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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant
    I checked the mail Saturday, expecting to find something else and found a package from NGC that I immediately realized had to be the new award plaque. It turns out it included the coin too.

    We were outside with the boys and I showed the package to Shandy and she initially, seeing NGC, thought it might be the Zimbabwe and Italian coins.. somehow.  I don't know why. She's seen the boxes from NGC before when coins come back and this padded envelope looked nothing like that, but, as she put it, the coins are just what she thinks about when she sees "NGC."
    The package didn't get opened until late that night. If I look tired in the shot, it's because I was.  Saturday happened to be a very big Pokemon Go event - a game I started playing with Ben, Shandy and my mother in law a couple of months ago and that's been eating up a lot of my normal social media, writing and coin time.  I started playing it with Ben in part because I knew he'd need friends and allies to get the full game experience and It has also allowed me to learn the game and then teach those things to him to help him and my mother-in-law as she's gotten into it. It has turned into quite the bonding thing for all of us. Saturday turned into hours of trying to catch legendary Pokemon in group fights called "raids" and that turned into a teaching moment about community and teamwork and working together to do things no one could do alone.
    But... I was tired when it was over.  
    I couldn't help but chuckle at the coin choice this year - a 2021 MS70 ASE. This is exactly what I expected last year and then they really surprised me with the Morgan dollars. But, because of last year, I hadn't been expecting it necessarily this year. I was thinking it might be another Morgan.  
    But, now that I have this, I have the twins - The two Zimbabwe plaques.  

    Yup. Shirts changed. I didn't get the PMG plaque down from the office and take this one until the following night. Kids are exhausting.  
    I have some things I need to post about when I can get a couple of hours to write one of these days / nights. I also need to stop trading with my wife at night and get us looking at those Venezuelan coins to get those lined up and ready.
    As always, I'm very grateful to NGC (and PMG) for the awards and the recognition, and I am still very much excited about some new sets and new projects in the pipeline that I hope will prove worthy successors to this Zimbabwe project.
  2. Revenant

    So here a couple of recent threads / posts converge...

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Coins and Currency
    A month back I posted about starting to collect modern Venezuelan Coins and l.quintero shed some light / shared some information I didn't know including the fact that last year Venezuela released 3 coins and not 1, but the 1 Bolivar was the only one I'd seen get any press.
    I've been finding it hard before and since to find anyone selling even the 1 Bolivar online - much less full sets of all three coins. The sellers offering the 1 coin have been demanding $6-9 each for them even when buying multiples
    Earlier this weekend I posted about that dealer in Ukraine - from whom I've bought many of my Zimbabwean and Venezuelan coins from.
    I went looking to see if they had anything I could place and order for - just because. I was thinking maybe 5 more sets of those 10 to 500 Bolivar Coins from 2002-2004 that they have that hardly anyone else does. The ones I got from my last order looked pretty nice. I haven't picked through to see if any of them are really strong yet, but they seem promising - so why not maybe pick up a few more and see what I get? (If I get it.)
    When I looked though I found they were listing lots of 5 sets of the 3-coin sets with all the 2021-dated coins. They were asking about $45-50 for 15 coins, and that is higher than I prefer for these purchases - ~$3/coin when I like $1-2 - but still far more reasonable than what others were asking.
     

    I don't know when they listed these, but I hadn't seen this when I looked the other week.
    In normal times I would have ordered one of these 5 set lots for $48 ($40 + shipping) and been pretty thrilled. This is exactly what I've been looking for for weeks now, although I'd been hoping for more like $25-35 after shipping. But this seller offers the other Venezuelan coins and many others much cheaper, so they seem to know when the market rate for something is higher and when it isn't - they sell the 2002-2004 coins for $16 + shipping for a 25-coin lot - and they price accordingly.
    After giving it some thought I ordered two of the 5 set lots and got the 5 sets of 2002-2004 coins I'd originally thought of. Meaning I'll have gotten 10 of each type of set from them, 10 of each type of coin, if these make it out of Ukraine.
    It'll be fun to look through them all hopefully. With 10 of each I'll feel pretty confident I have a decent sample of what they have.
  3. Revenant

    A 1980 Zimbabwe Proof Set

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    So, this entry is going to lack the length and the narrative of many of my more recent posts and just be little, “Look what I got.” But… I snagged a 1980 Zimbabwean proof set, in the original Royal Mint Packaging.

     
    Mike had asked me a few months back if I’d considered getting into proof coins as I was getting the first round of grades back and ramping up my purchases of raw mint state coins.
    I’d initially just shrugged and said “Nah,” because I was focusing on the mint state / circulation strike examples, which seemed more appropriate for a hyperinflation themed set, and because I assumed the proof coins would be hard to find.
    They’re not.
    If you're interested in the 1980 sets anyway, they're quite easy to come by. Several sellers have had them listed on eBay for a while in the range of $40-45. Which isn’t terrible honestly, but also it felt a bit steep.
    This set popped up and looked in good shape and after shipping it was only going to be $22 if no one bid against me on it - it was an auction and not a BIN like the $40-45 listings. But no one bid against me, so I brought it home for $22, which is a price I’m very happy with. $20 is good for a zero-guilt impulse purchase that doesn’t have to live up to anything or become anything.
    I’m a little undecided on if this is going to stay in the original packaging or if I might send it in for grading one day to expand the work I’m doing in the Zimbabwean Registry - to have a proof set to go with the mint state type set. If I do break it out to submit, I may try to get another set to keep in the mint packaging. I'm also thinking I'd be tempted to get a 2nd set and submit two complete sets on different - but closely numbered - invoices and so I could cobble together the best set of the two and have them all numbered -001 to -006, like what I did with my Traveler's Cheque submission(s) on the PMG side. I like the look / feel of having the cert numbers go from -001 to -006 in a set. Although I suppose there could be a "Two, Four, Six, Eight..." joke in there...  So... Yeah. Maybe I need 3?  I'm not a hoarder though. I don't buy more for the sake of more.  Stop looking at me in that tone of voice.  
    One thing that does give me pause on turning this into a registry project for now is that NGC has only one type of Zimbabwean proof set that includes the 1997 proof coins (only 2 years they made proof sets) and the S$10 NCLT coins from 1996.
    I haven’t been able to find any 1997 proof sets - I would very much like to - and I don’t really want to get into those Silver NCLT coins, which people like to demand frankly silly prices for in most instances.
    I’d probably be more inclined to submit a set for grading and making a registry set if I could have a complete set with just the 1980 proof set.  I’d probably be more inclined to submit if I could get a 1997 proof set or 3.
    The current approach / category feels too cobbled together and the set feels like it’s trying to include too much and do too much - and too much of what it’s trying to do is stuff I can’t do!
    I’m in no rush there though. For now, I saw something I wanted that fits with my current collecting interests at an attractive price and a got it. I'm also giving some thought to branching into Pre-1980, Rhodesian coins. But, unlike Zimbabwean coins, the older Rhodesian coins can get rather... expensive. 
  4. Revenant

    Do you ever wonder about your dealers?

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    So, I thought about tacking this onto the other post, or about delaying the other post to another day and talking about this, but this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately... and I felt like it deserved its own post and not being tacked onto the other.
    One of the dealers I've been using a lot, a dealer Mike and I have both liked using and discussed in the past, a dealer that has supplied several of the coins in my Zimbabwe coin set and has sold me many raw Venezuelan coins for that new projects... is in Ukraine!
    I did some looking online and they list their location as Zaporizhia, Ukraine. I decided to Google where that was, hoping, for their sake, that it was in the Western half of the country.
    It turns out they're almost directly North of Crimea and the Sea of Azov, Northwest of Mariupol - the area that has been getting shelled so bad, and South of Kharkiv - where I think that nuclear plant got shelled and taken over. So they're right in the middle of all of it, with conflict on 3 sides. It has me wondering how they're doing out there.

  5. Revenant

    Moving along...

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I thought it was worth an update to say, I got the email from NGC this week saying that they acknowledge the receipt of my 29 coin submission (22 Zimbabwe Coins, 7 Italian Coins).
    So the timeline so far is:
    1/14 - Package Mailed
    1/26 - Package Delivered
    2/22 - Receipt Acknowledged and Submission entered as received by NGC
    2/23 - Payment Acknowledged
    Looking at it, since I sent this box in, World Moderns have increased from the 71 business days they were at in January and are back up to 85 business days. So, 85 business days from 2/22 is Monday, 6/20, excluding Saturdays and Sundays. So, I'm thinking I might get grades back in the July to early August time frame, because I'm not going to get my hopes up for late June..
  6. Revenant
    I thought I'd take a minute and belatedly share some progress on the 500 Lire set.
    A few weeks ago I won (unopposed) an auction for an MS68 1985. It is the only one in the grade currently with none finer. The seller chose to highlight and play this up in a somewhat over-the-top way that gave Mike and I a laugh. This is the same seller that I got the 1982 MS68 from, but there is an MS69 1982, and 1982s are far more heavily graded and in high grade than the later years.

    Just something about that visual of the globe behind the coin...
    Somehow I doubt that in all the world there isn't another one of these that would grade MS68 at NGC. They just haven't been sent in yet - probably just because the owners don't feel the need or see enough market demand for these things in certified high grade to make it worth the risk and grading fees.
    I think if anyone else believed otherwise I wouldn't have scored this for under $50.
    Grabbing this did have me thinking about the future look and make-up of the set. I'd thought the set would be mostly self-graded but if the coins come on the market in higher grades than what I have I think I will buy them. I even have a 1985 500L at NGC right now, waiting to be graded, but I know enough to know that coin isn't going to get an MS68. Only the 1990 and 1991 are really "safe" to me in terms of wanting to keep those special coins that they brought back with them in the set.
    Of course, I do have other coins for other years that I didn't send in for grading - I think from the 1980s. But those coins are so clearly circulated and so clearly won't grade well that I just can't bring myself to grade those. It would cost too much and I would like this set to be reasonably nice and competitive long term and those coins just aren't really. They're far better left in a raw state.
    Speaking of the 1990, when I started down this road the set did not have a slot for the 1990, which had me concerned that I might not get to add that coin to the competitive set at all. But I put in a request to Ali and the Team and they added the slot for me.
    So I guess that's one slot filled and one slot added.
    While working on this I also put in some orders for a few Italian Franklin mint sets, getting 3 total for about $9 each. I think 2 have 1983 500L and 1 has a 1987... or the other way around... Anyway...
    Those 500L coins look great and at some point two of those three sets will probably be broken up so I can have a good 1983 and 1987 to plug some holes with another submission down the road.
    I have not had the same luck finding sets with or individual 1986 coins that look good, and that is really frustrating given that 1986 is "our year."
     
