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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant

    So we wait...

    By Revenant,


    Family
    Well, no grades yesterday. So that’s three weeks almost / 13 working days in “Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging” without getting grades back. When the submission arrived on 6/7/21 or 6/8/21 the listed turnaround was 49 working days and the coins have now been at NGC for 65 or 66 working days as of Monday. And I really don’t care if the turnaround now is 85 working days - it was 49 when mine arrived, it was 49 for over a month of the time they’ve been there, and it was only later raised to 61, and we’re past even that. But that 49 is the thing I’m scoring against.
    So, I had a nice mad going on about this yesterday - bordering on a small temper tantrum - partially because yesterday had become one of those days when you’re just hating life and mad at the world and these grades coming back and having ANOTHER weekend without knowing was just the icing on the cake of grinding my gears.
    We found out on Thursday night that Ben’s friend had tested positive for CoVID. He came down with symptoms late Monday, and this kid had been playing with Ben all day on Sunday and had had dinner with us Sunday night. So, neither kid could go to school or daycare yesterday. So, what was supposed to be my Friday off turned into accomplishing none of the things I’d hoped to knock out in and out of the house, 2.5 hours in urgent care trying to test a non-cooperative 5-year-old, and trying to contain the 2 year old and the 5 year old - who are on a serious mommy--obsession-kick - while Shandy tried to work and have meetings. So yesterday sucked. Hard. Yesterday was rough.
    Today… today is better. Life feels kinder today. It’s a little easier to smile today. I’m still kind of salty and having a bit of a mad-after-glow on this, but life is better today.
    And… we’re doing much better than they are across the street. Ben’s rapid test was negative and he’s feeling just fine 6 days after the exposure. We’re waiting on the PCR test to come back and confirm negative but at this point I’m not terribly concerned. We aren't going anywhere this weekend and we're hoping the results come back Sunday night so Ben can go to school Monday, but I'm fully expecting a negative result at this point. Across the street, the 5-year-old and the 3 year old baby sister and the father are now all sick, and so we’re dropping off coloring books, and fever reducers… and chocolate. Good chocolate. That poor mother…
     
    On top of everything we have a tropical wave bearing down on us that may cause localized flooding and trap us all at home for a few days even if we manage to clear the test.
    Getting back to the submission a bit… I feel like this is one of the cases were the submission tracker works just well enough to be a tease while also not being terribly helpful some days. In the past I’ve seen things be finalized and shipped within about a week (4-7 working days) of hitting “Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging.” In that situation it makes sense to lump all those together and not split them out. In the case of this submission, they’ve been sitting there for 13 working days, and it just becomes a tease after having been conditioned by past experience to expect results fast after they hit that stage.
    It begs the question “what’s the hold-up?” but I’m thinking it must be the grading part of that situation, because these crazy-long turnaround times are ONLY hitting World Modern and World Economy. If the backlog was in encapsulation or imaging, I would expect that to hit more across the board and hit US modern and US economy too but that is not what we’re seeing. It has had me wondering lately if there could be something wrong that they can’t talk about - like one or more of the world graders being sick.
    But, if it is that, I’ll hopefully never know, because they’d never be able to discuss that with us. The only way I could see that coming to light is if some poor soul died and they made and article honoring them and absolutely no one wants that.
    I keep telling myself that I just need to just stop checking this and just wait for the emails saying they’re done to hit my inbox one evening, but it’s hard. The tease is very real, I’ve been waiting for 3 months, and I just really want to finally know how they did. My worst nightmare is I’m just going to have very disappointing grades come back after all this angst and all this waiting and the whole thing is just going to come down to one massive bitter pill.
    But, disappointing grade results and long waits are far from the worst things in life.
    Also: Coinsandmedals - I blame you and your fancy-smancy Early Bird multi-holder crazy-complicated submission for this. This is clearly your fault - holding up my dirt-simple modern submission. You should feel bad. I hope life is treating you well and we get to hear how those did soon - hopefully he can split those off and get them shipped independently of that modern submission or nobody is going to know how those multi-holders made out until December! Lesson learned for all of us! Never shackle and Early Bird to a Modern to save a few dollars on shipping! Just pay the money!
  2. Revenant

    I wonder...

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    So, the Zcoins still haven't been finalized... but the Census did go up by about 9 coins today, all mint state, and 8 of those line up with the 8 pre-hyperinflation coins in my submission… So I may have just gotten a sneak peek at some of my grades… and the grades are pretty consistent with what I would have expected from those coins… but no way to know for sure.
    But, while I can’t talk grades officially yet, I have little better or more interesting to do with my socially-isolated, work-from-home, life… so I’m going to “treat” everyone to more of my scientific wild-### speculation… You’re welcome. Straight into my "Random nonsense" category with this one.  
    I've had some on-side discussions with Mike about the idea of how easy or hard it would be and how well it might actually work out in practice to de-bottleneck the back end of the process by adding people to do minor work / tasks... but I do wonder if there could be another issue at play.
    I was wondering the other day, how many machines does NGC have for sonically sealing the slabs? How quickly can they be loaded? How long does it take per coin to encapsulate, even if you're well practiced? What is the theoretical upper limit on the number of coins NGC can encapsulate a day without buying more machines? I’m guessing those things are not cheap and if they actually hit the upper limit of their capacity for a while it wouldn’t necessarily be a trivial choice or task to get more and bring them online.
    Of course, the other thing I've wondered about at times... with 2021s supply chain issues I've wondered where they source slab parts from and how well they've been able to keep slab parts and inserts of various sizes on inventory... My local Walmart can’t even keep generic sodas in stock consistently the last few months so it does make me wonder where NGC gets their parts from and what kind of susceptibility they have to vender supply interruptions…
    But the bump up in the census today has me really wondering about another wrinkle I hadn’t considered at all up to this point: The census itself.
    Several of the coins I submitted in my Z coin submission were the first ones like that that NGC has ever graded, so adding those coins to the Census also probably involves building out the database on the back end to add rows / categories for those coins to go into. If NGC is getting a larger than normal in-flow of World coins, it could also be that they are getting a much higher than usual number of coins that are the first-of-their-kind-graded-by-NGC. If that’s happening that could easily cause a bottleneck / slow things down considerably because I’m sure that’s not something NGC would just hire someone off the street to work on. I’m sure the accuracy and integrity of the census or the underlying database is something they take really seriously.
    Something like this would probably also explain why this would hit world coins so hard while not impacting the US coins at all. Except for new 2021 / current year issues I’m sure there’s almost nothing under the sun in American coins that NGC has not graded a thousand times over (assuming there are that many in existence). So, there wouldn’t be much need to expand / build upon the underlying database for US coins, but I’m sure there is a UNIVERSE of world coins out there that NGC has never graded before and I’m sure they’re encountering new ones with increasing frequency with their efforts to expand beyond the US…
    I know from emailing customer service that my coins were probably graded 1.5 to 2 weeks ago, if not more… but the Census bumped up today / this week…
    It gets even more interesting in this context that the update to the Zimbabwe census today may include all of my coins except the bond coins… That this update would include coins that are just new dates for things they have graded before but not the bond coins which they maybe be planning on entering into the census in a different way…
    Of course, I don’t know… and will probably never know… because NGC customer service is very tight-lipped. I mean EXTREMELY tight lipped. But I REALLY am starting to think I’m on to something with this one…
     
    As of today, World Modern turnaround times are up again to 93 working days... I'm wondering if they'll hit 100.
  3. Revenant

    I think Sam really has the worst luck...

