Revenant

For me there's a healthy dose of "it depends" on this. The thing for me is, it takes a decent amount of time to find Raw coins or lots for sale, get them, look for ones that are good enough, fill out the forms, and send them in and wait for them to get back. For a smaller set (many of these sets are under 15 coins), it's not a terrible thing to me to pay someone else $20 to do that work for me and give me a guaranteed MS67 or MS68. Like I said, it lets these be more of an "easy" project while I then save my other efforts for things like Venezuela and Zimbabwe, which others are not grading at the moment.

So, the awards deadline has come and gone, and I made the joke to Shandy along the lines of, "Well, I lost the 50 Lire this year, but I managed to win in 4 Italian categories instead of 2 this year, so that's cool, right?" Her response was, "So, you're going to get me 6 next year, right?" "You planning to up my budget? " More seriously, my quip back to her would be that I'll feel pretty good about it if I manage the defend the title on 2 or 3 of these 4 next year. I seem to be decently good at calling attention to categories and getting more sets created. Can you tell which one was created as a bit of an afterthought that I haven't had a chance to really mess with yet? Seriously.... I thought I'd made and posted a banner for all of these, then I actually looked at the 5 Lire set last night and was like... "Ooops." At some point I'm also wanting to work with an image of the 1994 500L to work on and differentiate the 500 Lire type set banner from the non-circulating commemorative date set. But it works for now. Most of these coins that I haven't bought raw and graded myself have come from 1 dealer in particular and they've had some MS67 1981 200 Lire coins - celebrating the first observation of UN FAO's World Food Day - that I'd been wanting to get and add to the 200 Lire Type set. The only problem was, consistent with their usual, they'd listed the coins at $300 each, which is.... Silly. Just for Lawls, and as a reminder to myself I watched the listing on eBay. The seller then offered me a 15% discount. $255. Which was... Slightly less silly. "Nah. You can still keep it at that price." As has tended to be the case, they eventually listed one for $50, which was starting to become more reasonable. I'm pretty okay to let someone recover their grading fees and make a little money if it is a good grade and they're saving me the work of hunting and submitting myself. When they're half-way reasonable on price I like these people. They make my life much easier on these sets, letting me focus more energy in other areas, so I do want them to continue having an incentive to keep submitting and supplying me with coins. So, I watched that listing thinking I might pull the trigger on it later. Then the seller offers me another 10% discount, knocking it down to $45. At that point I finally showed it to Shandy, and she was with me on taking it at that price. $45 plus shipping - down 85% of the original ask. I am still frequently amazed by and in awe of what people will ask for on these rarely-graded, thinly-collected-as-graded-coins, modern condition rarities, frequently bragging up that the coin is Top Pop (for now, but in no way guaranteed to remain such). I'm really looking forward to getting this one in, and when I do, I think it's going to be time to look into updating the 200 Lire banner to show off some of the different designs. I suspect she'll take this one and add it to her small-but-growing stash. So I may have to steal it for the short term to take the pictures. One coin I'd particularly enjoy adding to this set would be the 1980 issue: Between the child hugging the woman and the book in her lap I think that's almost a perfect design for my wife. Interestingly, this coin also references UN FAO, but unlike with the 1981 coin, I haven't researched this to figure out what the connection to FAO is with this one.

Thanks! Always happy to hear the these are read and enjoyed. I'm also a fan of German / Prussian Imperials because I think the old War Eagle design on the back is awesome to look at. In the set of mostly late 19th / early 20th century 0.18-0.25 ozt gold coins I have I think the Prussian 20 mark is one of my favorites from a pure design / look standpoint. But the last few years I've found my collecting efforts focused on sets of coins where I find the story of the historical context (hyperinflation) more interesting than the designs themselves in many cases.

I hope you do! 👍 Always good to see sets with great pictures and banners when you go looking through a category. What sets are you working on?

Hey, Tim. I'm not at all an expert on Struck-through errors in general or on US cents in particular, and I'm not sure if you're asking to say that you think you found one or if you're trying to ask if that coin is one. So, a little more text added to the post would probably help us understand what you're trying to say. I'd also say, if you're looking for information or insights on this coin, the journals are not the best place to post this. You're better off posting a question in the more general chat board area. Many don't read and comment on the journals. For my 2 cents, that looks like it's just a heavily worn and damaged cent. I don't think it's an error and I don't think it'd be worth much if it were because of all the obvious, severe, dings and hits. Welcome to the journals and these chat boards. I hope you find what you need here.