  7. Revenant

    Covid continues to mess up... EVERYTHING

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I mailed out that submission to NGC on Jan 14th. It got to the Sarasota distribution center around midnight on Jan 20th, processed through there in about half and hour and was marked as in route to the destination facility. And then... Nothing.
    Today is the 26th. It has not been scanned in 6 days and about 10 hours.
    Starting Monday I started sending emails and trying to shake things out because if it isn't at NGC by COB on Monday the 31st the new pricing comes into effect and the cost of the box goes up $32.
    Well, turns out it has been in a container for 6 days, between the Sarasota distribution hub and the local PO, and they have apparently a line of about 25 containers they're working on, and they've been having delays because of lack of personnel and lack of drivers and...
    But.. 25 containers. Wow. Talk about bottlenecks.
    It has been stuck in Sarasota, waiting to be sent to the final destination longer than it was in Transit from my local PO in Texas to the Sarasota distribution hub.
    I would have thought that 17 days would have been PLENTY of time for something to get there. Normally it takes a week or less. Clearly in this case, absent this one bottleneck at this one leg of the trip, it would have been there in 7 calendar days.
    Normally this would have been fine. But this isn't normal.
    The very nice, polite woman at the Sarasota post office that called me (not being sarcastic at all here, she was very nice), was hopeful that it could come through today based on what she was seeing. So I'm just going to cross my fingers that they can make it happen and get it to NGC by Monday.
    If not, using Registered mail might cost me not just the $13 for Registered, but $32 for the price increase, making that a fairly expensive safety measure.  But, if that happens, I'll just let it go.  At the end of the day, after all the work that went into those coins, if that box had gone missing I would have gladly given up $32 to get it back., and even if it costs me I still think it was the right choice. $32 won't break me this month.  Not even close.  
    It is just very frustrating in the moment. 
     
    Edited to Add:
    So... Only about 40 minutes after she called me the first time, the USPS worker I'd talked to called me back again and let me know that it had hit that location / come out of the container and that it would be continuing on today. So, YAY! it should easily get to NGC by Monday.
    I had nervously run the tracking number a few times this morning and it must have just come out just a few minutes after we talked the first time or something.
    She said she'd had a list of ones she was watching for / tracking because she apparently has a few people making inquiries that a freaking out or in a near panic. I can't say I don't sympathize with them but hearing that did make me laugh a little.  Misery loves company I suppose and it's nice to not be alone in your crazy. 
    Side note but I am increasingly resigned to the fact that these coins are going to be away for... a... VERY. Long. Time.
     
    I am just increasingly glad, as the reasons add up (the long turnaround times, the price increase, this shipping delay...) that I did not drag my feet and I just got that box out. I'm increasingly convinced that, if I want to make another submission this year, and have confidence in it getting here by December, then I need to make something happen more in the March / Early April time frame.
    None of this is harshing NGC - I know they're working hard over there - just stating facts. Nothing is going to be fast this year; we're all going to have to have longer time horizons, and for some things, unless you're planning to pay extra for speed, the effective cut-off for the 2022 award season might be a lot earlier than some of us realize.
    I wonder if there's ever been a case of someone paying for Walkthrough service on something cheap and/or modern just to get something back super-quick to win something in the Registry.  There could be a funny and amusing story out there.
     
    Also: It's worth noting that, in discussing this with Shandy, she also very much shared my concerns over this box last night and referred to them as "our coins."  
     
  8. Revenant
    It is often the case that I have a few Gold coins with BIN listings in my Watch List on eBay. These are usually examples of the next type coins I want to add to my type-set of late-19th and early 20th century gold coins from different nations - what I call my Golden Nickels. This is a particular point of interest to me around this time of year when I'm hoping a Bonus or a good tax return will convince Shandy to let me buy one.
    One thing I'd been looking at for a long time was a MS64+ 20 Kroner from 1916 - 1916 being one of the higher mintage years for this coin. The NGC population includes about 120 coins with about 22 MS63s, about 25 MS64s, this one MS64+, 56 being MS65, and 1 being MS66.
    So this coin was close to the middle of the population, but the population is crushed at the top with all the coins above it (currently) only being marginally above it (MS64+ vs MS65) and only one in existence currently graded over 65 by NGC.
    The seller had it listed at $615, which I honestly thought was pretty reasonable in its own right, I just wasn't ready to pull the trigger. Then, Monday night, the seller sends me an offer - for $550. I screen capped this and sent it to Shandy like, "I'm not going to lie, that seems like a good price to me." - the coin has about 0.25 toz of gold in it and it had a melt value right around $474, so that price was only about $75 over melt, about 16% over melt, for a coin that is graded and almost got a Gem Uncirc grade.
    To my surprise, Shandy also thought it was a good price, and she likes the look of the coin, so she encouraged me to just go ahead and go for it - we had the cash, even if I don't end up getting a bonus or we don't get a great return.
    So I slept on it, then sat down while things were quiet and slow, I looked at the pictures, looked at the seller's feedback, did the Cert# verification and looked at the NGC picks vs the seller's images. Everything looked good, right down to the copper spot near the 2 on the reverse, and I decided to take it.
    Yeah, I probably could have gotten an MS65 if I'd waited, but I think the premium would have been higher, I like the look of this coin, and I liked the price, and I think I'm unlikely to regret getting this down the road.



    Going back to a conversation with Mike not long ago in discussing MS65 and MS66 coins that have marks that just happen to be in very unappealing locations, I think if that copper spot near the 2 on the reverse was in the middle of the coin or on Christian's cheek I probably wouldn't like it. With it off in the legend by the two, I actually kind of like it for the character it gives the coin from being 106 years old. I think the coin holds up very well under these fairly high magnifications and I'm looking forward to seeing it in hand soon.
    Going back to the idea of getting this coin vs an MS65, I suspect there are many MS65 graded examples out there of those ~56 that I'd find less attractive and less appealing than I find this one.
     
  9. Revenant

    My latest $20 tangent into “Oh, Neat!”

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    I opted not to go to the coin show this weekend. It wasn’t a week where I had Friday off and we have a crazy week coming up and I just mentally opted for a quieter weekend of getting chores done and hitting up a birthday party with the kids instead.
    But I thought I’d sit down and share a bit about my latest ~$20 tangent into the realm of, “well, that looks nifty!”
    One of the same dealers that I bought several raw Italian coins from also had some circa 1980 Chinese coins going as individual coins or as small lots of three and I decided to try for and win seven of them at a net cost of about $1 per coin.
    When they came in and I showed them to Shandy she asked if I got them because of her and because I thought she’d find them neat since she’d spent most of the last 2.5 years doing remote English lessons for Chinese children. I was honest in that I thought she might find them interesting for that reason, but I honestly just got them because I thought they looked neat and they worked as a stupid, fun, impulse buy for about what some people spend on a coffee.
    The funny thing I feel with these is, I’m not sure the coins are actually any more interesting than most other modern coins issued by the US or other countries that I tend to pass on, but they don’t immediately strike me as ugly (looking at you, Ukraine and Swaziland) and they are different enough from what I’m used to to make them interesting to stop and look at.
    I ended up with a bit of a mix with a 1 fen, 2 fen, three 5 fens, and two 1 Jiao (10 fen), with dates ranging from 1979 to about 1991.




    Much later - just recently - I decided to place an order from a dealer with a bunch of 1 fen, 2 fen, 5 fen and 1 Jiao coins in a variety of dates - listing most for $1 each with minimal per coin shipping fees if you were buying several coins. I haven’t gotten those in yet but I’m hoping the examples I get will look as nice as what was in the pictures and that the seller was being honest in saying that the coins would be packed to prevent them from damaging each other in shipment. I spent about $15 for 13 coins to broaden out the set a bit and have these fill up a 20-coin page in one of my binders. The seller also had some 5 Jiao coins but the pictures on those specifically left me doubting that the coins would look good in-hand. Those coins have a different metal composition, and the images make them look like they’d been stored or handled poorly.
    I will admit to having sat on and debated actually pulling the trigger on this purchase for several weeks even though the price and the images looked good just because the seller includes all sorts of language in the listing that I normally consider a red flag - they come off like a whiner and a drama-llama in a major way that has a victim-complex because some of their customers have apparently been mean to them about shipping times and not leaving feedback. Lol Anyway. I decided to take a shot in the dark and decided I was willing to risk $15 and the possibility of a longer wait on low-priority items and MAYBE some drama. We’ll see if, in about 2 weeks, I’m kicking myself for not listening to the warning signs and steering clear. I’m usually not TOO prickly about shipping times as long as it doesn’t seem like the seller dragged their feet shipping it out and I do actually leave feedback, so they shouldn’t end up hating me too much.
    So just an entry in the “Oh! Neat!” category and coins from another country to bore the kids with as they age.
    My wife is trying to convince me to start doing cruise reviews that are equal to the work I do on my coin and note sets... I'm not sold. I enjoy this. That sounds like work.  
  10. Revenant

    The Zimbabwe Birds are in Flight!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I took advantage of having the day off yesterday to box up the Zimbabwe coins and take them to the post office before Shandy and I went to lunch as a kind of pre-versary thing - today is the day. 6 years together.
    We were supposed to attend a wedding today for a cousin that will now share our date, but our child care got sick and Sam is dealing with his latest ear infection, so we decided to call some quiet time alone today and a nice lunch good enough and we'll try to just enjoy some stolen moments at home this weekend.
    I got some funny looks at the Post Office for wanting registered mail. And maybe it was a bit silly, but, while the value of the box is not great the value of the time invested into finding and picking those coins made it well worth an extra $10-15 to help make sure the box arrived okay. I sent a couple of submissions in last year via priority mail but those didn't have the significance or time invested that this one did or the association of having done it with her.
    This won't be the last submission to involve the Zimbabwe coins or the 500 L coins because I'll need / want to upgrade the 2003 $10 and $25 coins at minimum and I'll want to try to get 500L coins for 1983, 1986, 1987 and 1995. So there will be more down the road and that'll probably take the form of another mixed submission of Italian and Zimbabwean coins - maybe later this year.
    But, while I knew this wouldn't fully resolve the need I wanted to get this out and not start having me delay it with the idea of a few more coins. I feel it is more important to get what I have in the pipeline. I've also run afoul of just continuously putting things off a bit too long in the past and it cost me so I definitely don't want that again. 
    The other possible consideration is that NGC is saying the $500 credit will show up "by the end of the month" - in contrast to prior years when they were usually saying 1 week after the announcement. I think this is another indication of how busy they continue to be. But, with them being 3-5 weeks behind in opening boxes, by the time my box gets there and they enter it in, the credit should be there. And I have a note about it on the form just in case.
    If they arrive on Jan 19th, the current 71 business day turnaround puts them finishing around May 5th, so I think there's a good chance we'll have these Z coins and those 500 L coins in time to being looking at them on Shandy's birthday in Mid-June.
    What was the Anniversary present this year? A P-46a Zimbabwe note in 68 EPQ. About the only 2nd dollar variety I still needed, echoing the purchase of the 68 EPQ 20T note three years ago that started me back down this road. But the mail carrier also brought me a new Venezuelan VEN 114 1 Million Bolivar note today in a bit of convenient timing. I still need that VEN104 though. Both are great additions to their respective note sets.


