Revenant

A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup."
We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe.
Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even when we got it back we were under a boil water notice until about the 22nd or 23rd (hard to remember now). We lost power around midnight on Tuesday the 16th. It was out for 22 hours. We got it back for 4 hours, lost it again, and didn't have it again. We brought the boys into our bed for warmth (and a miserable night for us) and bundled up under 4 or 5 layers to stay warm.

Our ceiling caved in around 5 PM Tuesday. A pipe burst in two places. Shandy rushed in to try to poke holes and drain the water and was rewarded with sheetrock and insulation falling on her head.
Shortly before all that happened we'd been camping out in the back end of our fully gassed-up mini-van just to be in a warm place for a while - but we were smart enough to no do this with the car in the garage.
The pipe that burst was uninsulated copper pipe. With no insulation, no heat, and water cutting in and out I'm just not sure what we could have done to stop this.
One of the worst things about all of this is that we had a 9000 Watt generator and a 1500 Watt heater that could have kept us with heat in 1 room and some lights - we could have been a lot more comfortable, but we didn't buy enough gas to keep the generator running very long because we were not expecting it to be this bad. The warnings they gave before the storm were about lines coming down for a while - not power plants failing and day long blackouts. I'm not going to make that mistake again. Over the weekend we bought 4 more 5 gallon gas tanks and the next time this comes we're going to have enough gas to run the heaters, the refrigerator, the and the freezer (all that food ruined...) for 2-3 days straight. I've taken my lumps and I'm going to be better equipped next time.


Shandy was crying... I came in, looked at this, and just laughed. Shandy didn't appreciate that much but it was just too ridiculous at that point.
We left the house early Wednesday to go somewhere warmer and dryer.
The landlady got a plumber out on Thursday of last week and I returned to supervise and to dry things out and clean up as best I could since we had power back at that point.
A clean-up company then came out on Saturday to rip out the ceiling and start working on drying out the ceiling / attic. There's still a massive hole in the roof but we've been back in the House since Saturday. We still have the biggest hole in the ceiling I think I've ever seen and the room is unusable as a result with plastic sheeting everywhere but we're doing better than many / most.
We've been working on our renter's insurance claim and had adjusters out. Nothing tooo terrible lost and we can replace all of it - mostly baby books and baby toys.
In slightly better news, we're working on wrapping up our taxes and things are looking good there. Some of that money is probably going to have to be used to offset the insurance deductible but I'm still hopeful I can talk my wife into letting me get away with something small, yellow, and shiny in a plastic housing. It might be a good time to do it with the dive Gold is taking this week.
No news on performance evals, raises or bonuses this year - I'm honestly not optimistic on that front for facilitating a shiny purchase but stranger things have happened and I'm mostly just grateful to continue to have a job after the 2020 many others had.
Barring a timely gold purchase the next "coin & currency" buy is going to be a currency / pseudo currency buy.
Speaking of Ben - he is increasingly showing interest in collections and collecting things, but the things he wants to collect are 1) Beyblades, 2) Bakugan and 3) [now] pokemon cards apparently. 

When I shipped my box of 10G coins (and a few others) last week I was pretty happy/ content to fork over an extra $26 for Registered mail. The box in question was worth about $5,000-6,000 dollars and contained 12 years of a collecting journey. I would have a hard time finding another 1880, 1887 and 1888 in Gem or near gem grades. I do not want to lose those.
However, I'm hoping to queue up 2 more submissions soon - one to NGC and one to PMG, both related to my Zimbabwe collection, that are going to have a total value of $20-50 each. It's hard to justify paying an extra $26 to protect against the loss of things that are so casually replaceable. Increasingly find that I don't even really consider insurance much once the cost of the insurance starts to exceed about 10% of the cost of the item - including and especially these service / warranty plans that Amazon keeps trying to sell me on electronics.
Anyway, it's just a funny thing to think about - for me anyway.
I'm hoping to belt out these next couple of submissions within the next couple of months - I'm hoping I don't let it drag into another 8 month ordeal of trying to convince myself to deal with it. With the 10Gs just the idea of how best to package and pad them was a very big deal for me, but I can tell already I'm just going to be a lot less worried about a Z-coin submission on a bunch of levels. But I guess that makes sense when the value and effort involved is 0.5-1.0% that of the first box. With the last box I ended up stealing some of my wife's more sad-looking hair-ties because I couldn't find rubber bands. Well... "stealing..." I did ask her if it was okay first... For the first one anyway.  
The big things that are going to hold these up for now is that I need to order the coins from a domestic dealer that actually has and sells them - it has been surprisingly hard to find US-based sellers for the Zimbabwe coin sets - and included in that coin order will be a couple more notes I need for filling holes. I don't think I want to make my notes / traveller check submission and then have to submit these other notes (like a P-40 and P-45) separately. I'd like to just knock them all out together. 
Side note but tracking says the box with the 10G coins was delivered today. It got to Sarasota on Monday. For all the noise that gets made about Registered Mail slowing things down a lot - and with even USPS saying it can slow shipping by 6-10 days - that got to Florida pretty quickly - even with the supposed high package volume that is supposedly slowing USPS down.
The box also contains a 1975 Bahama's gold coin - the only raw gold coin that I own - that I decided to get graded because... why not? And a couple of old raw civil war tokens. I wanted to add those to the 4 graded ones I have and maybe one of these days I'll get back into collecting those more seriously again. The ones I have are some of my favorite diversions in my collection / collecting. I really enjoy this history of them. but then, I really enjoy the history of a lot of coins, including my growing set of "golden nickels."