Okay... So I was working during naptime and in the evenings over the weekend, and work has been slow the first half of this week - both because the client on my main project isn't answering my questions and I think because they're not putting much on me right now having just gotten back from being at the hospital for two weeks, so I've taken pictures, and edited them and done some writing... but I just really want to show off these Rhodesian Penny photos and these banner images because I'm really proud of how these came out: Having gotten those made, I took the images for the 1962 - an MS67RD, the highest grade and nicest looking coin in the set - and made this banner image. I also made the following for a Venezuelan Bolivar Set. Banner images for sets like this are a little more "interesting" to me because there's more than one design and so there's more that I want to show and highlight. With this one, the things I really wanted to show and pull out are 1) The two (old and new-2021) portraits for Bolivar on the obverse, and 2) the Bimetallic bolivar and 3) the coat of arms, which, other than Bolivar, is the most commonly featured device on the coins. Also at this point, all 12 coins in the Venezuelan set have a comment on them. I had to laugh a little bit because, when I opened my old Word file for saving work on this, most of my work had been done on 1) the 1989 coins that are not in this set and 2) the 2016 coins that I ... forgot to submit. So that pretty much had me starting from scratch except I'd pulled some vital stats on all the coins previously including weight, size, composition, etc. This is still going to be a work in progress as I still want to put in more design commentary and maybe layer in some more context. However, I went really hard on the history and the timeline for this period in my notes set, so I may not do that again for this coin set. So... Yeah. I took advantage of some slow time to get this done, I'm very happy with what I got, and I wanted to share. I took this recently and sent it to my wife saying, "can you tell how I like to relax?"

I was looking at Libertad1998's Swiss Gold 20 Franc set (won an award in 2018) and it looks like the Expert comments displayed are for a different winning set. They reference Argentina and eight reales coins from 1813-1837. I was hoping this could get fixed so the correct comments can be displayed with the set.

Hey, I hope this message finds you well, but I was hoping you could shed some light on something for me... Many of these newer coins have 8 stars on them. specifically 8 stars. I'm wondering if there's a significance to this, like the 13 stripes on the US flag representing the 13 original states while the 50 stars represent the current number of states.

i edited the post above to have the picture of the six dates (7 coins) of Rhodesian Pennies together after Shandy and Ben handed them to me tonight. The set is now populated with a description that I wrote for it. Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) I used Sam's nap time today to edit and crop down the images of the 2007-date Venezuelan coins and I've now posted those to replace the NGC images. I'm ratehr pleased with how these came out. I was worried about a few of them, looking just on the back of the camera when I took them two weeks ago on 10/07, but I'm very pleased with the final results. I'd taken multiples where needed and I got a good set of images out of it. I'd been worried I might have to try to shoot the 2021 coins in particular again but the pictures looked nicer than I'd remembered: With that done, I think the action plan is: 1) Take and edit shots of the Rhodesian Pennies. 2) Make descriptions for the pennies using my journal about them from September as a base / starting point 3) Make a photoshopped banner image for the Rhodesian set. Time allowing: 4) Make a Banner for the Venezuelan Set 5) As time allows, build out what I can for the Venezuelan Set.

If you do not count the NICU stay when he was born, we're up to 5 hospitalizations in 3.7 years. 2 Shunt revisions. 2 bouts of pneumonia / possible meningitis in this case. it just seems massively, massively unfair to a child where, every time everyone meets him, they talk about how sweet and loving he is.