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    Well, shortly after I made my last post we went to pick up Sam from daycare and we found out he'd been lethargic and sick all day and was running a fever again. He's been home since then but lethargic and increasingly unwilling to eat or drink. Today we too him back to the doctor and then later in the day had to give up and take him to the ER because he wasn't peeing anymore.  Turns out he as pneumonia... at two and a half... and his O2Sats are low and he'll probably be getting admitted again for what I guess at this point will be his 4th hospital stay.
    Because of COVID I have to stay home until and unless he's admitted to the hospital and they may not even let me come until his PCR test comes back negative. I guess we'll see. I'd rather give Ben to his grandmother and go to the hospital but they just don't allow that right now... but all the laundry is done. There is once again not a dirty towel in the house.
    So, sometimes when I'm on here a lot its because work is slow. Sometimes it is because a baby has been using me as an inclined bed for 2 days and I have a TV and smartphone with an NGC app.
    The last week or so while taking care of him and waiting on grades I've been doing some shopping for more raw Zimbabwean coins in new and old types to pick through for a future 2nd submission.
    Some things will depend on the grades that come back on the submission that is out - Mostly if any coins come back with particularly bad grades I'll probably be trying again on those if I can get better examples - but I know in the next round I'll be sending in a $5 pre-hyperinflation coin, one of the $2 Bond coins, and, if I can find some that look decent, a pre-hyperinflation $2 and a $1 Bond Coin. There are a couple of others I need to try to get like one of the pennies from before they switched to a steel-plated version.
    I'll probably send those in around February 2022 - once I have a decent number pulled together to send in - and they'll come back... eventually... Maybe in time for the 2022 awards deadline...  
    Shandy has been laughing at me a bit for my shopping and calling me obsessed and ridiculous, but I feel like this set of coins needs to exist / be made to go alongside that note set - which is more or less complete at this point with all but the Cargill Bearer checks and a couple other issues (P-28, P-29, P-31, P-72) included. P-105 doesn't count. I'll buy that as soon as graded examples hit the market at a reasonable price.
    It also feels like a fitting thing to be working on while Sam is sick considering it has been my time occupation and distraction since he was born. Maybe that's why I had to expand to the coin set and I just can't close the book on this project.
    While this is a direct continuation of what I started in 2019 and 2020, 2021 has definitely started a new phase, from shopping online for already graded examples to buying multiples raw and picking through for nicer examples as I dig deeper and deeper into areas that few others care about and which there isn't enough of a market for to get dealers submitting...
    But, as I'll get into later, I'm not the only one buying these, and I don't seem to be quite the only one grading them.
     
    Sadly he's not much improved this morning and he can't come home until he's eating and drinking on his own again, but at least he hopefully won't get any worse now that he can have IV fluids and effective meds.
     

  4. Revenant

    To the Moon!

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    On January 18th 2021 I got the blessing from Shandy to pick up a 1 kilo silver bar. The spot price had recently come down from about $27 / oz to $25 / oz and I was able to find a Perth bar from a good dealer for $875. Relatively shortly there after the "Reddit Raiders" temporarily spiked the price to $30 / oz and you couldn't get anything physical hardly unless you were paying $35 / oz or more. Those kilo bars started going for over $1050... I guess I should have sold then...
    I was pretty confident at the time that the whole "silversqueeze" push wouldn't work and there'd be a pullback even though everyone was swearing that spot would just come up to close the premium gap and $35 silver was here today. Here we are about 7 months later. Silver recently hit about $23/oz even. Premiums have become... less insane.
    We got more of our deposit back from the old landlady than we'd expected and the wife agreed to let me put some of that into a new kilo bar - $822 this time. Cheaper than the last one by over $1.50/oz. Only about 11% over spot. It may yet drop more from here but I think sub-850 is an attractive enough price for a kilo in today's world. I do believe that in the fullness of time it will go up again but I think these guys were wrong in thinking they could force a major macroeconomic shift.
    I'm glad I didn't sell what I have or dump my old 2010 tube of SAEs and other rounds that Ben used to play with as a baby - those rounds are more valuable for their flaws now for me anyway. I'm also glad I just stepped back and refused to buy more. There have to be some people out there eating some ugly losses.
    But I made one other purchase to mark this and help me remember it:

    They're advertised as having about the same size (diameter) as SAEs so I bought some 40 mm air-tites for them to keep them pretty and they'll stay with the NCLT and other rounds.
    Not really "coins" but the closest thing to a commemorative that this mania and madness is likely to ever get - "Gamestonk and all." And these things are appropriate for the job because they are bonkers. Whoever designed this does not believe in the idea of a "field" and just crammed details and references and... stuff... into every spare bit of space on each face. I love it for what it is and find it amusing but it is ridiculous, manic, and insane - just like the craze it is about.
    When people shout "to the moon," how many people think about the guy from Happy Days and how many think of the old Frank Sanatra song? My wife loves the song, but I have to laugh when thinking about the fact that that song could be applied to some people in r/Silverbugs in a very different and comical way. "You are all I long for. All I worship and adore."
    For a while there, whenever I'd show Shandy that silver or gold were having a big up-day she'd jokingly shout "To the moon." I think the part she didn't say was, "So we can sell it all!"  
  5. Revenant

    A cute, dopey, derpy set full of TOP POP coins?

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    My submission of Zimbabwe coins, as of yesterday, is officially “received” at NGC, but it’s that weird new kind of “received” where you cannot click on the invoice number and can’t see any of the line items. They just took them out of the box and put the invoice number in to say, “See! We got it! Now go away and stop bugging us about your box!” Joking! Said with love, folks!
    Anyway… I have been thinking about my MS65 10C coin, and the fact that it’s a TOP POP - that I got for $21 after it sat unsold for months - because it is literally the only one of those that has been graded. It got me thinking and got me to look at the pop reports… and the population of NGC graded Zimbabwean coins is… insanely small!
    There are 28 Zimbabwean coins that have been graded by NGC. 28! That is it!
    Twelve (12) of those 28 - nearly half of them - are S$10, 1996 Wildlife series issues that I’m thinking are NCLT.
    Seven (7) of those, from what I can see, are proof and proof pattern strikes from 1980.
    Only Seven (7) that I can see, are circulation strikes - only 25% of that tiny group.
    There are 2 that are listed in the pop report denomination summary that I can’t find in the detailed breakdown for some reason.
    Still, only 7-9 NGC graded circulation strike coins. Under 10. And I already own one of those.
    Of the 13 coins in that submission, 10 are going to be the first and only circulation strike coin of that type that NGC has graded, including all of the 5 2014 Bond Coins I’m submitting. So, assuming no details grades, all 10 of those will automatically be TOP POP as soon as they are in the population just by grace of having no competition, unless someone else has their own coins ahead of mine in line in the pipeline! So, barring that, the set will have AT LEAST 11 TOP POP coins - no matter how terrible those grades come back!
    The other three coins, the 1C Km-1b, the $10 Km-14 and the $25 Km-15 are all up against 1 graded MS competitor that they have to beat. The $10 coin wins as long as it comes back MS like the seller advertised - it has to beat an AU55. The $25 coin wins as long as it comes back as Choice Uncirc (MS63) or better - it has to beat a MS62. The 1C coin has the hardest job - going against a MS65RD. I think it will get a RD. We’ll see on the 65.
     