    She got a sapphire bracelet this year that goes with the necklace from last year. And she seems happy to wear them together this weekend. 
  11. Revenant

    The 500 Lire Redux - Ti amerò per sempre

    By Revenant,


    Italian Coins
    Last time I talked about seeing that post about the old, early 20th Century 20 Centesimi Italian coins and going shopping for some raw Italian coins.
    While doing this I got the idea to look to see if there were any nice, pretty, NGC-graded Italian coins that I could get for good prices. I thought she might like that – some cool MS coin if they were out there to be had.
    I did a bit of eBaying and found a couple of sellers with MS66 to MS68 Italian coins from the 1980s and 1990s – mostly 50 Lire, 100 Lire, 200 Lire, and 500 Lire coins. I screen-capped some of them, sent them to her and asked Shandy what coins she liked the most. Somewhat to my surprise, she said she liked the 500 Lire bi-metallic the most. Remember that one? I made a post about it earlier this year after finding several in the coins from her father.
    I really thought I’d get a little reaction out her on the 50 Lire with Vulcan’s naked butt, but no dice. She doesn’t like the face on the obverse as much. Way to kill a good joke, Love.
    While we were having that conversation, I also got the idea to check to see if there were any categories for Italian coins from this era and what the competition looked like. I saw that the competition was a fair bit stiffer for the 100 Lira, but It would only take 1-2 coins each in the right grades to take the top spots in the 50 Lira and 500 Lira categories. I think these were / are new categories for 2021 so not a lot of sets, not a lot of coins and not a lot of fight to snag them. It would only cost me about $130 to snap up three coins and take a stab at winning those 2 categories, and I loved the idea. I immediately wanted to try to win those categories with set names and descriptions dedicating the sets to her. I was really in love with this idea.
    So, since I’d need to go outside of my normal budget to pull this off and do it in time for the awards cut-off, I told her about the idea – actually got her to happy cry over it – and got the greenlight from her to do it / go for it / try to win these. I think it would have been more romantic to have just gone and done it and told her about it after the fact if I’d pulled it off, but 1) As I’ve said, I ask permission, not forgiveness, and that does good things for my marriage, 2) I was clearly too pleased with myself and she could tell I was up to something / planning something from the stupid grin on my face because I have no poker face, 3) I really wanted to share it with her and be able to talk to her about it as I progressed with it, to show her the coins and the banner images and let her read and approve the descriptions.
    I was able to win the coins - all three now reside in a curio cabinet in her office on little stands along with some dragons that I got years ago.

    I popped them into the registry sets about 2-3 weeks ago, right in the middle of November… spent FOREVER working on different versions of the banner image for them and harassed poor Mike endlessly for about a week there bouncing ideas off him. I also did some quick research and populated the sets with good descriptions to go with the best images I could manage to take – the alloys those coins are made of are HARD to shoot. They do not image well or easily IMO.


    I think Shandy warmed to the idea of the 50 Lire coin when she found out that the person is supposed to be Vulcan, who in mythology made his forge in Mt Etna – the volcano they lived on the side of while they lived in Italy.


    And… then I waited to see if anyone else with a stronger set would list it before December 1st… and no one did. So… I think I won the categories for her for this year, and I’ll get to give her the certificates for these in a few months.
    Ti amerò per sempre (I will love you forever, in Italian, at least, according to Google. Any Italians? Anyone want to confirm?).
    So, what’s the next step for this? … Because I totally have a plan and I’m totally not just impulsively buying random stuff... Totally! 
    Her father brought home a few of these that look really nice from 1990 and 1991. I’ve bought a few more raw examples in lots online for about $16, and I now have a 1984, a 1985, and a 1988 in a raw state that all look solid – a 1992 too, but that’s less helpful given that I just bought an MS67. I also have a 1987 that I’m a little more “meh” about.


    I’m wanting to spend about $150-200 next year and send several of these in to get graded by NGC and add those to the set. This will mean that the 500 Lire set – the one she picked as her favorite design of that group - will have 1) mostly coins we picked and had graded ourselves, and 2) coins from that bag of coins her father brought back with them. Coins they got and brought back from Italy with them nearly 30 years ago, one of which from one of the years they were in the country if she remembers correctly (she was young at the time).
    I suppose it’s not quite the same as “slaying a dragon” but I think it works pretty well as romantic gestures go. That feels like about the best Registry tribute I can give her. I’ll let you guys know if I come up with a better one later. I’m not really sure what more can be expected of a safety engineer and a coin nerd. I slay cockroaches, if that counts for anything.
    If the 1990 and 1991 don't grade as well as I'm hoping they may ultimately hurt the set from a competitive standpoint down the road if I end up catching more competition, but I still just like the idea of incorporating that into the set.
    I don’t know if or to what extent I’ll pursue building the 50 Lire set and try to defend that title in years going forward. It’ll definitely take a backseat to doing something with the 500 Lira set just because that’s the one she picked.
    And, yes, there was not a chance I was going to talk or post about this until after December 1st, after it was done. Not this time. I’ve made enough competition for myself in Zimbabwe, and I didn’t want to broadcast it and then have it flop.  That would have been... embarrassing. 
    And, yes, I’ve been up to this while also working on Banner images and Zimbabwe coins. I have been quite the busy boy this month, and during the Thanksgiving holiday, and any flex-day off from work. But this, in particular, has been completely worth it, because it made her happy. And posting about it is worth it, even though I’m probably just going to ultimately make my life harder by calling attention to it. Because if I’m going to go on at such length about my other silliness, I have to brag up a win for her, at least once it actually is a win. 
  12. Revenant

    I have to share, and laugh, and give props here.

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I got an email today from Ali asking me if I really meant to use the word “Causalities” in the title of my set and not “Casualties.” She wanted to make sure I meant to do that before she sent the plaque in to be made with it printed like that.
    I read that email and immediately wanted to bang my head on the desk.

    I do not think I will ever ever know how many times I have looked at that and not seen that, but, props to Ali, she caught it. I missed it. Shandy missed it. I have to assume Mike never noticed it in all the times we’ve talked about this in DMs.
    One of those glorious times where you flip two letters and autocorrect / spellcheck says nothing because it is technically a properly spelled English word, just not the right one.
    She was great to flag this up to me and nice enough to email me about it but I’ll just ruin her discretion because I just feel like a catch like that deserves some thanks and public praise. She wasn’t going through and copying & pasting. She actually caught a subtle typo that so many have missed and then took the time to flag it up to me and I appreciate that so much, because now they’re also going to try to fix it in the announcement and in the archives and I don’t have to have that typo taunting me every time I look at that plaque.
    Oh jeeze… I’m going to be laughing about this for days.
    So, Thank you, again, so much, for that that, Ali. The correction and the laugh.
     
    As a small aside on this, perhaps as another indication that I hadn’t really seen that set as being "in the running" and saw it more as a work in progress and not a finished product, on the $1 coin in the set I just had a throw-away line saying that the reverse showed an old stone fort at the “Great Zimbabwe” ruins. I went back in last night and added more information on what exactly the Great Zimbabwe Ruins are but the more I look at it / think about it I still have some more work to do, adding some more information - like the fact that the ruins are a National Monument area and a UNESCO site, and the “Great Zimbabwe” civilization is where the name of the modern country came from, these ruins / this civilization is why they changed it from “Rhodesia” to “Zimbabwe” in 1980. (Probably, by the time you read this, I’ll have updated it.)
    One of the things I’ve tried to do as I picked and compared and swapped out coins from different batches from 5-7 different dealers / sources is keep a record of where / what batch each coin that’s about to be submitted came from, so I could continue to incorporate that information and the story of the chase / how the set was built into the descriptions for each coin. And I’m starting to write some of that out and explain it without being too long-winded and boring in the process.   
    I’ve finished picking the seven 500 L coins that will go with the 22 Zimbabwe coins, filling out the paperwork and putting the labels in with the flips. About the only thing left is to pack them up and mail them, and the only thing holding that up is hoping for an answer from NGC on an approach to packing that I’m considering.

    In the past I’ve just had short stacks of coins and rubber-banded them together. This time I’m considering leaving them in a BCW page, accordion folding it and then rubberbanding that, and maybe wrapping a little bubble wrap around that. Anyone ever tried this? Have any thoughts?
    I’m trying to get these out to get them “in line” With turnaround times currently at 71 business days for World Modern I’m thinking we’re looking at May or June before the grades and the coins come back, even if I get them mailed off next week. This also has some implications for something else I want to try to do / accomplish this year that is a plan I'll talk about soon. But this has me realizing that, if I want the coins back before December, I probably need to try to get them out by April or May and dragging my feet and sending them out in June like I did last year might not end well for me.
     
  13. Revenant
    Mike has earned some kind of "I told you so," as he made references back in, I think, October, about the Zimbabwean coin set winning "Best Presented" this year and I was like, "Nope. Nah. Not gonna happen."
    I am, once again, very honored by the award and the recognition. 😃
    I'm thrilled for Coinbuf, Lem E, deposito, jgenn and coin928 for their wins, many on sets that have been long labored and personal projects. It's a humbling thing sometimes to be listed next to such endeavors. But some of you guys really need to stop counting yourselves out and selling short your chances.
    My wife and I popped a bottle of Champagne Friday night that was left over from New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure if this means we had a lame NYE party or if we bought too much booze. I guess it’s cool either way. She wanted a photo to go with this post and specifically dragged me back up to my desk to get the case from Father’s Day with the 5 gold coins in the background of the shot because she was feeling the need to be artsy I guess. Poor choice of subjects if you’re going to be artsy. Ick… 35… I’m getting older and these kids are sucking the life out of me and the hair off my head.  But the wife keeps insisting that I look Handsome... now where's that Meme of the Old Man saying he was lied too... 