Sam was finally allowed to go home last night. We had a follow-up with his pediatrician today and he should get to go back to school and ease back into normal activity on Monday. Ben is still, somewhat comically, trying to get his new front teeth in. It was very difficult getting out of there. I have rarely wanted to call a nurse a insufficiently_thoughtful_person to her face so badly. They tried to give him 2 vaccines in his two thighs at the same time and didn't restrain his hands while I held his legs so he tried to grab their hands and the syringe and could have broken the needle in his thigh. We got to go home the day after spending my birthday in the hospital. I would have been just as happy to ignore the day and celebrate at a different time, but Ben had been having a hard time and clearly needed to mark the day and spend some time as a family more than I did so we made it happen. I was more than a bit surprised to look here yesterday and see the timer counting down about 12 days to the awards cut off. I’d completely forgotten a while ago that the deadline was moved up this year. With November no longer available and the last two weeks lost to a void of fatigue and stress, I have two sets that would need a lot of work to get them ready and I think I’m going to have to choose between the Rhodesian Pennies and the Venezuelan Set for getting something mostly ready for the cut-off. And I think it’s going to be the Rhodesian Pennies. I think I can maybe get pictures up for both and I might even be able to get a banner image up for both. I can maybe even get descriptions in for the Venezuelan coins about how they were bought and such. But I’d hoped to have a lot of information about that set about the history of the coins and the country, the timeline of events and such and I just do not have the time or the energy to research that and put that together at this point. I want that set to be an equal companion to the notes set and the Zimbabwean sets, and that just takes a lot of time and a lot of work, and I haven’t been able to do it up to now and now we’re at the end, at least for this year. Fortunately, I was able to take pictures of the new 500 Lire coins that came back - pictures that match up pretty well visually with what was there before - and that set is pretty ready to go. I’m happy with that one and I’m proud of what I built for Shandy. So that one at least I don’t have to worry about. Who knows? Maybe I’ll just bust my butt this weekend and next and surprise myself? The birthday present ended up lining up with the circumstances better than I would have imagined. The Zimbabwean note set is so closely associated for me with Sam and Sam’s birth and now this set, which expands upon it, takes a big step forward on a birthday I spent in the hospital with him. Maybe I just need to abandon the whole damn thing and, if I do, he’ll stop having to go back to the hospital? Anyone think I’m that lucky? Nah. I think I'm just stuck with the hobby as my stress relief. Following up on some recent points: I got that 2010 25C Venezuelan Independence Commemorative from that seller and liked how the one looked so I ordered 4 more, bringing the total to 5, consistent with what I’ve been doing, and I’ll be sending the best of the 5 in to fill that slot in that set later. (Seller's images but the coins look good in hand) I’ve also gotten in the new three-coin sets with the 50 Bolivar coins from 2016, though I haven’t had a chance to look at those yet. However, these coins do mean that, if the Venezuelan set isn’t really ready for primetime this year, it should be nearly complete and firing on all cylinders for next year. I need to try to cut those loose from the paper holder he shipped them in and get them into flips. This is perhaps a petty complaint given the first half of this post but I absolutely hate seeing coins arrive packed like this... because, yes, those are staples separating the coins between sheets of 20-pound paper. The day before we went to the hospital, I got an offer from a seller offering me an old 1965 Venezuelan 1 Bolivar coin – the last year they were made of 0.832 silver. They offered it to me for $29. On Tuesday 10/11 I looked at it on my phone and saw the offer was expiring in like 10 minutes and I just took it. It arrived about a week later. In that price, at that grade, it felt reasonable enough and I just felt like it, so took it. It hadn’t been my plan to try to mess with extending the coins in this set back to the “silver age” but sometimes opportunities come up. (Again, seller's images) One of my eBay saved searched also flagged up to me this morning that one of my favorite notes dealers has, at long last, started listing PMG-graded examples of the new Digital Bolivar notes from 2021. So, I may be expanding the Venezuela Note set to include those in the near future. It's a little funny and amusing that the persion that had been thumping me rather badly on the PMG side and buying all the high-end notes for ZImbabwe and Venezuela seems to have lost interest for now. They haven't been buying, adding or competing for recent new releases when they come up in high grades. I'm wondering if Mike is seeing the same thing in Ukraine. My in-laws had my car through most of the last 2 weeks so they could have car-seats to help with Ben, so they got together and detailed / cleaned the 6-year-old car and it looks quite nice now. I'll have to try to treat the car a little better and try to keep it a little cleaner and nicer this time. This is something Shandy and I had been wanting and planning to do since we paid it off and then they decided to do it for my birthday. Shandy is now offering, since that now didn’t come out of our budget, to let me go out and use a roughly equivalent amount for some nice coin or something else I couldn’t normally ask for from family for a gift. So I’ll have to give some thought to what I might want to use that for. I have no major leads or thoughts at the moment. I had considered going for a Gold 20 Bolivar from around 1930 but I'm not really seeing anything like that at a price I like at the moment. So, there is the rambling, multi-front update.