    It'll be interesting to have a set with such a high concentration of top pops, even if it is mostly a technicality, just because I don't generally own a lot of top pop coins and notes. Most of what I buy is already graded and I'm usually just not willing to pay the incremental premium for a top pop. Many of the top pops I do have are things I graded myself and lucked into - like three Zimbabwe checks I have coming back. My 10G set - one of the prides of my registry - doesn't contain a single top pop coin.
    This is going to feel like the NGC Registry equivalent of congratulating my 3 year old on his participation trophy in soccer - after I had to force him to put on his cleats and go out for almost every game.
    Winning by default, folks. That’s how you do it!
    The whole thing, just looking at and seeing those numbers, just really explains why searching on eBay for NGC graded Z coins always turned up NOTHING, and it honestly makes lucking into that 1 dime in some ways all the more shocking than it was.
    It really drives home that the only way this set was ever going to get made was if I did the grading myself.
    Now just to wait to find out the grades. I'm very hopeful for the bond coins and maybe some of the others… I think the non-bond 1C, 20C, and 50C at least will do decently well and grade in the MS range. I’m more worried about the 5C, 10C, $1, $10, and $25.
  6. Revenant

    This threatens to raise my hopes...

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I looked today and my 13 coin Zimbabwe submission is now fully entered in the system and "scheduled for grading." 
    This has me hopeful that I could maybe see grades by the end of this month - maybe 2-3 weeks sooner than I'd been expecting based on the turnaround times listed at about 49 days... but I'm basing this on how quickly other things - not world moderns - have gone from scheduled to in grading. So that hope may be dangerous. I could just in in for 3-4 weeks of them sitting as "Scheduled."
    I guess we'll see. So far NGC and PMG have done better/ beaten their estimates for me. I'd love to see another beat here.
    It's funny - as much as people have complained about turnarounds lately the crush of boxes / mail doesn't seem to have stopped in Florida - turnaround for world modern is STILL listing at 49 business days. US Economy is listing at 51 days.
    This potentially has some interesting implications for the 2021 awards. Anything not at NGC by early October may not be graded in time for the cert #s to be valid before the cut-off in early December. And if you want images in the system that you made yourself you need them back in hand by late November.
  7. Revenant

    And now things get more clear...

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    So, I was still feeling salty about those $2 and $5 bi-metallics and decided to leave a bad review on them a while ago - I left good reviews on two raw notes I'd bought that both graded well.
    A few days later they reply to the 5-star reviews thanking me, but I see nothing on the 2-star... The 5 stars are showing on the website, but the 2 star isn't.
    Three days later I finally see a reply come through saying that they tried to reach out to me but got no response... the 2-star review still isn't showing on their website even though they responded to it...
    As I pointed out to them, I get and see tons of emails from them - I'd gotten 4 emails that day about their flash sale. I get their emails asking for reviews on what I've bought previously. I got the emails responding to the other reviews. And yet... somehow... they claim I missed and didn't respond to the one email I've really wanted from them?? I see everything else, and nothing goes to spam - I'm sure in part because Gmail knows I actually open a lot of them - but - somehow - I didn't get that one message.
    They responded back saying they sent the message on the day before the other comments came back. I checked to see - not in my trash. Not in spam. Not there. I think they need to check their "drafts" folder. But I don't think they sent anything.
    But I do suddenly understand how - and why - those coin sets had only three 5-star reviews when I got such shabby coins and why there's never anything other than 5-star reviews on that site on anything.
    They must be blocking / filtering out anything that isn't 5 stars. It's a testimonial feed masquerading as a rating / review system. So, I'm never going to bother leaving a review on that site again. No one will ever read it.
    I did send images of those 6 coins, just because - I'm right and what they sent for those 2 denominations looks nowhere near as nice as what their website images show.
    It didn't really go anywhere because it was past their 30 day return window.
    I didn't expect anything good to come out of it, but the complaint deserved to be made. If I'd wanted a refund, I would have chosen to contact them within 30 days and instead I chose to pick what seemed worthwhile and make a smaller submission - there really aren't tons of sellers offering these coins / sets in uncirculated condition. But they promised mint and that isn't what they delivered and that deserved to be called out.
    Maybe I'm unfair in some of my griping here but I don't think I'm going to be buying from them anymore. I've had success buying from them in the past and had good service in the past but since 2020 every time I interact with their customer service it tends to be a disaster and they've jacked up their order minimums so much that you can't just make a small, fun purchase anymore - other dealers are just treating me better at this point - and delivering what they advertise.
    On a more positive note, the coins I submitted hit Grading/Encapsulation today. So maybe in another week I’ll finally know how good or bad the coins I didn’t hate did, along with the Bond Coins, which I’m very optimistic on.
    Seeing this helped spur me on to work a little more on my descriptions and comments for these Zimbabwean coins. I’m hoping to polish them off with comments on how well they do individually and post them up as soon as I get them - hopefully with some nice looking photos.
  8. Revenant

    "Bad Luck Pennies" / "Hard Times Pennies"

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    I had to run an errand today and I found a penny in the parking lot on the way to my car. I stopped and picked it up like I have always tended to do ever since I was a small child, as I was encouraged to do.
    I remember always being taught the rhyme, "Find a penny? Pick it up! And all the day you'll have good luck!"
    Some years ago now I had a supervisor at work whose husband took this rather seriously and got upset when he found out that their child had found a penny on the ground and later given it to someone else! "No! Don't do that! Those are your good luck pennies! Don't give away your good luck." She got quite a laugh at that. It seems to be a recurring theme of life - wives laughing at their husbands.
    Of course, when I was growing up some people always said that if the penny was "face-up" / obverse showing you should pick it up for good luck but if it was "face down" / reverse showing you should not pick it up because that was bad luck.
    Thinking about that got me thinking about 2020 and pennies from 2020. I looked - while new and shiny looking the penny I found was from 2013.
    I'm wondering if finding and picking up a penny from 2020 will somehow come to be seen as bad luck. If coins from 2020 could ever be seen as a bad omen from a bad time.
    It's all silly - I know - superstitious nonsense, the lot of it. But it was amusing think about for a minute as I climbed in the car, tossed that penny in the cup holder and took a pump of my hand-sanitizer. I don't really believe in luck. I believe in being careful and prepared. "Fortune favors the prepared" has been my approach to life for a long time now.
     
  9. Revenant

    Artsy Coin Photos

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    Well, I'd really thought that after my Z coins hit grading on Tuesday of last week I'd get grades this week almost for sure and I'd be getting to post about the results. Sadly, this was not the case - I'm still waiting. But hopefully they'll finish soon. But I won't see grades before Tuesday now with Labor Day coming up.
    Gosh... I'm really wanting to know the results and hoping to not be massively disappointed. This is dragging on and turning into a nail-biter!
    In the mean time, I thought I'd take a minute and share some artsy nonsense with everyone.
    Most of the time when we're taking coin photos we're trying to capture the whole coin with good focus, luster and detail or trying to take pictures with a microscope to see variety identifiers. Sometimes though I like to get shots that are more meant to approach the subject more artistically and wanted to share some of those just for fun:
    I feel like you see a lot of similar stuff come out of NGC sometimes - when they want something to grab attention for some article or announcement.'
    It's fun stuff to play around with when you're bored or just want to run from life's responsibilities...  
     