    The comments from the judges mention the set having 21 coins, and it does - 23 actually - but I only had 14 graded and in the set as of Dec 1. Which is the main reason I was convinced that set had not a chance - not a one - this year. But, the coins are ready, I've already started the online submission form, and I will be finishing it as soon as I can. Now that this has come through though I think I’m going to be tacking on some 500 Lire Italian coins at the end of the submission.
    Shandy of course immediately joked, "so, you won, so now we're going to just drop that and move on to something else, right?" But, naturally she knows that isn't what we're doing and I think she'd kill me if I tried after all the shared effort looking at and picking coins.
    This seems to be becoming a recurring theme for me - I win and then I spend the credits mostly on the set that won - which will not win again - rather than putting it (and the time and energy) towards something new that might win next year. I spent all of the PMG credits from the note set winning on that same collection. Fun collecting, but bad strategy I suppose. But, you can't just not finish something like that after putting so much into it.
    My candidate for "Worst of the Best 2020" is now "Best Presented 2021" - just to continue to reference the past of this journal as we prepare to start a new cycle in earnest.
    This is going to be one set where it’s going to be a lot of fun for me over time to see the progress of it in the archives over time - getting to see it as it was in 2020 with one coin and no banner, see it in 2021 with the banner, and, hopefully, maybe, see it as the #1 in 2022 with all the coins filled in / 100% complete, and then maybe see it again in 2023 with some coins upgraded. Snapshots in time as the set progressed - assuming it stays #1. I guess we’ll see if anyone wants to throw down in a crazy-off.


    The 10G set is another one that I love being able to look back at how it has incrementally grown and improved over now 6 years of being #1, but I think I’ve said that before.
    But this outcome has reinforced my decision to cull the submission down to 22 of the best coins from the original 33 and then move on to other things for now once the set is full in a graded state. And I do have at least two things I'm looking at that are in the pipeline, and which will probably now be 2022 projects instead of 2023 projects.
    As far as the journal awards go, I'm not going to lie - I'm more than a little sad to see that go - and not just because this means I'll have to do more than just run at the mouth if I want to keep winning major awards and because this means I'll never catch up to Gary.
    The Journal Awards had been given out every year since about 2004 or 2005 and, as such, they were one of the oldest and most consistent features in the awards. But participation has been dropping for years and I think it was down again this year vs last year. And I guess this year was the year NGC decided enough was enough and to pull the plug on them. I had thought we were at thus point 2 years ago when the journal awards weren't announced / listed for 2019 but instead they actually upped it by extending the $500 credit to the journal awards where it hadn't before. I guess the last two years were the last chance to see if it would rebound and it... didn't.
    Now that they are officially axed, I don't expect the journal awards to ever return but I hope NGC will consider replacing them with something like the community awards that are given on the Comics side - something that can celebrate some of the people that make it worth it to keep visiting the chat boards and who come to share the joy of collecting and not to grind political axes and grumble.
    But... while the journals awards are done, don't think you're rid of me yet. I posted in 2019 when I thought they were dead and in 2020. I expect to have more to say in 2022, though I expect inevitably, eventually, my time and efforts will likely go elsewhere for a while just like they did from 2010 to 2017 - because life is like that, and I can't always actively collect, and I don't post or have much to say when I don't actively collect.
    But, right now, I'm collecting pretty darn actively. 😃
  14. Revenant

    Mikes saves the day... and USPS ruins it a little.

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    So... continuing from the last journal posted about this…
    When I opened the box from the seller, I had 3 of the 8-coin sets that included later-date steel coins from mostly 2002 and only 1 of the 7-coin sets that had 1997 dated coins, including that 1997 $2 coin.

    To make things one step worse, the $2 coin in that set had a bad, deep scratch/ ding.

    Reached out to the seller, who quickly said I could keep the extra 8-coin set and they'd look for and send me another 1997 dated set with the best $2 coin they had. 🙂 Yay! Happiness! Right?
    Unfortunately... they couldn't find the other 7-coin sets. They'd been misplaced. So, they refunded the money and I got to keep the extra set. Not a bad outcome, but still disappointing given the heartbreaking scratch on that coin...
    But then, Mike came to the rescue and made me an offer - He'd gotten another 7-coin set and was offering me the whole set if I wanted it - wasn't even asking / wanting anything in return for it. He'd gotten it to give to his niece and nephew, and he just wanted to help me out. But just taking that didn't sit right with me and I offered to send him the 7-coin set I had - complete with the coin we now jokingly call "scarface," for his niece and nephew to trash.
    Mike had offered that set up very quickly when I told him privately in a chat about what had happened and the scratched $2 coin, but I had him hold off on mailing it until the search attempt fell through and the other 1997-dated sets the seller had listed were officially "lost."
    I did mail the set to him, along with some other Z coins and bond coins in flips, because, why not? And... wouldn’t you know it? The post office seems to have eaten it. They say it was delivered... he can’t find it. So... So much for that. Now I guess all 3 of those coin sets are officially lost to the ether and the sands of time...
    I find it very annoying that they were lost. But neither of us feels attached enough to them or mad enough on principle to aggressively pursue it – at some point I guess you just have to decide how aggressively you’re willing to try to recover a ~$30 loss in common coins. And, with as overwhelmed as USPS is and, given that tracking says it was delivered, I just have a hard time believing that rattling cages will turn much up. I had several incidents at my old house where a small package was put in the wrong box for the wrong house. Fortunately, in all of those instances I had honest neighbors that just turned the box over to me within 24-48 hrs. So… a moment of silence for “Scarface” and his humble fellowship – lost to the void.
    I think "Scarface" would have gotten a 61/62. Mike had thought his might get a 65-67. With the benefit of seeing it out of that old plastic, I think it's a 64-66 (I’ll look again and make a final, official guess later). I don't think it'll snag a 67. But, so far, the finest example NGC has graded is an XF45. And most of these that I see are UGLY. So, I'll take a 64-65 if I can get it for now.
    Interestingly, a while after I got the set from Mike and had already sacrificed it to the scissors, about a month after I'd received the box with the wrong mix of sets, the seller finally got another set with 1997-dated coins, and they offered me first refusal on it. I decided to pass though. I've already bought so many of these things and spent so much on buying these lots. I have a large lot of very solid coins - about 30 now - to send in to NGC in a new 2022 submission. But I will be culling the current group down at least a bit before it goes off.
    As I’ve gone along, every time I opened up / cut-apart a new set Shandy has wanted to be present to watch me cut it up, put them in flips and then we look at them together – She doesn’t even want to miss being there when the sets meet the scissors. When we already had one of a certain coin in our group to submit, we’d have the “old” / “reigning” coin go head-to-head with the new one and we’d pick the one we’d like best – see if the new coin could beat the champ. So, this has been a process of continuous comparison, substitution, culling and iterative refinement of our group set aside to send in.
    I feel like I've hit a point of diminishing returns on buying more lots sight-unseen and trying to dig through hoping for incrementally nicer coins. I have a ton of these raw now and I have some to give away if I want or if I find an interested young would-be collector. It would be different if I was continuing to get a mix of different and new dates but it's all 1980, 1997, 1999 and 2002/2003 for the most part.
    I think I'm ready to go with what I have, send these in in January and move on to focus on something else for a while. I’m not going to completely close the door on the idea of continuing to look for new sources of raw coins or looking for high grade examples, especially for any type coin slots where I only have grades under 65/66 after this next submission... and I STILL need to find a way to upgrade and get a nicer $25 coin than that AU58 I have... but I’m just not feeling too in a rush to do that... Who knows? Maybe finding some new, nice $25 coins down the road will be my push to start another drive to find more coins to look through for possible upgrades? Maybe it’ll be stiff registry competition.
    But, I guess I’m closing out this one and accepting that there will be a 3rd submission with Z coins down the line.
    I am very happy with and grateful to the seller for their resolution and communication and they will probably get more business from me after this - I think I'm just done with Zimbabwean coins for now – for now.
    The hero of the story is Mike though, who continues to show he's a great buddy to have on a collecting journey.
    Mike has told me / showed me that he got his nieces and nephews some of those Franklin Mint cards for Zimbabwe. He seems to be trying to give me a hard time in about 10-20 years when those kids are old enough to collect more seriously on their own. It would be funny if one of those kids ended up taking shots at me in the Zimbabwe registry in 2040, even if it is unlikely, if the registry is even still a thing in 20 years. Who knows what the future holds, really?
    Shandy and I are starting to enter our grade guesses for the Zimbabwe coins. I have a piece of paper and I'm noting the guesses. I'll look, give the coin to her, write my guess and cover it, and let her see my guess after she says hers. The grades are still coming out very similar as we go though. She's more pessimistic than I am though. The results of this effort are showing that we're far more optimistic about the prospects of some coins than others which are going to be eligible for the same slots in the type set. SO I'm thinking I might use the results of this to trim down the submissions and make this a bit more budget friendly. I had thought it would be fun to maybe include more dates and maybe work on date sets in some denominations, but, if the coins don't grade well they are just a waste of money that I'd want to improve on down the line with a better coin if I did build a date set. The other thing about this is that the case Shandy got me is nearly perfect for displaying this type set, but it can't display a bunch of extras, and I feel like that is going to hurt the desirability of "extras." Especially since i think cost recovery on this set will forever be impossible if I ever resell these, even if they grade really well...
    We've been having the graded examples I already have out and using those to help inform our estimates on how these will do. We started with the smaller denomination coins so the MS65 1997 1C and the MS65 1980 10C were crucial points of reference for us on NGC's grading standards.
  15. Revenant
    This year I decided to put some Lighthouse cases on my Christmas list just to try. My interests and wants are pretty narrow these days. And, while I don’t really want a lot of stuff that is just going to collect dust and not mean much to me on a practical level, I don't like others buying me Coins for reasons we all know. I thought it was worth a shot to put some supplies on my list with easy links to what I want. I also put some things like miniature props - mini trees and grass mats for mini photography but it seems like the coin cases and coin supplies won out.
    My wife got me the 24-coin, 3 panel case that I wanted for the Zimbabwe coin set. She seems to share my determination for elevating this economically-ill-advised set (that will never be worth what I'm about to spend on it) to something with a near mythic level of importance - so now the case for holding the set that we've mostly picked together and which will be almost all self-graded is a Christmas present 🎁.

