area that they are not going to be equipped to sell to. And yet... all the pushy BS and aggressive, borderline condescending responses... I've been just hanging up on them more and more. Increasingly, once I've told them I'm not interested politely, I've met the standard of civility. If they choose not to respect that at that point, and try some aggressive pitch, then they're the one in breach of social norms and I'm good to just let them hear a "click." But these salespeople are just so obnoxious. These are the calls I answer out of concern that its work or kid related. My phone is also getting flooded with calls flagged as "Scam Likely" that I just don't even answer. I wish I knew who gave them the number. I'd probably never buy from them again. In more positive news, after I got those 2010 25C 200th Independence Anniversary coins that I liked the condition of, I saw the same seller had some of the 50C coins made to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the BCV (Central Bank of Venezuela), so I picked up a bunch of those and I've been similarly pleased with the coins I got. So now I have everything except the 2011 25C commemorative, and I'm well set up to send in some coins in 2023 that will pretty much finish that Venezuelan type set. It has been about a month since my wife greenlit a new gold coin purchase and, while I have something in mind, I haven't pulled the trigger because I've been waiting to see the fall-out from the hospital stay and a minor car fender-bender to play out before making any large, unnecessary purchases, no matter how secure I'm felling overall. But I have gotten her anniversary present ordered... Now I just have to figure out a Christmas present for her. She already has the kids pretty well planned out and taken care of.

Yeah. I actually have a specific interest in these sets and series. I wouldn't be paying these prices for something as an impulse or a "Oh, well that's a little neat." kind of thing.