  10. Revenant
    We put in an offer on a house on 4/20!

    We started negotiating on 4/19 but the seller didn't accept until 4/20 and that's when we put in the bid contract - which is the only thing that matters under Texas law.
    We're still waiting on confirmation that they have signed it to put the house under contract after most of yesterday was lost to hashing out a minor issue in the draft of the contract we signed and submitted on 4/20, so we re-signed and resubmitted yesterday and... fingers crossed. We found out at like 10 PM last night that the seller agent was blaming the delay on a new assistant and even the sellers were texting her repeatedly wanting to know where the papers were.
    It's a great house. We're getting a great deal on it given the state of the market. The catch is they want a leaseback that extends up to potentially 7/31. So even if we close in May we may not be living there until August - which might not be the worst thing for my submissions?
    It is on the higher end of our range though, so I expect the coin and currency budget to take a hit for the rest of the year. I may not do much other than these planned low-cost submissions with the grading credits. We’ll see. Life has surprised me before, even recently.
    I got the confirmation from NGC late last night that my coins are in the system. I can now stop worrying in a paranoid fashion that my coins went to the wrong box and disappeared into the ether. That feels good. My flat rate boxes arrived so I hope to send in my checks to PMG soon and my bond coins are on their way from Europe! Huzzah! Still waiting on a sale to go back and get the older issues. I expect that to pop up some time next month. In the mean time I got some cotton gloves for handling the when they arrive.
    But, it feels like there’s a lot of waiting to do right now… waiting on others on the house, on the submission, on the bond coins to arrive, waiting and holding out for a sale…

    I'm continuing to try to sell some old collectable miniatures I've had since I was in high school. I'm being spurred on by the desire to get rid of these before an up-coming move and I'd like to use the cash to maybe fund some possible coin and note buys, or maybe just do something else more fun than looking at these sit and collect dust in my house.
    I'm increasingly running into people that want to buy them for $10 after shipping when it costs $4-8 just to ship them - to say nothing of the cost of boxes, packing material, tape, or printing mailing labels. I've just had to tell people, "Sorry, but I'm not here to just make work for USPS." If I can't make money on this I'd rather just let Ben play with them until they break or put them to the curb. I don't need the money that bad.
    The really funny ones are those that will say "I can get it for $10 on eBay." "Then why are you bothering me? Go get it there!"
    But I really just don't know how those eBay sellers are making any money - especially after you add in fees. It just isn't worth it to pocket a buck after all that time and effort. But maybe some are harder up for cash than I am?
    Edited to add: They signed and the house is under contract now, and it looks like our upfront costs and payments will be lower than expected/ feared because of some tax credits we didn't know about (homestead).
  11. Revenant

    The Psychology of Completion

    By Revenant,


    Registry
    I’m narrowing in on getting to call several on-going projects complete. My 10G set is about 80% complete if you don’t count the 1879/7 variety. My Queen’s Beast sets are getting into about that same 80% range and several of the parts / sub-series of my Zimbabwe hyperinflation set are getting to be about 85-92% complete by pick number. Most of these sets are missing only 1-3 issues before they’re 100% complete registry sets.
    One thing I’ve been noticing lately is that, as I narrow in on the end, each new purchase feels a lot more satisfying than they did in the beginning.
    When I started my 10G set I bought 4 coins for it in one or two months of a summer, but I don’t think I found those four purchases quite as satisfying and fulfilling even as adding that 1880. Granted, those 4 coins were the more common dates where the 1880 was semi-key, but I don’t think that was it. Buying the White lions for my Queen’s Beasts sets recently just felt good in a way that buying the Griffins (2nd coin of 10) just didn’t a few years ago.
    There’s just something about narrowing in on the win.
    I’m feeling this somewhat keenly with the Zimbabwe set recently with several big recent wins for my 1st dollar set. I joke with my wife that I’ve been telling myself for 8 months now that I was going to step back on this set and focus on other things but I feel myself compelled to keep driving forward as some key milestones for the set creep closer. You keep going for that next note just because it gets you just a little. bit. closer.
    There’s a P-3c out there for sale that would easily be the most expensive note I’ve ever bought for this set if I pulled the trigger and yet I find myself somewhat tempted just because that is the last pick number I don’t have a representative piece for in my 1st dollar set and it would make my main 1st dollar competitive set 100% complete. On the flip side though, I’m realizing that the road ahead on that set might yet be somewhat larger than I thought it was.
  12. Revenant
    Well, after (finally) putting the time and the energy and cash / credit behind getting them all reholdered I had thought that a picture of the group of coins all in their matching slabs would make a good banner image for my 10G set in the new registry.
    While I do think the group of coins look good and I'm still happy I got them reholdered, and while I do think the images looked good, I have to admit that they fell a bit flat as banner images.


    I think they look great in person though and I think one day they'll look very charming in a display case together - maybe with 2 (or 3) more coins to complete the set, if I can ever get those.
    But for the banner image I've adopted something akin to Coinbuf's approach:

    I think Mike's approach works well for Silver - especially given the color scheme of the registry - but it seems a bit over-the-top and gaudy for gold - with the below as just a quick and dirty example
    I took new images of every coin in the new holders and I was aiming for showing off luster but I think expanding gold color out would work better with more flat lighting..

    Of course, I did re-image the whole set in the new pronged holders... So now I just need to decide if I'm going to post the cropped photos straight or go with the blacked out versions...

    I've always tended to favor the images showing the prongs / holder because the goal of registry images is documentation of the set and the image with the prongs is a more accurate representation of the coin as it is in person but the blacked-out image has a certain cleanness to it and I can understand why it appeals to many.
     
  13. Revenant
    I'm starting to work on digging into the Zimbabwe coins more to try to build out a nice group of descriptions for that set once the coins clear grading.
    I am clearly not excited about those coins / getting them back graded or anything. Clearly. I am just front-running working on descriptions for coins I will not get back for a month and a half. Anyway...
    I finally found out what the KM numbers for all of them were. And found out I was wrong about several of them - some that I thought got new numbers in the 6-11 range were sub-types of other KM#s because the designs did not change. KM6 through KM11 are actually 1996-dated NCLT issues that I have little interest in at the moment and which aren't part of the registry type set I want to build / complete.
    I also found that I was right in thinking the differences in some of these type coins was the composition of the coins and not the designs. The coins from 1980-1999 were mostly copper, brass and copper-nickel where the later ones are copper-plated, nickel-plated or brass-plated steel. I had thought this would be the case given that the value of the currency was in decline even in the 1980s and 1990s. It made sense that they would have switched to steel plating to save money (before things got bad and they abandoned the coinage all together. The first coin to switch to steel was, predictably, the cent, in 1989 - when I was still only 2-3 years old.
    Some of this might seem a bit backwards - learning some of this after having bought and submitted the coins, but I cannot say that getting counterfeits was all that high of a concern for me with these - so buying raw in ignorance & counterfeit detection was not something that worried me much. I guess we will see if NGC delivers a surprise there.
    I also discovered there were two coins I was previously unaware of - a $1 and $2 bond coin. Somehow, I missed that completely when I was shopping for sets of Bond Coins to buy a few months back.
    I think there were a few things that contributed to me missing them. For 1, NGC does not currently list them / have slots for them. 2 - and this may be why #1 is true - they are later issues from 2016-2018. The 1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 25 cent and 50-cent were all 2014-dated issues released mostly in 2015. So, the 2014 fractional denominations are often sold as 5-coin sets, without the later issues, and I think I was even searching for "2014" bond coins in my search. So, I completely missed these later issues. There is at least one seller I see offering 7-coin sets on eBay though.
    Now that I know it exists the $1 coin does not surprise me. There were $1 Zimbabwean coins back to the beginning in 1980. Originally their notes started at $2. And, when the bond notes issued in 2016, they also started at $2 - the $1 coins came out with those. The $1 notes of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th dollars are the exceptions to me. So, the $1 coins make sense and fit.
    The $2 bond coin though - that surprised me. Because they also issued the $2 bond notes in 2016 (P-99) and the new $2 notes in 2019 (P-101). So, this $2 coin - which is the same size as the $1 coin but made of nicer metals and looks flipped vs the $1 with the bronze on the inside - seems really out of place / weird / odd.
    I guess I am going to have to do some searching and reading and try to figure out the story there...
    In the 2nd series of the 1st dollar (1994-2004) there was no $2 note. With the release of that series, they retired the original $2 note (P-1) and introduced the first $2 coins. I'm wondering if the $2 bond coins were intended to replace the $2 bond notes when the planned $10 and $20 bond notes rolled out but then they abandoned the while bond coin/note thing and released the new dollars in 2019.
    In a side bit of happy news, I have an order in for 2 $5 coins that I am hoping will look better than the three I got before - no corrosion this time please - and 5 of the $2 Bond Coins - from the same person that sold me the other, gorgeous, 2014 bond coins so I'm optimistic and excited about these! I've identified a seller with some $1 bond coins that look nice but their asking price is a bit higher than I consider ideal... so I'm going to hold off on those for now.
    Based on the pictures I don't know exactly how these will look in hand or how they'll grade but that looks so much better than what I have and at least this might not get body-bagged / details graded for environmental damage...
     