    Speaking of "almost all self graded," if I can get an MS64 or better at least 10C out of the coins I'm going to send in - and I think I have that easily - that first coin may get bumped just to have the main set be 100% coins we picked and graded. I DO have some real serious contenders that I think might score in the MS65-67 range from the pre-steel-clad era. So there is a real chance this could happen, including a nice 1980 that would be redundant in the set at first glance, but it would be self-submitted with the same invoice number as many other coins in the set.
    When I opened the box, I was briefly afraid we might have to return or exchange it. The box showed an image with coins in capsules and capsule panels, not panels for graded coins. But when I opened it the box had the right inserts. I was worried I'd added the wrong thing to the wish list, and it was going to be my fault her surprise got... deflated. But - bullet dodged.
    I’m thinking the top panel will have the oldest coins, the middle panel will have the Bond Coins, and the base will have most of the steel-clads, so when I pull the panels out and lay them next to each other I can deploy the panels in a pretty, chronological order. Initially I was going to just pop in the coins I have and fill in what I can, but then I stopped and thought it might be more fun to wait a few months, and let it sit empty until I get the 2nd submission back and can fill it all in - see it for the first time in all of its "glory."  I do think it will be impressive, if not valuable or a good investment, but, good gosh, I'm strange for building this one and doing this in such an over-the-top way, aren't I? 

    My wife also bought more cotton gloves and a bunch of flips as stocking staffers- but I got them in a wrapped box because the sticking was... too stuffed. More supplies and support for more coin searching!

    My step-father got my name again (3rd year running) in the name draw and followed up with a 25-coin case that I think will now be the new home for the gold coins - giving me more room again and removing the need to split them into a 2nd box for now. I'd gotten a temporary reprieve on this earlier in the year by pulling 5 out to display at my desk.

    All of this has given me an idea for a present for my step-father down the line. I think I want to give him one of these that shows/ holds 6 coins for displaying the 1932 set.
    This year, I got my step-father two coins I found for the 1982 mint set we started years ago. They're not particularly nice grades by the standards for modern coins but they filled some old, stubborn gaps with gem uncirc coins. After sitting on these for weeks, I finally popped them into the 1982 registry set after I gave them to him at dinner last night.
    In my searching I also found some 1958 coins that would have filled more holes at reasonable prices but I'd already spent my budget. So a few weeks back I quietly linked and referred these to him - just not bringing up the 1982 stuff - and he got them. Then, just a few days prior to Christmas he messaged me to say he'd found and bought a coin that filled the last hole in the 1965 SMS set. So, somewhat accidentally, because of some things I did and set in motion with my Christmas shopping, that's 5 more slots filled across 3 of those sets.
    None of those sets is likely to ever be in the running for #1, but one of them is now complete and maybe one day the other 2 will be too. The 1958, the 1982 and 1983 remain the hold-outs there.
    As a final item, my brother got me a copy of the book "When Money Destroys Nations," about the Zimbabwean Hyperinflation.
  16. Revenant

    “Mega Ultimate Grand Supreme Uncirculated”

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    For a bit of relevant context, years ago when Ben was young, we used to watch some episodes of “Toddlers and Tiaras” on Hulu for stupid, white trash, entertainment while we were stuck at home being broke parents to a young kid. We used to make fun of the titles the girls would win like "Grand Supreme" and "Ultimate Grand Supreme," and "Mega Ultimate Grand Supreme."
    Years later we still joke about those titles and joke about "Mega Ultimate Grand Supreme [whatever]."
    In the course of looking at these coins with Shandy we got into a discussion of grades and the kinds of grades I'm hoping for with the graded set and that got me talking about how 60+ is "Uncirculated," and 63+ is "Choice Uncirculated," and 65+ is "Gem Uncirculated" and 67+ is "Superb Gem Uncirculated." I'm explaining this because I'm explaining that, ideally, I'd like this set to be 65+ or 67+, Gem or better. She hears that last one though and she cracks a joke about "Mega Ultimate Grand Supreme Uncirculated," and laughs. I just looked at her for a second like, "No. That's not cool.”

    I keep getting wandering eyes with the Italian coins recently - old and pre-euro modern, raw and graded. In many cases they're not even things I especially want or like - not like that flying liberty coin - but I do like collecting coins (hoarding pretty disks of metal). One example being raw examples of the 1000 Lire coin issued from 1997-2001, before the adoption of the Lire. I've seen some and they look interesting but they're not super pretty or anything - they're solidly okay. They're bi-metallic like the 500 Lire and look closely related to the 500 Lire, but they don't have the connection to Shandy because they didn't start issuing these until she'd already been out of the country 3-4 years.

    Shandy has been good at keeping me focused (in check). I show them to her and she's like, "It's nice, but I want to stay focused on our current set (the 500 L)," and so I let it go. It's almost like she has more discipline than I do or something... slightly annoying.
    Speaking of Shandy though - She's mentioned a couple of times recently that she misses looking at the coins and picking the best one and discussing the flaws of each. I haven't been doing much of that recently because before we were doing that to pick coins to submit, and I still have to tackle that Zimbabwe submission, and I don't want to get too far... ahead of myself / dig a hole I'll never get out of... but I do like the idea of continuing to buy more lots of cheap raw coins and looking at them.
    Who knows? At this rate this may be the new focus of my collecting efforts going forward. That could be fun. I may need to invest in more binders, pages, and flips, if it goes that way though. 🤔 Maybe a stronger book case too because those binders are heavy when they’re full.
    With the idea of keeping the fun going though, she’s agree to take on a challenge with me: Before we send off the Z coin submission we’re going to look at each coin again and write down what we think each one will grade - I will probably also use this as a chance to pick the best of some coins and dates where we have 2 of the same and lean down the submission a little. With those grade estimates written down, we’ll see how close we came when the grades come back. She’ll have her guesses and I’ll have mine. We’ll have the already graded ones nearby to look at to help us make good SWAGs. I may never live it down if she does better than me though.  (Edited to add: She confirms. I will not.)
    And, while I’ve been talking for months about that submission going out in January… it may not. I’m realizing we have something going on almost every weekend in January. One of my cousins is getting married on our Anniversary, so we’re going to share our anniversary with my cousin, and we’ll be at a wedding that evening. So I don’t see it happening that weekend. The weekend after that there’s a coin show in Conroe that I want to go to so I don’t see it happening then. The weekend after that we’re going to be busy again… So, unless I bust this out right after New Years or on the Weekend of the 7th, the odds of me getting the paperwork done and getting these boxed up to go out before February seems to be near zero.
  17. Revenant
    I found a seller offering some old, Franklin Mint, “Coin Sets of the World” cards for Zimbabwe that had the coins from 1C to $1. Some of them were made in the 1990s and some of them had less-appealing coins with some spotting, but they had a couple – at a slightly higher price, but still only about $11 for a coin set - that had only coins from 1980-1983, that were clean, pretty, and spot-free per the listing and “nearly perfect.”

    I saw these and decided to snap them up, initially thinking, “SCORE! This could get me examples of the older, non-steel-clad type coins I need!” … Except, to do that, I’d have to rip up the cards and cannibalize the sets… and the more I thought about that, I wasn’t entirely comfortable doing that. I snapped these up and I think I was having 2nd thoughts about breaking them up within 5 minutes of hitting “Confirm.”
    I wasn’t sure I could feel good about destroying these cards and sets with their little cancelled stamps that are dated within a month of my wife’s 1st birthday, stamped in Harare only a few short years (about 5) after it became known as “Harare” and not “Salisbury.”
    I was thinking I’d just need to find another source for older coins to grade and keep these and enjoy these as-is, maybe finding some way to keep them in the binder where I’ll be keeping the rest of the Z coins I’m going to leave raw.
    Then they arrived in the mail, and I got to see them in-hand…

    1)  These are incredibly neat, fun to hold fun to look at, collectables, and I think I’ll enjoy having them as part of the overall collection, even if they don’t all go towards what I bought them for.
    But…
    2) Some of the coins in these from 1980 and 1983 are GORGEOUS. These things look so much better even than most of the coins I’ve been getting from 2001-2003. I think some of these could get MS65 or MS66 grades and these coins could make the registry set I’m trying to build just rock-solid.
    I decided to try to pick up more of these old Franklin Mint cards with coins dating from 1980-1988 and, having acquired 3-4, pick one or two with really solid looking coins to cannibalize while leaving the others intact. I think that will be a good compromise that I could feel good about.

    While shopping those I found some other sets the seller had that had coins mostly from 2001-2002, that, if they contained similarly good-looking coins to the Franklin Mint sets, could help me upgrade or bulk-up my set on the post-2000, steel-clad types and get some grades above MS63.


    And then I saw something else that made my jaw drop… Similar, 7-coin sets, with no $5 coins, but which were made up of almost all coins from 1997… but these sets had 1997 $2 coins, that looked like they might be shiny, pretty, mint state coins where every other $2 coin I’ve seen either looks like an ugly dog or is a 2001-2003 dated steel-clad coin, not this one-year brass type.

    I caught Shandy in a good mood, did some light begging, and got to order 2 more of the Franklin sets, 2 of the 8-coin sets with mostly 2001-2002 coins and 2 of the 7-coin mostly 1997 sets with those conditionally uncommon $2 coins.

    At this point my plan was to pick the 2 best of the four Franklin Mint Sets, the best of the 8-coin sets, and the 7-coin set with the best looking 1997 $2 coin and use those to build out the rest of what I want to send to NGC in early 2022.
    Some of these – but not all, because I’ve gotten “losers” in every batch I’ve bought so far because that is the nature of this - would be going in instead of some of the ones Shandy and I had picked previously. Some of those previously selected coins (the $1 and $2 bond coins especially) would still be going in for grading for sure. We’d look at the old ones and the ones that came in these new sets and choose the best one again, continuing to try to refine / improve the quality of the group for submission as we find more / better coins.
    *Picks the best set* “I think this one is the winner!” “What’s the prize for winning?” “DEATH!” *Scissors*

    That was the plan... but some drama emerged with that order... and this post is long enough as it is. So, I’ll continue this story with the next post... with all of that fully resolved.
     
    Slightly random aside, but does “Mint” not mean what I think it means? Is “Mint Condition” not the same as “Uncirculated?” Because the seller on these said they were, “MINT and possibly uncirculated.” I mean, isn’t that redundant? Like… What the hay, Man? If I were wrong that could go a long way towards my unhappiness with that first round of “MINT” 10-coin sets. Later on, on the listing for a card with 6 coins in it, the listing says, “All seven coins are Uncirculated.” I’m mostly willing to chalk some of this up to copy&paste errors since the seller lists a lot of these “Coin Sets of All Nations” cards, but… You high, Bro?