He's on the mend. If the blood infection didn't require iv antibiotics this is the point where we'd be going home with pills and he'd be getting back to himself but we have to "serve" 5 days in this floor that feels a bit like a prison. Anyway... My wife told me that it's in his chart that he stopped breathing in the ambulance/ the trauma roo. and it was considered a full code. So I think at one point we were in serious danger of losing him to the seizure. But We'll have rescue meds for next time.

When we're gone they're just going to sell all our hard work off and go on vacation. I really hope my sons see value and interest in some of this stuff but I don't expect it.

Sam is recovering and seems to have no deficits from the Seizure. He's still going to be in the Hospital at least 5 more days.

Unfortunately it looks like they won't release him until his iv antibiotics are done, so we can't go home until at least 10/20 or 10/21. So I'll be spending this birthday in the hospital. But he's recovering. As usual he seems to be blaming Shandy for being here so he's talking a little to Ben and has said I love you to me but has refused to talk at all to Shandy.

Well, it had been my intent to make a post this week about some progress working on the Venezuelan competitive set - taking some pictures and buying some coins, getting some in the mail, but Monday night Sam had a seizure that would not stop. Which forced us to call an ambulance. He's been in the hospital, intubated and under heavy sedation for going on 30 hours now. We're waiting to have some final test results soon but maybe they can bring him back up and take out the tube - EEG has been clean. He has an infection but We're waiting to hear if it's in the brain or ear related or if he'll need surgery to drain fluid. So not the update I wanted to make this week. But it's where I'm at. After this we'll probably have emergency seizure meds to add to the list of things we carry with us everywhere we go just in case. His medical history puts him at increased risk for seizure disorders and fibrular (sp?) seizures so this was always on the list of risks. Edited: So far no brain infection. Treating for a blood infection that will keep us here several days. Trying to get the tube taken out. EDITED: Officially no brain infection, but it sounds like we're getting an epilepsy diagnosis. Also seems like the blood infection has a touch of pneumonia now so breathing tube is probably staying until tomorrow at least. 10/13: He was extubated around noon and he's doing well. Probably here several more days for IV antibiotics.

I mean, if we're being honest, her laughing AT me is not an unusual event, but I also don't mind. She also rejoices in frequent but good-natured teasing and calling me a nerd.

It is only now, now that I’ve taken the coins from the submission and populated a competitive set that I realize I made a massive boo-boo when I sent these coins in: I had 5 examples each of the 10 Bolivar and 100 Bolivar Fuertes coins from 2016… but I forgot to look at them with Shandy, pick one of each out and include them with the submission. I should have submitted 24 Venezuelan coins, not 22. I think this happened 1) Because the number of coins and the number of different types with the same denominations kept growing on me and so I forgot about these Bolivar Fuertes coins, remembering instead only the 2004-dated Bolivar coins with the same face value. 2) They were in a page alone together in the back of my binder and I think I grabbed them up with the rest of the BsF coins, trying to get to the BsS coins, and literally flipped past them in my binder. So now I’m sitting here, kicking myself, because there’s a massive hole in the set now when there should only be the 1 missing 50 Bolivar coin that I had not managed to acquire… for… reasons… Speaking of the 50 Bolivar... I'd found a seller offering 3-coin sets of the 10, 50, and 100 bolivar from 2016. They were priced reasonably at $6 per set but the shipping was $6 per set and they said in the listing that each additional lot was $6... So buying the 3 sets they had would be $18... plus $18 shipping. I emailed the guy like, are you seriously going to charge $18 to ship 9 small coins (that collectively way 52 grams). The response was, that he does combine shipping based on the weight of the box. Just request an invoice at checkout. I'm like, okay, fine! I committed to buy and asked for the invoice... apparently I should have looked at his chart more closely because his combined shipping fee was $16... to ship a box that by his own admission weighs 80 grams, or about 0.2 pounds... I'm more than a little salty about this... but, lesson learned. This will be the first and last time I buy from him. But I'll get at least a few examples of the 50 bolivar coin and a few more examples of the 10 and 100 that may or may not be better than what I have now. I'd also found a seller offering the 25C 2010 200th Anniversary coin for $ 6.99 each + $1 shipping, but if you ordered 4+ they'd be $5.59 each. I found this tempting to get one of these circulating commem type coins, but, not having bought from this person before and not 100% sure what I'd get, I wasn't sure I wanted to do my normal and get 4-5 of these to pick through from them on a first purchase. I just added it to my watch list to think about it. The next day they offered me $4.80 + $1 shipping for one of them. At that point I just said, "Sure, I'll spend $6 to get a peek at what you have and see if I want to get more later." So, we'll see how that goes. But if that works out that would leave me only needing the 2011 25C and the 2010 50C to have all the slots in that set filled. So… on that note… I go to bang my head on my desk. For more than one reason now. I hope you all continue to enjoy the sharing of my crazy and my misadventures... some of which blow up in my face, just a little.