    If NGC does not add them on their own, I will eventually request new slots for the $1 and $2 bond coins, but I am in no rush. I will have the $2 coin soon but probably will not submit until 2022. I have used my credits so I have no time-pressure from the expiring, and I want to try to get together a good group that can maybe take care of most of the ~9 coins I will still need - and maybe take a 2nd stab at any in the current group that come back with bad grades - I am worried about how the 5-cent coin in particular will do.
  14. Revenant
    So… Ben has gotten in to Yugioh cards…
    He started watching it on Netflix after he’d been watching lots of Pokemon and Bakugan and other anime and Netflix suggested it. Thank you for that suggestion Netflix… So helpful.
    So we had a collection of Pokemon cards that was mostly a hand me down from me / my youth, a collection of bakugan, a now rather staggering collection of Beyblades, and now he wants to collect Yugioh Cards and play duel monsters…


    So, we’ve definitely got the whole “collecting” thing down but I’m having a hard time “selling” the coins in the context of this because you can’t play with them, and they don’t do anything and there's not a children’s show geared towards selling and promoting playing with coins. Anyway… 
    We started him out with this pack that had two 30-card decks for $11 so he could have a deck and we could have a deck to play against him with.
    So then a comics and cards store opened up like half a mile from our (old) house a few days ago and he saw it on the way home one day and saw pokemon on the windows and wanted to go there… And Shandy took him… This is critical mistake number 1, folks!
    This place (which I still have not personally gone to, he’s just gone with his mom) apparently has a display case with yugioh cards and last week, for the first time in his life, bought a single - he bought a really powerful monster card that he has been obsessed with for days. He wanted to sleep with it but we said no / drew the line there.
    After that he started talking about getting a “Red Eyes Black Dragon,” which is one of the favorite cards of a character in the show- a blonde American character that you could argue looks a little like my blonde child. He bought a booster pack for the first time hoping to get it and, of course, didn’t get it.
    Please don’t accuse me of loving this kid or liking making him happy, but I went on eBay to see if I could get him something at a good price to surprise him with. I’ve also recently ordered some random lots of cards to be delivered to the new house soon. I think he’s having a lot of feelings about leaving this house and going to a new place and this seemed like it might be a good way to buy him a little joy… I don’t spoil him. Stop looking at me in that tone of voice. 
    But I did find a Red Eyes Black Metal Dragon for cheapish, which isn’t exactly what he was talking about but it’s close enough that I don’t think he’ll care much. If I can get a good price on the OG card later I may yet do that but… we’ll see. I went ahead and ordered 2 so we could have one to try to limit his efforts to literally stack the decks in his favor.

    But this whole thing has had me looking at a lot of Yugioh Cards on eBay and you can find examples of very similar cards with similar stats but one is $50-100 and one is $3. And I start to see that there are “1st editions” and “limited editions” and “unlimited” editions and there have been multiple releases of the same monster sometimes with different art or with a different color for the background or the wording is in a different color and… my gosh there is apparently some subtle stuff that goes into determining if you have garbage or gold.
    Anyway….
    In the course of my shopping I found a Dark Magician Girl card - another card prominent in the show, and this one has some nice artwork on it. My wife has been playing with him a lot and enjoying her “Insect Princess” card so I decided to get this one and have it be for Mommy’s deck. Since Ben keeps trying to get Mom to “trade” and taking cards from her / our deck that he wants (ie all the powerful ones so he can win) I’m going to explain to him that this one is Mom’s exclusively.

    And I also got an offer from a seller to get another of this character’s - Joey Wheeler - favorite cards for $3 so I just took it. The Flame Swordsman.

    Again. I don’t love or spoil this child.
    Of course, I'm not telling him about any of this or letting him know any of it is coming because it will be a few days and I don't want to be nagged to death...
  15. Revenant

    The Zimbabwean $5 coins look more promising this time.

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I got the new Zimbabwean $5 coins I ordered in a few days ago and... they look a lot more shiny and nice this time. They actually look shiny and nice this time - there are no dark spots or mint green areas of obvious environmental damage.
    Unfortunately - no pictures for now. They got packed away a few days ago along with all the other raw coins in 2x2s in the binder.
    We are now 8 days out from when we're supposed to get the keys to the new place and all non-essentials are rapidly getting packed away.
    Tomorrow the last PMG-graded note I expect to receive in the mail at this house is going to be delivered. I'm hoping I get a chance to scan that in and get that in my Zimbabwe note set before the move but... it's almost immediately going into one of my note boxes with all its buddies and then those boxes and the NGC display boxes are going to get packed up soon for a trip - the first time most of them have moved in a while because they don't get out much.
    The $2 Bond coins I ordered from a seller in Ukraine recently hit New York. Those will probably arrive in time to have them put in a box - unopened, in their mailer - and they probably won't be looked at good until I'm in the new house.
    I'm hoping to snag up a $1 Bond coin and some other raw hole filler and maybe have a nice 2nd submission shape up for early 2022, maybe / hopefully getting that Zimbabwe coin collection into proper fighting shape. My descriptions are already drafted up and saved in a word file in my cloud storage. I'm really excited to roll out that set display and extend the Zimbabwe set back into the NGC side, coming back over here with it and coming full circle with it a bit. I always thought building a set of these coins to go with the notes and really complete the collection would be more of a "some day" thing but I think I'm going to be really happy with how this comes together - even if it takes me a while to fill in the last few slots.
    Speaking of the NGC note boxes - I finally ordered more of them for the first time probably in 10-12 years. I over bought back in the day and had a couple of extras / empty ones and I've finally filled up what spare space I had a little at a time. I'll be getting 5 new boxes soon. One of which will be dedicated just to the new Zimbabwe set when it gets back from grading.