    (You thought that meme was a one-off when posting about the offer on the house on 4-20 and it wouldn’t come up again... You were wrong!)
    Another funny aside on this, but, when I ordered the first Franklin mint sets, I joked with Shandy that they could maybe make good stocking stuffers for me because the card was 5x8…. The INFORMATION CARD, that comes with them is 5x8. The card the set is in is… a lot bigger. It’s actually about 8x11.5 inches, about the size of a piece of A4 paper. No chance of getting that in any Stocking I’ve ever seen.
  18. Revenant

    Curious, Jealous, and Annoyed

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    I think it's getting up to 2 years since I've added a coin / filled a hole in the 10G set and the set is still sitting at 72% with 3 slots open. But the low hanging fruit is all gone and all that's left are 3 coins that don't always show up. The last couple of years I’ve been adding other types of world gold coins to my collection and not finished this set largely just because I haven’t seen any attractive opportunities come up.
    Mine is one of the oldest sets in that category. It was one of the first two sets ever made in the category and it may have been the first - I can't remember anymore. But this means I've gotten to see participation in it grow over the years to now include almost 25 sets - and I like to look at the others over time, looking when a new set pops up, looking to see if anyone else posts pictures that aren't just NGC images... and how my pictures stack up. 😅
    So, I noticed when a new set popped up recently - newly listed last month - and it had 1 coin, which happened to be an MS64 1879/7 variety. Probably the hardest coin to get in the set, up there with the 1888 key-date in my set... and, darn, I'm more than a little jealous! I wonder if they got that graded themselves. If they bought it and I missed it coming on the market I'm going to be so annoyed! The coin has a 578XXXX- cert number so I’m thinking it was graded recently.
    It's hard to find these things with US dealers. I thought about trying to buy the last 3 coins I needed raw from European dealers through MAshop last year. There usually seems to be at least a couple of 1885 and 1886 on there for sale. But buying 100-year-old gold RAW online and paying $30-35 shipping fees I can't get back if the coin is a dog / looks clean in person makes me... anxious.
    Adding to my annoyance recently: A seller I have bought from with success before - a US-based dealer with lower shipping costs - listed random date Willem III 10G coins for sale at a bargain price. I reached out and... Nope! They wouldn't check dates for me. I didn't even want / hope for their discounted random date price. I would have happily paid a premium for an 1885 or an 1886. They wouldn't even look. ... Punks...   
    On an unrelated, but curious note (to me), while I still don't see NGC-graded Zimbabwean coins pop-up for sale often - probably because Xan and I own half of the small population between us - I DID see some PCGS graded 20 Cent coins pop up in auction recent with "Specimen" (SP) grades and an interesting pedigree on at least some of them. I wonder what the story is with these.



    In case you're wondering, the PCGS population of the Zimbabwean coins also is not huge - 64 coins, almost the same as NGC… Although if I have my way the NGC pop may be close to 100 by mid-2022.
    They have graded 1 solitary MS cent, 12 of those Proof S$10 NCLTs and 51 of these "SP" graded coins. 31 of those are 20C coins from 1988-1991, 12 are 10Cs from 1988-1989. And the balance are 5Cs from 1990-1991... no 50Cs, no $1 coins, no SP graded cents... I wonder how many of those have this pedigree and what the story is there. Were they all from the same place? What's with the massive number of 20Cs? Why no 50Cs? Why no $1?
  19. Revenant

    Liberty in Flight

    By Revenant,


    European Pocket Change
    In early November I caught a post on reddit about the "Flying Nude" 20C Italian coins that were made until about 1924, that are more accurately called "Liberty in Flight." Also apparently called “Liberta Librata” (“Hovering Freedom”) according to Numista.
    The original post was joking about the fact that the type 1 SLQ wasn't the only "scandalous" coin from the era / “The US didn’t have a monopoly on ‘scandalous’ designs.’ I find this a little funny as a claim when you actually look at the coin. I also think it’s more than a little funny that early 20th century Europeans / Italians were probably a lot less prudish about artistic nudity than early 20th century Americans or 21st century Americans. Seriously – it's a tiny-non-detailed boob on a coin smaller than a US nickel.
    In either case, the design makes it clear that "Liberty" is wrapped in a cloth and a line above the bust makes it clear that the intent of the design is that she's covered - unlike the Type 1 SLQ – so the “nude” description probably isn’t even accurate. The whole "blowing in the wind" look just makes it a very form-revealing look. Anyway... I digress! It happens sometimes when you’re a pedantic nerd with, among other things, an A.A. in Visual Art.
    I had never seen one of these before, and, when I realized it was Italian, I showed it to Shandy, and she thought it was pretty. I pretty much immediately wanted to get one or two to look at in-person together.
    She did like it. It is a gorgeous coin design in my opinion and hers.
    I ended up securing a pretty nice looking 1910 and 1913 for $4-5 each, and a 1918 & 1919 20 C that had a different design and a 1922 1 Lire - another very beautiful design that reminds me of the old, seated liberty coinage.





    All in I spent about $30 on the 5 coins - the 1 lira was by far the most expensive at about $13, but I had a hard time finding a cheaper one that didn't look harshly cleaned, and the one I got looked very nice. All and all a fun and cheap way to add some new variety to the raw collection for a country my wife has such affinity for.
    While I was shopping those, I also found some French coins from 1918 that looked cool and I spent about $10 snapping these up alongside the Italian coins, thinking they would make interesting companion pieces for that 1913 Gold 20F coin I have.



    While a lot gets made about the expense of this hobby and how expensive it can be to duke it out in the Registries, collecting 20th century modern coins raw can still be very fun and inexpensive. You can get coins from 110 years ago for $4 - or less. I think I could have “done better” shopping at coin shows but, with gas getting close to $3 a gallon in Houston, there’s something to be said about not having to drive 30-50 miles to a coin show and pay at the door to get in and hope the dealers brought what you’re hoping to buy.
    All in I think I spent about $300 getting hundreds of Zimbabwean coins slowly over a span of about 6 months and I've gotten a lot of fun and joy out of looking through them, alone and with Shandy, to find material for grading for that set. And I'm going to like having a lot of Raw ones in addition to the final graded set when this is all said and done. It wasn't originally my plan to have quite as many as I now do... but... I'll take it!
    I had been tempted to go a ‘little’ nuts and get a bunch of these “Flying Liberty” coins in a variety of dates, but I managed to dial myself back. I always have a problem with my eyes getting big and going off on wild tangents and having “scope-explosion” problems.
    In some respects that fact that these are cheap – cheap enough to be seen as minor impulse buys – becomes its own problem when you are a collector and you think things are neat and you just want everything. Small purchases can add up quickly – it's like the coin version of getting coffee at Starbucks every morning (and lemon cake... yummy, delicious, lemon cake... where was I? ).
    Of course, part of the REAL reason I dialed myself back - on this - was so I could “go nuts” in another area. More on that in a few days – I do try to keep these entries smaller and digestible and space them out as to not be overwhelming. 
    As some of you may gather as I post my next couple of entries, I haven’t had the best success at making myself stick to my normal budget in the last couple of months (October and November) and Shandy hasn’t tried too hard to stop me – once or twice even encouraging me as with the Kookaburra. But, she knows everything I do, and I ask permission and not forgiveness… which is probably why my head is still attached to my neck.
    As part of looking at these ‘new’ (100+ year old) French and Italian coins and looking at all the raw Zimbabwean coins I also grabbed out and had another look through the binder with most of my raw world coins, including a lot of modern Italian coins, British coins, French coins, Greek coins, Indian coins, Argentinian coins, and German coins, some from her family's travels, some from my family's travels and some from our travels together. And there are some of these that I just really enjoy looking at.







  20. Revenant

    And, I think we’ve picked the winners. Together. :)

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    Shandy and I have picked (from amongst the coins I have so far) the ones we think are the best and these will be among the ones I send in a few months from now.
    I am looking to make a couple more purchases of raw Zimbabwean coins between now and when these go out to NGC to try to get examples of the last few types I will need and maybe get better examples of some of these, so some of these may get bumped out of the submission if I find better – more on that in a couple of weeks probably.
    The current crop includes:
    1 Km-1a 1980 1C
    1 Km-1b 1997 1C (rolling the dice for a MS66...).
    2 Km-2 1997 5C (I’m hoping I might snag an MS64, MS65 or even an MS66 with these, but bumping that 1999 AU58 out is going to be easy with these).
    2 Km-3a 1999 10C (These 1999s look very good and it could be cool to have a coin for that slot that I graded myself. I think these might have a shot at a 65-67)
    1 Km-6b $1 (Might get another 63, but this one looks a bit nicer than the 63 I got back - fewer deeper scratches).
    1 Km-12b $2 (This one looks… It may do a 63 or 64)
    2 Km-13 $5 (It may do a 63 or 64)
    2 Km-21 2017 $1 Bond Coins (These look great and should hopefully come back as a 66 or 67 like the other bond coins – hopefully 67).
    2 Km-22 2018 $2 Bond Coins (These look great and should hopefully come back as a 66 or 67 like the other bond coins – hopefully 67).
    The best of the 20C and 50C coins from the new batch basically look the same and seem like they would grade the same as the coins I just got back from grading so I’m not going to send any of the coins of those denominations from this batch in.
    I may still add in that 2017 50C Bond Coin Shandy thought was the best of those to the above – I will get around to asking NGC to add slots for the $1 and $2 Bond coins in December probably, just to get ready.
    I’m keeping the ones I’m planning to submit in flips, to make it easier to send them later and to separate them from the “rejects” / lesser examples, which are increasingly in 2x2s.In using both I find that I like different things about each and I find myself debating which I like more. I don't like the fact that the coins can slip / slide around in the flips a little if I'm not careful where the 2x2s hold them more snugly.

    Every coin in this group so far has been picked with Shandy and I sitting together, looking at them in flips by lamplight, comparing them, and talking about which one looks the best. And that, without doubt, is the biggest victory of this whole undertaking. I have gotten to sit and look at coins with my wife, with her participation, talking, smiling, and laughing, enjoying the time together, and at the end she says she enjoys it and seems to mean it. No matter how the grades end up next year, there's the win – We’re finding more ways to bond over coin collecting together.
    And I’m going to keep building on this. I’m already working on finding various ways to build on this – but more on that later too. I have no confidence in Zimbabwe coins alone to continue to hold her interest.
    I think I did myself at least 1 big favor in that I broke it up. I didn't come at her all at once with 11 types and 60-75 coins to look at. I did this over 4 nights with nights in between and only brought 2-3 types and 10-18 coins at a time. I did some pre-screening in some cases to knock out coins I knew weren’t the winners. With something like this, especially early on, especially doing this at night when the kids are in bed and we're tired and winding down, you absolutely can't overstay or overtax your welcome.
    When we’d picked through the last of them, very much to my surprise, Shandy asked if she was going to get “a link or something” to watch the Submission Tracker for updates herself when these go in. I don’t know how she could ever imagine these going in for grading and not getting constant, daily, yacking from me about it and watching for news. Utter madness.
    Still, for so many reasons now, this set is well on its way to becoming something that will be near and dear to my heart for a long time.
    We just celebrated our first Thanksgiving here. This will be our first Christmas in the new house. The tree is up. Time to start wrapping presents.