So, I’ve talked a fair bit about my plan to make a signature set / custom set around the Venezuelan coins I submitted and just got back… but I think I’m going to table that for now and focus instead on building out two competitive sets: Reform Coinage, Type Set, 1879-2005, Circulation Issue Sets | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Reform Coinage, Type Set, 2007-Date, Circulation Issue Sets | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) In the signature set I’d been debating how to define my slots and what slots to have and here that’s done for me. When I am struggling with slot definitions and descriptions, I find it is rarely a good sign for the set. Recall: Gradually, Then Suddenly was my 2nd attempt at a Zimbabwe Custom Note set. The first one I deleted and metaphorically burned out of frustration. Perhaps, more importantly, these competitive sets can live in the New Registry, with the updated presentation style, and pretty set banner images, and they avoid dealing with the laborious old custom set system. I can focus on the photos and the descriptions for now and worry about tangling with defining my own set boundaries later, when that part of the narrative starts to crystalize in my head more. While I felt awkward and weird about it at first I really have gotten more comfortable and familiar with the new registry format over time. I like how it looks more, and I like being able to add the extra little bit of flare with the banner images. It was different when I’d originally (wrongly) gotten it into my head that I’d be stuck with the coins split between 4 different sets, but it looks like I’m going to only have 2, and 1 of those is going to (most likely) collect all off the hyperinflation era coinage that came out in the lead-up to and after the first redenomination. Only the older, coins from before the introduction of the Bolivar Fuerte go in the other set. This lets me build a solid, already mostly complete and filled competitive set with all the Hyperinflation coins that are the part of the set that I enjoy the most and the part of the timeline that I enjoy talking about the most. It doesn’t hurt that all the highest grades I got in the submission – the 3 68’sand the 69 - hit in this set, and that MS62 can be banished to the other set, making for a pretty solid little group overall. As a random bit of context, what I combine under 1 signature set for "Gradually, Then Suddenly" on the PMG side would be about 8-9 competitive sets, minimum. NGC, I’m very happy to realize and say, breaks the set in 2007 with the introduction of the Bolivar Fuertes. PMG, on the other hand, breaks the set at 1999, with the passing of the new constitution and the switch-over to the new government under Chavez. NGC also keeps the Bolivar Fuerte coin in the same set with the Bolivar Soberano coins – possibly for no other reason than to avoid having a Bolivar Soberano category that only has 2 slots / coins. But this is different than what you get with PMG, where each of those currencies get their own category. In fairness to PMG, there are 13 Bolivar Fuerte notes and 14 Soberano notes, so there are enough of each of those to support their own categories, where, for the Soberano coins, there simply isn’t. I put in a request to Ali and the team early this week to see if they’ll add slots for the 3 2021-dated Bolivar Digital coins and they added the slots only about 24 hours later. So, I’m going to be really pleased with this set category because it will house almost everything I have and want to show, highlight, and emphasize – for now. I do like the idea of later extending this back to the 1960s coins that were the last silver coins and following not just the run up in the denominations, but also the preceding debasement that occurred with the switch from Silver, to predominantly nickel coins, to nickel-clad steel. I think that sounds like a fun set – I just acknowledge that I’m not there yet. Unlike with Zimbabwe I’m coming into a slightly more established category. I’m not the 1st ranked set (a set with coins actually listed in it) to be added in the category – mine is / was the 5th created. And there is some solid competition here. FAS_Coins has a 53% complete set. I call him out because I recognize him from the PMG side. His Venezuelan collection extends back to the early days of the country with 19th century coinage. It’s a very impressive Coin & Note combining, PMG/NGC, platform crossing collection. I can come close to matching him in the 21st century stuff but I can’t touch what he’s built with the 19th and 20th century issues. I just wish he uploaded pictures more … because he… doesn’t. He has 1945-dated, P-31 specimen notes (in 67 EPQ!) on the PMG side. No pictures. But, his is far from the only set I can’t come close to competing with on older Venezuelan coins – I’m ranked 24th in the category… so I’m a ways down the list. But, as of now, my main personal collecting goals heading into October and November will be getting pictures taken of the 3 new 500L coins, the Rhodesian penny set, and the Venezuelan coins, and photoshopping together banner images for the Rhodesian penny set and the 2007-Date Venezuelan Set. I linked my wife to the new Venezuelan set to show it to her. She looks at it and says, “No picture?” (There’s no set banner) “It’s a brand-new set. I’m working on it.” “Somebody’s slacking.” “Thanks, Dear.”