    After the recent purchase of that 2011 set the Presidential proof coins are filling one box perfectly - I'm thinking and hoping that another of the new boxes is going to go towards more of those and maybe some innovation series dollars which I think I will build a set of as I'm able and inclined.
    I'm going to keep trying with Ben. I hope he looks at all these things with the same wonder that I had when I looked at Grandpa's old silver dollars, but I'll also be showing him mercury dimes, standing liberty quarters, walking liberty halfs...
    ... and my wife is reminding me that, as and if I do this, we're also going to have to talk to him about the fact that he's not allowed to tell other people about them...
    I love her, but she's kind of a buzz-kill some days.  But she's right. The kid runs his mouth and repeats everything.  
    In all seriousness though, that's one of the reasons I like this place. The people that "really know me" and who I see face to face I don't talk to about this stuff with and I never have. Shandy has more than once made the comment that she didn't realize at the time how big of a deal it was when we were dating and I allowed her to see all this stuff.  
    Edited to add: Some emerging drama got me to get the Binder out so here's shots:
     




  16. Revenant

    One day, I will have a full set... maybe.

    By Revenant,


    Random Nonsense
    Recent discussions on the forums had me looking at and thinking about getting some of the new American Innovation series dollars to show Ben and Sam as they get older.
    I'd initially dismissed the idea of doing this in 2018/2019 because I didn't really have the budget for it, and I was sure it turn into another series I'd never finish - like the presidential dollars.
    This got me looking at the presidential dollars on eBay. The last time I did this I picked up the 2009 and 2010 sets but couldn't find any of the later years for a price I liked. Still, going from 8 coins to 16 got me up to Lincoln and it was a step in the right direction. This time I found the 2011s - and decided to snap them up. They were at a good price, and I really wanted to get them because this at least gets me to 50% complete and gets me to having all the Civil War era presidents - including Grant.

    Why is Grant important? When we were assigned presidents to do research papers on in the 5th grade, I got Grant and I read his bio from the library. So, I wanted that one and it bothered me that I didn't have it.
    Yes. I still remember what president I did a report on in the 5th grade, but I sometimes struggle to find my keys. I feel you judging me. We can now move on.
    Maybe one of these days I'll actually finish that set. I may try to pick up one or two more year sets of these soon and move a little closer. It seems like it may be possible to snag a 2015 or 2016 set at a reasonable price soon. I'd rather go for 2012 but I'm going to prioritize low hanging fruit and I'm not seeing any good deals on the 2012 sets currently.
    And I may yet get the innovation series coins and maybe finish those or maybe not. Even if I don't get them all the boys may get some enjoyment and value from them and they may prove to be another way to get the boys to connect with coins. And that polio vaccine coin is interesting to me. Being a PhD engineer, and a researcher, some of them relate to some cool history.
    I think I got up to having four each of the first 9 Queen's Beast coins before everything went insane and bullion prices went crazy. I would love to finish those and get the new "completer" coin, but I just am not in love with paying $75-90 for a 2-ounce coin. I was happier paying $40-45. I just don't know when or if I'll be able to swallow that pill. For that money I'm just having more fun with other projects - like the Zimbabwe coins.
    Small aside but, after ordering these I decided at the end of a stressful afternoon to try to find the other 16 so I could get them all together and have them in a box together. I got frustrated with hunting through boxes to find what I wanted, snapped a little and started some red-neck labeling with printer paper and tape. Maybe this will help me after the move is finished in a couple of weeks. I need to work on getting more boxes soon I guess.
    I tried to show the coins to Ben and just didn't get much response at first. He wanted to watch his Lego movie and had no time for my nonsense talk of guys on coins.  The next day he did come up to me while they were out, and we talked about them some. I'm going to try to keep encouraging interest in history and coins with him. Sam still isn't ready. I don't really think Ben gets it yet either - I don't think he really understands who the president is yet - but he'll get there soon enough.
    Speaking of Ben, he just hit a new milestone. He lost his first baby tooth last night - it had gotten super loose and was hurting him, so he stood very calmly while I pulled it out.
     

    Apparently, his cousin gets notes / letters from the tooth fairy so I had to write one for him. I never got letters. I just got cash! I used to get $1. These days the norm appears to be $5. I think it will be used to buy yet another beyblade. The size of his collection these days is both shocking and impressive.
  17. Revenant
    The 1882 20L coin arrived recently and I'm very happy to have it. It's a great addition to my growing set of smaller European gold coins from the late 19th and early 20th century - a group of coins I call my "golden nickels," because they're all about the size of a US nickel and because of what happened at around that same point in history with the "no cents" V nickels in 1883.

    It's a group of coins from the pre-Great War period that I think I'll always find endlessly fascinating. All of the currencies were pegged to gold and convertible to each other through gold, to the point that the Swiss 20 franc, the French 20 Franc and the Italian 20 Lire were the same gold weight (0.1867 ozt) and the coins were essentially interchangeable.
    The Euro and the unified currency zone was hailed as such a huge thing about 20 years ago, but, looking at these, I can't help but think it was less an accomplishment and more of a semi-return to what had existed previously.
    The third stimulus check was passed and we were amongst the first to get it, having already filed and gotten our 2020 return, so I got the green-light to order an NGC MS62 1913-A Prussian 20 Mark - from one of the last years they were made, heading into the conflict that made these coins endangered and then extinct as circulating currency. My French Rooster is also from that year.
    I'm really wondering lately - with what others have said about the world coin market and the coin market in general - and I'm wondering if these checks going to people like me, who are into collectables and who didn't suffer job loss or much hardship in 2020, is helping putting money and bids into the collectables markets and not just the stock market through things like Robinhood and WeBull. I keep hearing about surveys saying most people are saving the money and we're saving most of it to, but, if you get free money out of nowhere and you have a hobby you enjoy it's hard to not treat yourself a little.
    I decided to go with the 20 Mark over a Swiss 20 Franc for now, even though the 20F has been on my radar longer, because:
    - My wife also has a strong affinity for Germany
    - I already have a Swiss 10F from 1922 that has essentially the same obverse so I feel like the 20F adds less overall to my collection.
    - I love the look of the German war eagle on the reverse of this design.
    - It is from the reign of Wilhelm II and I just like Willems Wilhelms and Williams. 🤣
    One nice thing is all of this is that most of these coins have been graded in more recent times and they're all mostly in newer gen holders l, which I'm hoping will mean several of them will soon go great together in a nice little display.
    Generic image just to show and conversation for now but I'm looking forward to getting the 1913 I ordered and seeing it in person.

  18. Revenant
    The 20 Mark coin arrived a while back and I was really happy with how the coin looked in hand. I’d been a little concerned about unattractive marks on an MS62, but I was very happy with the look of this one. There’s a significant number of scratches on the high points but nothing I consider too distracting or detracting from the look of the coin when I look at it in person (pictures can always be a bit hit or miss with how good or bad they make a coin look under high magnification).

    As it happened, on the same day this arrived I also got a little tin miniature I’d ordered that is a knight painted up as a German knight. So, a German coin and a German knight (shipped from a mini painter in Russia that sells these things at very reasonable prices for the level of quality he delivers). Interesting and fun timing.