    This is the last entry for the 2021 Registry Year, but there is much more to come. I’m both surprised at how much I was able to get done in the last couple of weeks in terms of upgrading my pictures and banners and disappointed that I didn’t get further – didn’t get to the Koalas, the cents, the statehood quarters or the mint state presidential dollars that I have. It will be a goal to continue this into 2022’s award cycle and try to improve the pictures on these and the other “Wright Family” mint sets to bring all of these sets in line with my new photo standards and make every set in my registry a set worth looking at and clicking through.
    2022 may well not be an NCLT-focused year as I continue to look for ways to build on what I’ve started this year with Shandy and continue to emphasize projects and goals that we can experience and share together. I'm somewhat torn in that part of me wants to focus on building / finishing existing / old sets and not starting entirely new things, but I also think some new things sound more fun, more promising, and more easily shared with Her. Still TBD on that one.
    Enjoy the journey.
     
  21. Revenant
    When it comes to building out registry sets, I find that I'm very much one of those people that needs to "begin with the end in mind." I find that when I don't have a clear vision for a set and an idea of what the finished project will look like I have a hard time making anything I'm happy with and I have a hard time making progress or even really starting.
    I've been wanting to build out the 1986 mint set for over a year and I just could never come up with an idea for how to build it out that actually excited me... and now I finally have! I'm going to build it out by talking about some of the things that happened that year and how many of them are relevant to my life or my wife's.
    Things like Studio Ghibli releasing their first film in August of that year. The Phantom of the Opera debuting in London - my wife loves that story/ play. The first official discovery of Mad Cow disease. The launching of Mir, Challenger. And the Chernobyl disaster. An odd list - and all 1986 apparently.
    My wife has looked at the work in progress on it and called it, "kind of a love note to us." I'm good with that - although, as love notes go, it’s an old one when a love note talks about the Challenger Disaster and Chernobyl, but, ya know… I’m an odd one.
    Of course... the pictures I'm less than thrilled with, now that I look at them again. I wouldn't call them "bad"... but I don't know that I love them. I think I'd redo them and do them differently now. Funny thing is I remember being at least happy-ish when I re-imaged the set like ~2.6 years ago but... I guess my standards have changed/ gone up. A phone call to Choya later and he's going to try to meet me sometime this month and give them to me, even if it is just at Thanksgiving. Depending on when I get them, I may try to bust out new pictures and a new banner in rapid fashion to redress the set for Dec 1st. We'll see. Just for fun. Do I expect it to win anything? No. Not really. But personal pride has me wanting to put a shine on it and have it looking nice for the cut-off.
    I don’t know to what extent this is just a natural outcome of the journal writing and / or the fact that the set is one of the oldest in the category, but that 1986 set has more views than any of the other sets in the category. Interestingly, of the 4 sets closest to it in view count, none have pictures, and the current #1 set has no pictures. So, maybe I can make that 1986 set something worth continuing to look at and deserving of that “most viewed” status.
    Working on this got me looking on eBay. I took an opportunity to get a new 1986-D quarter in MS66, which improves on the MS65 we have (the weakest coin still in the main set) for only $19. I figured at that price I could just call it an impulse buy and it isn’t something I’m likely to regret too much later.
    I'm also working on improving the visual presentation for some other sets and my wife is calling these set banner images one of my new obsessions - alongside buying lots of raw Zimbabwean coins like a crazy person. I'm not presently involved in researching Zimbabwean or Venezuelan banknotes and culture so... out comes the camera and the Photoshop!'
    These new images are in part an effort on my part to leave the Collector's Society site, at least for the NGC side, and "live" in the new registry. For the PMG side, Collector's Society is still the only option and that seems unlikely to change... And if they make a new PMG feature and the Signature Sets don't cross over I am going to be crying because that 127 note signature set for Zimbabwe was... a lot of work.  













    Some of those were quick and easy (1932, the Texas Commems). The Zimbabwe banner was a hideous amount of work that took 3 or 4 nights and over a dozen versions. I think it was worth it. I had a vision I needed to nail. All of the banners of the gold coins are made with brand new pictures, some of which are vast improvements on the old ones. I really like the simple Obverse / Reverse on the white background for most of the sets with only 1 design, but I like the collaged approach with the type set.
    I feel like one of the biggest challenges with these images is accounting for the Rank ribbon and for the fact that the aspect ratio or the image and how the rank banner looks is different on my PC (1:1 square ratio) vs My phone (2:3 ratio).
    Working on the pictures of my Presidential Dollars Proof set is probably a waste of time if viewed completely from a competitive standpoint, but that’s at least a gratifying waste of time with a set that is closed-ended, not growing by 5 or 10 coins a year anymore, and which is 60% complete, so it doesn’t just mock me with all its emptiness. Lol I’m considering just biting the bullet and getting PF70s on the 2012-2014 coins to finish out the set since the PF69s I’m seeing aren’t much cheaper. But I’m worried that if I do start down that road, I might be tempted to bump some of the others up to 70s later.
    I’m wondering how far I’ll take this photo / banner upgrade drive and what the next victims will be. The 1986 Proof Set seems like it is ripe for a full re-image and a new banner. 
     
    Edited on 11/27 to add: I've uploaded new photos to the 1986 set and posted a comment below with some new / old comparisons.
  22. Revenant

    Hindsight is 20/20… and really is quite painful some days…

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    So, I’ve received the new 10-coin sets of Zimbabwean coins and I’m torn between being very happy and more than a little frustrated.
    I haven’t closely examined all of these yet, but these new 10-coin sets are just significantly better than what I got last time buying from the other dealer. The 5C, 10C, $2, and even the $5 coins are vastly better even at first glance – Shandy even commented on how stark the contrast is. The ones from the new sets in some cases just straight up make the ones from the first dealer look sick. One or two of these “lightly circulated” $5 coins I think are uncirculated and will get MS63-MS65 grades, and I think they even look better than some other $5 coins I bought for about $7 a piece (after I was so disgusted by what I got in the original sets).
    Just for fun, here’s a comparison of my shots of the AU58 1999 recently returned from NGC, under very high and unflattering magnification, vs the new 1997s from these sets. I feel it is worth saying that the AU58 1999 is a nice-looking coin in hand IMO but with this magnification and in this lighting it does look rough.


    The “lightly circulated” $10 and $25 coins are basically on-par with what I got from the last dealer, but that’s okay - I knew what I was being offered this time. Though there is maybe one $10 coin that might be nicer than the others and might get a mint state grade - maybe a MS63/64 I think.
    I am glad I have been snapping up 1980-dated Z cents though because all 5 of the coins I got in this group are 1997 dated. There’s something about 1997 for these 1 C coins. I’ve gotten eight 1C coins and they’re all 1997. I’ve seen multiple eBay auctions for 1997 cents and very little else. I’ve even seen someone offering a bag of 100 uncirculated Zimbabwe cents – but they’re all 1997. There is something about 1997… maybe one day I’ll figure out what that is! Lol
    But 1980 seems common enough too for one reason or another – I’ve seen 2 dealers now offering lots of 25 uncirculated 1980s for $15-25 ($0.60-1.00 each). I’m guessing 1980s were hoarded back in the day for being the first year of issue for coins from a new country / currency. The 1997s seem stranger – they were not the last year of issue. 1999 was – but maybe they weren’t producing many by that point after producing a ton in 1997. Zimbabwe did not produce every denomination every year and only made cents in about 12 of 20 years.
    But that’s 1980 and 1997. I’ve seen some from 1983 and 1988. Getting coins from 1986? 1989? 1991? 1994? 1999? Good luck… I have not seen them.
    The 1C coins are otherwise similar to what I’ve gotten before - there are a couple of 1Cs that I think could do about as well as the MS65 I just got back from the first set. I don’t know if I’ll take the shot and see how the best of these can do in grading. Maybe, maybe not – depends on how much over budget I’m running at the time, I guess.
    There was one sad coin that had a nice reverse, and then I flipped it over to see a huge, ugly scratch. Oof! … Sad times. Sad Times.

    “’Tis but a scratch.” “’A scratch?’ Your arm’s off.” “Just a flesh wound.”
     
    Where things are a little extra interesting - the 10C coins I got are from 1999, the last year of the Km-3a, before the switch to clad. So, these coins would be competition for the MS65 1980 coin I have, not the 2001 MS61 that is the coin I’d really want to upgrade, but I may submit the nicest of these anyway to add a 1999 to a possible future custom set with more coins & dates.
    More interesting stuff (to me) - The fact that all of these were 1999 10Cs and all of the 5Cs were from 1997 and all the 1Cs were 1997 - which matches the dates of the coins that were part of a certain submission that went through NGC recently - has me wondering if this seller is also where someone else bought their coins. Am I once again sourcing my material from the same places as my main competition?
    The 20C, 50C and $1 coins are a bit more mixed. Some of them have promise in the choice-but-not-gem-uncirculated range. I’ll look at these more closely later alongside the graded ones and decide if I feel strongly enough that these could do better to try sending 1 or 2 to NGC next year.
    Looking at these, it’s hard to not feel a little like getting the others and then not just returning them and looking elsewhere was a mistake. But I don’t know that I can call it a complete misfire. I did get the MS65RD cent out of it. And it was a start, and a reasonable start at that. And I do still feel good about the way the grades largely lined up with what I’d expected in sending them in, suggesting that I am learning some things, even as my eyes have gotten worse with age and corneal scarring.
    All of this buying of different lots is also giving me an increasing variety of dates, which may come into play later if I go beyond just a type set, and, I’ve just been enjoying getting to buy all these and put them in flips. I’ve enjoyed looking at all of them, and showing them to Shandy, and talking about them with her. I’ve gotten to enjoy the hunt and the chase with these in a way that I haven’t in a while and which you don’t get to have or enjoy in the same way when just buying pre-graded coins.
    I ran out of flips while trying to take these out of the shipping container, forcing me to double up some of them in the flips – this was even after I had some coins I knew I didn’t want to submit (AU-looking $10 and $25 coins) skip the “flip” stage and go right into stapled 2x2s for long term storage in the binder. I’ve ordered more flips and I should get them soon. When each coin is in its own flip, I’ll try to sit down with Shandy to try to pick the best ones for sending in, hopefully with her help, input and buy-in.
    My moment of Zen: I think she caught me grinning. So maybe that’s the sign that the joy is winning out over the frustration.