"You could replace them..." I would have been speechless and raging internally.

I have to lead into this with the fact that I’m just very displeased with both USPS and FedEx at the moment. First, I go to the mailbox this morning and see a slip of pink paper saying that there was a package requiring a signature – that I’m 90% sure is the coins Shandy ordered – that they “attempted delivery” on late last week. We were home all day that day. We have a Ring Doorbell that logs motion events and people ringing the door. They did not attempt to deliver that package. They just left the slip in the box and now we have to go to the Post Office to get it from them in their laziness. I’m 90% sure this must have been a sub because our normal mail guy actually brings things to the door. Ya know – he actually tries to do the job. On Sunday I’d gotten a message from FedEx saying I was getting a box from Sarasota, FL that needed a signature on Monday. I check this morning and it says the package is estimated to arrive between 12:30-3:30 PM… Okay. Cool. I run out for literally 15 minutes at 9:45 AM. The package arrives when I’m gone… at 9:55… Nearly 3 hours before the start of their estimated window… Thanks, Guys. That’s… really helpful… when you give an estimate that’s… completely wrong… Normally I’d be annoyed because I missed the delivery because they came well outside their estimated window and now, I’d have to go get it… except… they left it… on the front porch. The guy walks up and just leaves the box by the door. No signature. He doesn’t even ring the doorbell. I know this, because, again, my smart doorbell would have logged the ring. Way to go, folks! You both stink for different reasons… But… I have the Venezuelan and Italian coins back in my possession again! And so tonight will be another shared unboxing event. We opened the box tonight after the kids are in bed as is our practice. Very happy to have these home. Somewhat to my surprise, she commented on how many Venezuelan coins there were, including relative to the number of Italian coins, but there's a reason why I pay for this out of my hobby and spending money. She has now been given a 2nd Coin box as, with these 6 new ones, all of hers can't fit in the 1 box, and I'm not done working on this and there will be more. I have lots more to say about these coins coming up as I’m already working to integrate them into new and existing sets. I’m just going to try to space it out and try not to dump too much too fast. We popped over to the PO to get the other package this morning. I tried to pick it up and Shandy snatched it out of my hand and wouldn't even allow me to touch or hold it while declaring that I can't have it until my birthday, while some older guys in line chuckled. She is still attempting to claim that this package - that came awfully fast and is the only such package to come - is some new Italian coin that she found and bought and not the Rhodesian Pennies... It's all seriously kinda rude.

Could we get 3 new slots added for: Reform Coinage, Type Set, 2007-Date, Circulation Issue Sets | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) I'm looking for a slot for: 2021 Venezuela 25C (Cert# 2885471-020) 2021 Venezuela 50C (Cert# 2885471-021) 2021 Venezuela 1B (Cert# 2885471-022)

Thanks! I have upgrades to work on! Need to work on that 62, the $10 & $25 in the Zimbabwe set and the MS64 1989 in the 500 Lire set.

Yeah. For me 66 - I'm pretty happy. 67 - I'm very happy. 68 - I'm thrilled. 69 - I'm in disbelief and keep looking at it with squinty eyes.