    I also (finally) doubled up on a trip to the post office - I had to mail a box for work and I finally made myself take my 10G coins, packed in a box with some CWT for grading and mail them to NGC. I'm looking forward to seeing all of those 10G coins back in their new matching holders.
    Getting myself to actually mail that off and thinking about it has been a surprising source of anxiety for me, which is probably what kept me putting it off for so long. The idea of handing over a box with thousands of dollars of old coins that I've been building / searching for over 12+ years made me nervous - even more so after what happened the last time I sent a big submission to NGC. The box ended up getting soaked and nearly destroyed and it was delivered to NGC being held together with shrink wrap. NGC called me when they got it asking me if I even wanted them to open it and continue with the grading, it had been mistreated so badly. That was over 10 years ago and I don't think I will ever forget that call. But the box is being shipped as registered mail now so I'm hoping it'll be treated better this time.
    We are currently in the middle of the 2nd week of Sam's 3 week intensive therapy sessions where he has 4, 4-hour PT sessions a week and he has to wear a cast for 2 weeks to force him to work with his right arm more. He's tired and exhausted and so is Shandy. I'm taking Ben to preschool and picking him up instead of her so Ben’s getting less Mom-time so he's more needy and my day /schedule is far more fractured and chaotic than it normally is. It's not easy, but we did manage to squeeze in a lot of celebrating of Ben’s 5th birthday the last week or so.
    He's been spoiled quite thoroughly with tons of presents from all the family, and now he's about to get Easter. Tons of new Beyblades for his collection and he is thrilled!
    I think I took the shot below about a week ago, he's been given like 4 more since then and there are 2 that had been missing for a couple of weeks at the time I took this and I have no idea where they got to. I think we're up to having 3 that are AWOL and I'm getting him a case to hopefully keep better track of them and lose fewer of them - not that it harshes his game to misplace one with this many to play with... Please don't think he's loved or spoiled though.

  19. Revenant

    New Storage and Display Options

    By Revenant,


    Coin Displays
    My father's day gifts this year hit the PMG and NGC sides of my activities, with Shandy and Ben giving me a new green note storage box and a new display case for graded coins.
    This follows up on a couple of previous posts in my journals.

    These note storage boxes come in 4 colors and I'd gotten 3 of them a while back - black, blue and red, but not a green. Why? The others were $20 each and you couldn't get a green for under $30-35. No clue why, as I said at the time on the PMG side. But I guess green finally got back in stock and she was able to get one for a normal price. So now I have all the colors and a new box, just in time for a 15 note submission to come back from PMG net week. I'm super excited to get those back and I'll be reorganizing things to make better use of the new box / space.

    Those checks and building registry sets will probably be a major focus for me once they get here. I'll probably be using that as my diversion while trying to get through the "house situation." From Sam's birth in 2019, that Zimbabwe collection is now in its 3rd year of being my preferred repository for nervous energy.
    The display case for the coins looks fantastic in person - better than I'd expected really. I love cherry colored wood and this thing looks and feels great. I think I'm going to stock it with two French 20 Franc coins, my Sovereign, my Prussian 20 Mark and the Italian 20 Lire. I think that's going to be looking sweet and I'll have to find a spot for it in the new office.



    I think the wife might be subtly calling me lazy for illustrating this post with the cell phone in bad lighting.
    I could also love having one of these with a SLQ, a Walking Lib Half, a merc dime, a Peace Dollar, and a Morgan - maybe even the Morgan NGC just gave me the other month.
    Shandy has said she may one day gift me a custom 10 or 11 note case that could house the entire 10G set and, even if this happens before I finish the set, it could just have a couple of empty place-holder spots for the 2-3 coins I still need.
    I'm still undecided on if I even want to deal with the 1879/7 variety for that set. But honestly, if one ever comes up in a good grade at a reasonable price and I can afford it I will probably get it. If I can't just afford it will my coin budget, I'll probably beg and plead and see if I can get Shandy to cave.
  20. Revenant
    A few entries ago I jokingly referred to my 10G set as my “golden babies.” I thought was being silly and a little tongue-in-cheek, but my wife has given me no end of ribbing about this, so I think I’m going to be continuing to catch grief about that for a while every time those coins come up in conversation.
    I think this cements the Zimbabwe set as my “pride and joy” and the 10G set as my “golden babies” whenever my wife feels the need to tease me.
    They do look good in the new holders though, almost like they are a set of things that belong with each other.

    I can't find an old shot I thought I had of the 8 NGC coins / 9 coins together and alone but the shot below (vs the above) helps show how much more cohesive this makes the group look.
    The large number of old fatty holders in the set gave the set some consistency in presentation, but, after 25+ years some of those holders were just scratched to hell and some of the holograms on the back were just ... gone. it's a much prettier set now.
    It may have just not been necessary to reholder the 1888 at all since it was already in a new-gen holder with a new-gen label, but now it is scratch resistant!

     
  21. Revenant
    A few months ago I talked to another collector who recalled a conversation where-in he and someone else agreed that, if they had tried to build their collections today, buying graded coins and not ones they “discovered” themselves, they never could have afforded to build their collections because prices have gone up so much.

    I can’t help but think of that statement periodically and ask myself, “So do we really want the value / price of these things to go up?” Or, stated more usefully, “Do I?”

    The answer to the first question is always “it depends” - and this is true whether I ask it of coin collectors or silver stackers - like at the r/silverbugs subreddit. People who are accumulating / building (usually younger) want prices lower (or, at least stable, no one wants to feel like they lost money really). People that are selling or looking to sell soon (usually older, possibly who viewed their collections as part of their retirement savings) tend to want prices higher or rising.

    But personally, I don’t know that I care fore the idea of rising prices. I don’t know that I care if the value of my 10G set and some similar projects ever rises. Part of this is that I don’t view my collection as an investment - certainly not solely as an investment. I have a budget for “fun” / my entertainment and the coins are bought out of that. The 401K is funded completely as its own thing. I want to keep building my collection into my old age.

    Yeah, I like the idea that there’s some gold / silver value in a coin and that helps provide somewhat of a floor whereby I wouldn’t have to sell the thing for 10 cents on the dollar of what I paid for it hopefully… but I’m hoping to not sell. My most important projects are things that I’m hoping to pass on to my sons upon my death. So, value at resale is something I hope to never worry about. Meanwhile, lower prices mean I get to keep collecting.

    I do definitely hope I don’t take too much of a loss on some of these coins if I have to sell, but I know that I almost certainly will take some kind of small loss on them unless gold goes up meaningfully. Why? Because I’m one of the few that collects some of these as coins and doesn’t treat them mostly as bullion.