  23. Revenant
    About a month ago I was surprised to see that all the coins in my Presidential dollar set had been removed from the set and the score had gone to Zero.
    When I looked into it, I saw that there was a new category for "First Day of Issue" dollars and my coins weren't eligible for the set / category they had been in before. I also saw there was a lot of screaming and bemoaning the unfairness of it all. For me, it was no big deal - I deleted the old set and started a new one. That set had never won anything and it wasn't that big a deal anyway. All it really did was reset my view count to 0. But... that and another recent journal got me wondering if I need to go back and have a look at some other sets.
    When I made my Lunar dollar set some 14 years ago - I think - the set / category didn't include varieties. Then they were added. So, my 17-coin set was only about 17% complete - which was miserable and demoralizing. However, at some point - no clue when - NGC made a new category that included only the series 1 & 2 coins in mint state with no varieties. Which is pretty much perfect for me. I deleted the old set, made a new one, and got the exact same score. I went from being 17% complete to 68% complete with less than 10 holes to fill in a close-ended set. That is something I like a lot more and something I might actually want to (and be able to) finish.

    The Lunar coins are now also among the latest beneficiaries of my efforts to improve the pictures in some of my older sets and give them banners to improve the overall presentation in my registry.

    I've also re-imaged my Chinese Panda's and other NCLT rounds. (Shandy called this one cute!  )

    In (kinda) related news, my wife encouraged me to get a new Kookaburra for the first time in like 12 years. She said she has been thinking I might need something new to work on soon - I've mostly wrapped up my Zimbabwe note and coin sets except for sending them off to grade and the Venezuelan note set Is also mostly done - and this is her way of "voting" for the kookaburra set, which I already have a solid foundation on, and she seems to like.

    Adding that coin got my set to exactly 50% with 16 of 32 slots filled. That means I’m eligible, right? That’s totally what that means, right? I mean, it’ll actually win a major award when pigs fly but I can dream about it really loud.

    I like these but I'm not sure they're going to “win” and be the next thing I work on finishing - even with her vote. I'm also really tempted to try to build out the Lunars, the Koala, or the Kiwi sets. Or I could end up doing none of the above. I've been away from the Silver NCLT for quite a while but going back and looking at them and taking pictures of them again has gotten me remembering why I like them. Any or all of those 4 sets could be fun to work on again and it could be fun to make most or all of 2022 a NCLT focused year. After she encouraged me to get this I went out and accepted an offer on a 2012 Koala. I guess that’s my protest vote / way of showing I’m not 100% sold on the Kookaburra’s as my next focus.

    Then her brother unexpectedly gave me a gift card as a belated birthday present and I used that to buy a 2014 Kookaburra. So that’s 2 new Kooks and a Koala. But I would need 15 more Kooks to get my set fully up to date and 8 more Koalas…  … but only 4 more kiwis…  Choices… 

    I guess we’ll see if that 2014 makes it here in time for the 1st and some last-minute pictures.
    Whenever I'm not heavily focused on one thing I do seem to go through these periods where I pick up a lot of random odds and ends, but, at least right now, I'm mostly getting things that add to old / existing sets and I'm not picking up random things that are going to sit alone in "sets" that go nowhere. I'm trying to avoid that.
    But these sets do 1 problem that does give me pause. I'm not a fan of the problem with coins spotting post-encapsulation, which is sometimes a problem with these series too. Here's an image of one of my Philharmonics, a coin that did a lot to sour me on these Silver NCLT rounds for a while because it showcases just how bad the post-encapsulation spotting can be and just how bad of a job the various mints do at cleaning these blanks before annealing and striking in some cases. If I do decide to buy a few more of these coins I’m likely to restrict my purchases to 2016 and before, just so I have a higher degree of confidence that any spotting / hazing they’re likely to do has already occurred and that I’m not going to get too many more ugly surprises like these.

    Just to end on a slightly more positive note, here are some new shots of my Chinese Unicorn and Peacock rounds, which are still some of the prettiest, most interesting and unique rounds in my Silver NCLT collection.



    … and here are some pictures… some from a recent family photo session with the boys and some from some shots I took later that day of Shandy in a new evening dress she bought for a wedding we’ll need to go to in a couple of months.


    Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!
  24. Revenant
    I've been talking and thinking about starting a set of the Innovation Dollars to show the boys as they get older and a seller on eBay gave me an offer for this after I watched it so I decided to bite. After shipping it cost me $20. At that price it just becomes fun impulse buy at a stressful time. I thought it was worth it to begin the journey of about 50 coins with this one. I think I will make a set of these, but in the near term I think my focus will be adding a few more presidents to that old set - I'm probably going to buy year sets of those for 2015 and/or 2016 soon.

    In looking at this label though, with all that information and all that color... I just couldn't help but laugh. If you look at the labels for the old fatty holders they say hardly anything usually. Just something like S$1 and a year and mint mark. Done. And you have to think they couldn't put much more on that label if they wanted too. 6 lines of information a barcode and the "American Innovation" tagline.
    I really like that gear / mechanical wheel graphic on the label though.
    I still find it odd that they kicked off this series with this one-off coin that breaks the whole pattern. One coin in a year rather than 4 and about a person and not linked to / for a state or territory. Honoring the first patent is also interesting in the context of modern times and the use / abuse of patents to lock competition out of markets and crush by litigation.
    That coin arrived in the Mail Monday at the old house. I didn't get a chance to get it out until this morning because we've been going so hard but I didn't want to risk it being forgotten in the mailbox. We really need to set up our mail forwarding. Anyway...
    Also on Monday - the really big news - Shandy got a new job!!! It has been / was a crazy week because she was having to do remote interviews and skills tests while we were packing every day and night too.. super stressful and crazy but Monday made it all worth it with the big news! So she'll be using her new home office for that and no longer doing 5 AM English lessons. We'll have offices together on one side of the house with a small bathroom between us. It's going to be great I think. We'll spend more time in the morning together with the boys. It's gonna be fantastic!
    The movers came today and after a lot of hours and a lot work in the heat of August almost all of our stuff is over here now. We're going back to the old place one last time tomorrow to finish getting the last of our stuff and cleaning up a bit. But tonight will be the first night in the new house. With a little child-care help from in-laws this house is and will continue to "come online" very quickly.
    Saturday night we'd brought a bottle of bubbly wine and apple cider with champagne flutes to celebrate. After all the unpleasantness that wrecked that evening we never opened them - it didn't feel right. But we'll get everyone over soon and pop the corks in a proper celebration of the new house.
    It's all coming together. One day at a time.
    Tomorrow's priorities are building the crib, setting up my desk so I can work Thursday and generally unboxing things as able.
  25. Revenant

    Going for another round. More 10-coin sets...

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    The seller I got more Bond coins from recently also has some 10-coin sets of the pre-hyperinflation coins for $8, but if you get 4+ they're $6.40 each.
    I think I had seen these back in April and passed them over - went with coins from a California dealer because he says the $5, $10, and $25 coins he has are "lightly circulated" where the other 7 denominations are uncirculated. Given what I paid for those others ($18 each) and how that turned out with the $2 and $5 brass coins, I feel more than a bit silly now - especially adding in how the $10 and $25 coins did in grading, coming back as AU58.
    BTW, this was a confusing little image from the seller:

    They arranged the coins by size from smallest to largest and so the $10 and $25 coins are just mixed in between lower denominations. This confused the heck out of me the first time I looked at it and I wasn’t even sure the set really included the $10 and $25 coins for a few moments until I looked closer. The $5 bi-metallic and the $2 brass coin are just easier to see in a group like this because they’re unique in the group.
    I'm going to put in an order for 5 sets - another 50 coins - and do some more searching. I'm sure Shandy will be overjoyed! Lol I’ll have to try conning her into helping me look at them and pick the best ones again like we did with the Bond Coins. Maybe I can get her more emotionally invested in my crazy.  Probably not, but hope springs eternal. Lol Right now, like in the last post, I think she enjoys my enjoyment / witnessing my joy. But I also think she is interested in sharing this with me. I think she enjoys something of seeing me talk about it.
    It is going to be interesting and perhaps painful if these sets deliver coins in far better shape than the other ($18) sets I bought.
    Getting these sets won't help with the $10 or $25 coins that I need to find nicer examples of – although I suppose I could still be surprised by getting nicer examples than what I got from the other peeps - but it may well help me get good 5C, 10C and $2 coins. It could be well worth it if it just gives me $2 coins that won’t get “details” grades for environmental damage.
    I may also get lucky and score some older coins for the non-steel-clad types I still need - I'm still dealing with several older slots being empty with no representative example even in hand to grade later.
    Random side note but I recently saw a seller offering these raw 10-coin sets for $49.99! And they’d actually sold 2! – one for $29.99 and one for the full $49.99. That’s crazy to me. All of the coins they offer are the later, steel-clad types, not the older copper-nickels and, while their $10 and $25 coins might be nicer based on the example photo… I don’t think that justifies $50/set. That’s steep. Even on the higher end most dealers are asking more like $25 for the sets. But… Hey… Someone paid it!
    The sales on these sets on eBay suggest that there is a decent Collector's base for Zimbabwean coins, at least in a raw state. This dealer has sold over 80 of these 10-coin sets. Some people have bought 5 to 10 sets like me - suggesting that people are giving them away or there are other cherry-pickers out there - or both.
    Normally it wouldn't be my go-to option to buy so many sets sight-unseen and end up with such a soon-to-be vast raw collection of these, but I can't go to a local coin show and look through at a dealers table like I could if these were Buffalo nickels or mercury dimes. Most people don't show up to Texas coin shows looking to buy Zimbabwean coins and so that isn't what the dealers bring. I’m also not at a stage in my life where I feel travelling to California or Florida or Colorado for coin shows is something I can realistically do.
    With my raw collection of these exceeding 100 coins and growing, I decided to split out these Z coins into a different small binder. I’ve also pulled my US raw coins out from my World coins that are in flips and pages, and I may split my world coins into two smaller binders. Why? Mostly because they were heavy, and I think the weight was going to break that old 3-inch binder. Lol