So here we discuss the Italian coins – 6 coins that come in 2 sets of three: 3 coins to fill out the 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Birth Year Set and 3 coins to fill some of the remaining gaps in the 500L set she wanted. Though the 1986 500L actually fits in with both groups even though it was acquired primarily for the 500 Lire set / as part of that effort. Here are the grades: On the 1986 set front… With the 5 Lire and the 10 Lire, with MS66 and MS65 grades respectively, I don’t consider them a disappointment really, but I also don’t consider them a big win. I would have been happier with a SS and a 67. I was hoping they’d do a little bit better than that but… They’re solid enough and the coins look good in hand, which is why I wanted to try sending them in from the remainders of those Franklin Mint Sets I broke up. The 1986 200 Lire on the other hand feels like a solid win. Unlike the other two denominations I just talked about, the seller I’ve bought a lot of these Italian coins pre-graded from had several NGC graded 1986 200 Lires in stock. They just wanted $55-60 for them at minimum, and I was pretty sure I could get at least an MS65 submitting myself. I knew I had this coin, and I was pretty sure it’d do well, and now I have my MS67, which is at least for now the solo-finest example graded by NGC, beating the 6 MS66s and the 9 MS65s out there. I think most if not all of those other 200 Lire coins were graded by this eBay merchant and many/most of the 65s seem to still be in his/her possession – 7 of the 9 MS65s are currently listed on eBay. Not sure what the story is on the MS66s – none of those are listed at the moment. However, on the MS65s that seller likes to brag up that there’s “only 4 finer,” and there’s 6 MS66s now, to say nothing of my MS67. So, either they or someone else has submitted some of these and increased the population recently. But that seller seems to send a lot of 1980s Italian material to NGC. On the 500 Lire front, I am very happy about the MS66s on the 1983 and the 1987. Those are solid enough grades and they’ll make strong enough additions to the set to help keep it as a strong contender in the category for now and hopefully for a while to come. The one I’m really happy about though, oddly, is the 1986, the MS65, the lowest grade of the three. Why? The 1983 and 1987 were pulled from Franklin Mint Sets. I knew those were good and I knew they’d probably do just fine. It’s also cheap and easy to get more of those in high grades by just buying more of those Franklin Mint sets on the cheap and breaking them up. It’s much harder to find one of those sets with a 1986 coin, it’s much harder to find 1986 examples in general on eBay and so if this one didn’t grade well it’d be much more challenging to go out and find more. Also: This 1986 came out of a bag. It hadn’t been kept safe in a card for 30 years. So, I was much more worried about NGC dinging the grade for small marks or maybe giving it an AU58 for rubbing that I didn’t see or recognize but which they saw – again, I have a scarred cornea. I miss things sometimes. I cite that MS62 I’m getting back in this submission as my proof. Because of those worries, because this coin was important to both the birthyear set and the 500 Lire set, this was the coin that had me sweating and worried, and it got and MS65, and I’m pretty happy with that. Getting that lot of 24 500 Lire coins was Shandy’s idea also, as you’ll recall. My impulse had been to just get some more Franklin Mint sets at the time and look to maybe getting better 1983 examples. She wanted to roll the dice on those lots, and we got rewarded with this 1986 example. Again, these haven’t been the easiest thing for me to find in high grade. So, I’m glad I listened to her, and we got this one. Another interesting point for the 1986 500L is that it also had a pre-NGC-graded example on eBay that I could have gotten instead of self-submitting... but it was an MS63... that they wanted ~$50. That's one of those times when, while I don't begrudge someone trying to turn a profit on something, when you get an MS63 back you need to admit that you made a grading boo-boo and you're not getting your money back out of that coin. I just knew that - unless I'd missed some light rubbing the 1986 I had would at least match and probably beat an MS63 for less money and it did by 2 point. I also knew at that price that it would still be there later, and it is, but even of it wasn't, not much FOMO there. I did get the 2000 and 2001 500 Lire coins from German earlier in the week and they do look solid. I'm not sure how they'd grade out but I think they'd get MS grades and I like knowing I now have all the dates represented and I can fill my last remaining empty slots whenever I want and need - probably early to mid next year. Sorry! the following images are far from great - I just don't have the chance to break out the better camera and better lights right now so the cell phone gets the job! The coins are pretty clean and shiny - the alloys these are made of is just miserable to photograph though IMO. 1995: 2000: 2001: Shandy asked me last night if I could go ahead and add the coins now or if I had to wait until I got them. I told her that the system lets me add the coins to my inventory in the registry as soon as they ship and technically I could add them in now, but I'm not going to because don't think that's how NGC prefers that we play. With them coming back now I have plenty of time to pop them in and image them and in the mean time I can be working on writing up text in Word files if I need to. Meanwhile she has started teasing me that the Rhodesian pennies are going to go back and she's going to buy some Italian coins instead... Looking at these sets and what's about to come in, I can't imagine what she thinks she'd buy and she doesn't usually like buying things like this unless I link her to it.