  22. Revenant
    This might be a bit rambling but I will get to a point, I swear.
    My wife and I got that 2nd stimulus check a few weeks ago and we set about spending the majority of it on 1) redoing and improving our kids playroom to make it more comfortable and fun for the boys ($500 that has made life sooo much easier for Shandy) 2) allowing us to spend more than we normally would have on anniversary presents and 3) planning a weekend AirBnB get away to celebrate Ben’s Bday since he will once again not be getting a party with friends.
    I was joking with my wife last week that, if this $1400 third round gets passed (which, who knows what that will be for a family of 4 this time - IF something gets passed - IF we're elligible) I'd love to pick up a couple of the small gold coins on my list that I'd like to get- including an Italian 20L and / or a Swiss 20F.
    She said she was maybe open to that but the other high priority thing is that Sam has an intensive, 3 week therapy session coming up in March and she was wanting to use the check, if we got one, to minimize the impact on our savings. We've been waiting for them to run it on insurance (we have great insurance) but we've been worried that this might be a $3,000-5,000 hit for us, but it's something we both feel Sam will benefit from.
    Anyway... we found out that - in part because of the way they bill and the way the insurance treats it - we may only be out $1,250. We already have this set aside to pay medical costs / his deductible for this year.
    So I'm thinking the coin budget might be saved / beefed up a little if 1) we get a third check, 2) I get a bonus, or 3) our tax bill is less than the ~$4,500 I have set aside for it.
    Of course, this usually involves making some concessions to Shandy too. Last year she was supposed to get a spa day which she never got because of CoVID and it is still owed to her. I still have no clue when she'll feel safe enough to do that. Maybe in Q3 when / if most people are vaccinated and we are too hopefully.
    Seems like the reddit silver squeeze attempt is fizzling and not sizzling for now so I'm hoping prices will be mostly reasonable when the time comes, if the time comes.
    We'll see if any of this day dreaming amounts to anything but it's fun for now either way.
  23. Revenant
    So Ben randomly pops up with the fact that he wants a "penny sorter," which my brain interprets to mean one of those automatic coin sorting and rolling machines.
    I hadn't thought of those in years probably but him saying this reminded me of the fact that I used to see those in Walgreens and other places as a kid. I always really wanted one and thought they would be so cool, but I could just never justify it (or talk my mom into it) and so I always just sorted, counted and rolled by hand. To this day I've never owned one. But the whole thing and the memories brought an immediate smile to my face.
    Ben wanted to use my phone's Amazon app to look at some/ shop for one, just like he likes to for toys so we looked together. It looks like they no longer make ones like the ones that I used to want as a kid - makes sense after 20-25 years that the designs have moved on / progressed.
    Before we started shopping for and laying down a lot of money from savings to buy the new house I probably would have talked to Shandy and maybe gotten one for $25 for a laugh. But, Ben has been acting more than slightly spoiled lately with his toy demands and the house purchase IS burning through a lot of money. So at this point I'm just not interested in buying something we 100% do not need and which is just going to sit around until I have to pack it up to move in 2 months.
    The other thing is this kid already has like 3 piggy banks / coin banks and he really just does NOT need another bank at home.
    In our increasingly cashless society I sometimes wonder how many kids still get piggy banks? But these things must still be common / popular enough if they're still being offered for sale in so many varieties.
  24. Revenant

    “PIF by Borrower”

    By Revenant,

    For months now I’ve been crossing my fingers hoping that I’d get a nice bonus and we’d be able to pay off my student loans and maybe finish paying for the cruise we’re wanting to take in October.
    I’m still waiting to find out about if I’ll get a bonus this year, but we just got a big surprise on our Taxes. Because we can claim an extra dependent this year and a couple of other things this year, instead of owing money we’re going to get some back and this is going to let us pay off my loans, pay off the cruise and have a little left over. We may be able to use that to eliminate one other debt and, if we can, that’d be three big bills / debts off our plate.
    I have to wait until the money comes in and we can’t file until we get one last form, but my student loans are as good as dead - 6 years early. My reward for paying 2.5 times the normal payment every month that I could afford it.
    “PIF by borrower” are wonderful words.
    … Now to start working harder on her student loans. That… will take a while and be fun.
    Hey, maybe, if I do get a bonus, I really will get to treat myself a little!
    As it happens, just in the last couple of days, an NGC graded 1880 10G coin has come up for sale in an old fatty holder with a 1959XX serial number. I’d be a perfect addition to my set but the seller’s asking price is a bit steep. If I get a good bonus, I may try to make an offer and see if they’ll take something more reasonable for it. If I don’t get a bonus and it’s still available in a few weeks I may just negotiate a deal with my wife, just like I did when I got the 1888 in early 2018.
    If it’s still available when I’m ready to buy, I’ll be really excited to get that coin. But getting rid of these bills will feel great.
    I do sometimes question if I’d be better served to have put even more towards the bills and less than I currently do to the coins and the hobbies, but this is my fun, this is how I treat myself, and there are worse ways I could do it.
    Yup... I'm probably going to have a hard time using most of that grading credit if I keep going for things that are already graded.
  25. Revenant

    Zimbabwean Coins Set and Traveler’s Check Sets

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwean Coins and Currency
    I said in a recent post that I’d be looking to buy some Zimbabwe coins from a dealer in the US that I’ve used a lot and get those submitted. Then, to my surprise, when I went to order, I found that they’d upped their prices and upped their minimum order from $50 to $100. Yeah, they offer free shipping, but, sheesh. Let me have the option to pay the shipping for a smaller order. I wanted to order 2 sets of coins and some notes for about $55. I had not wanted to or planned to spend $100 and buy 3-4 sets… So, I just didn’t.
    Having looked into this more, I’m finding that I may not be able to get those 10-coin sets in uncirc. condition anywhere else for less than about $25/set, where with that dealer I can get them for about $20/set - $18 if I wait for one of their frequent sales. Also, I increasingly like the idea of getting 3 sets, getting one graded and keep 2 raw – one for each boy.
    So, I might just hold my nose and put in a larger order soon. And now I feel a bit silly for getting such a stick up my butt about it, but it didn’t feel right at the time and so I’ll stand by that choice.
    While I’m changing up my plans and waiting on a sale – probably a few weeks, Mother’s day and Father’s day will probably shake out something – I decided to grab a bunch of the 2014 bond coins. I’m going to try to submit these all together and have a bunch of them labeled -001 to -015 on the same invoice – an idea I’m stealing from Fenntucky Mike’s comment on my Traveler Check plans. I found a seller offering 5 sets of 5 Bond Coins for $28 so I ordered that and used my eBay bucks – 25 coins for about $23.50 after my bucks. Not bad. I’ll keep 4 sets Raw probably and organize 1 10-coin set and 2 5-coin Bond coin sets into a 20-coin album page and one day Ben and Sam will each get one, I think.
    Even if I pull that off though I don’t think they’ll be listed from -001 to -015 in the set just because of the… slightly odd? way NGC lists / orders the slots and includes the bond coins and the fact that there’s a couple of varieties / designs of some denominations… It would make more sense to me to have the Bond Coins listed together at the end. This may be worth chasing up with NGC to see if they’d re-order the slots.

    Maybe I need to try to just get them all together first… but I need to get moving on placing that order and getting these soon, I think. Getting lower tier things through seems to be taking a while lately and I’d ideally like to have more than one coin in my Zimbabwe coin set for 2021. That dime did the heavy lifting for 2020 but that’s an awfully lonely looking coin.
    I think that would help make for a cool set. My working title for the coin set is going to be “The Early Victims of Hyperinflation,” or “Extinct Due to Hyperinflation” a reference to the fact that Zimbabwean coins went the way of the Dodo a lot sooner / faster than their notes did, as coins always do.
    I’ve gone ahead and done the paperwork to submit the Zimbabwe traveler’s checks (P-15 to P-20) – without waiting on P-40 and P-45 – because I just don’t want to keep holding these up. I’m going to ship them in large BCW top loaders for protection and I’ve requested / ordered some small flat rate USPS boxes, which I think should be pretty much the perfect size for this job and the small coin submissions I’m hoping to do soon. I’m submitting all 12 checks but doing each set of P-15 to P-20 on separate forms so they’ll be two sets numbered -001 to -006 and I’ll get to fill two competitive sets with them. The best of each will go in the “Gradually, Then Suddenly” and I might make a signature set will all ~13 I’ll have at that point.
    Between getting some orders placed, having flips to put coins in already and having shipping supplies coming it feels good to be rapidly making several material steps towards getting these things done and actually using the 2020 grading credits, unlike the 2019 one. But… 2020 was just rough. But I do also feel it was a personal failure to let that drag on for months while my anxiety over putting those coins in the mail quietly got the better of me.
    The box with the 10G coins was delivered to NGC on 4/5 and their latest update says they’re opening the mail from 4/1 and 4/2 presently. So I’m hoping they’ll show in the system soon.