The last few weeks have been very busy. Perhaps this is why I was so surprised to find a package from NGC in my mailbox today. I was so excited that I did not make it to the front door before I had the package ripped open and the coin in hand. Usually, I make an effort not to open coin-related mail outside, but my excitement got the best of me.
On any note, I received an 1881 S Morgan Dollar graded MS-64 with the notation of “2020 NGC Registry Award Winner” on the label. This is the only silver dollar I have in my collection, but I plan to display it along with the plaque. The cert verification images do this coin no justice, so I took a few very quick pictures. Photographing silver dollars is entirely new to me, so this proved an interesting experience. As I noted in one of my previous journal entries, I have been slowly gathering lower-value coins to hone my photography skills, so photographing this coin was a real treat for me. I am not entirely happy with how the pictures turned out, so I plan to retry once I have more time.

In 2019 I won the most creative custom set award, and that plaque has been proudly displayed on top of the bookcase behind my desk since it arrived. I plan to take a trip to Walmart tonight to find a stand for the 2020 award so that they can be displayed together. I can’t help but wonder how my wife will react when I add it alongside the other. She is very supportive, but she still likes to tease me about my “mega nerd” hobby now and again.

I had the pleasure of speaking with one of the higher-ups at NGC the other day to request a special favor, and it reconfirmed everything I knew about NGC. I am a small-time collector, yet this gentleman took the time to discuss my request and encouraged me to send my items his way. It never ceases to amaze me how dedicated NGC is to the hobby and how willing they are to go the extra mile to help collectors. I have already figured out how to spend the $500 grading credit generously provided by our hosts to further my collecting goals, which I hope to detail in a future journal.
I want to thank NGC and the staff for their consideration, and I look forward to competing again this year!
Once again, congratulations to all of the winners!

Lol, So some context to this great feat of mine.   I recently asked for the registry team to include a new Lincoln set that does not require the varieties to be included in it.   Nothing against those who like collecting the varieties but its just not my thing.  To my surprise today I noticed that NGC created the set that I had asked for!    So I jumped in and created the very first set and am sitting in the number one spot; I have no doubt that as soon as the big guns spot the new set they will leapfrog over me and I'll end up in the 6 or 7 spot as I am in most of the Lincoln sets.   But I can say that for once I have the top Lincoln set in one category no matter how short lived that claim ends up being.   I think I should be drinking a brandy in a sniffer glass with a big stogie, tomorrow its back to beer.  

While Shandy was napping with the baby, I let Ben have the TV and sat down to continue this project.
Shandy sent a picture to her parents recently to let them know where some of our important papers (like our wills) were stored and all of my Father-in-law's coins were visible in the shot, stacked up nearby. I pointed that out to them, and my wife made the comment that my FiL would like seeing that and that knowing something was being done with them. That got me feeling motivated to continue with this after an elongated pause.
So today I finished labeling these new additions and started mixing them in with what I had before from my grandfather and other sources. Today was focused on Germany and Italy, but I have a stack to work through for Spain, Denmark and Turkey - Turkey was a surprise. I wasn't expecting so much from Turkey.

Working on this always seems to get me feeling oddly emotional because of what it is - a mixture of my grandfather's coins and coins given to my mother to give to me and coins friends from other countries have given me and now it'll include coins from Shandy's father and childhood. It's now a multi-generational thing that draws from both sides of my son's family that they will have the chance to be the 4th generation to hold and add to. There's always been that connection to my grandfather and now it will tie in with her father - a man I have learned over the years that I have more in common with than I would have guessed when I met him or when he briefly wanted to kill me for knocking up his daughter. Lol
Flipping through this binder, I can't help but thinking I would have flipped over it as a kid. I would have been amazed and in awe.
Ben did come over at one point and was briefly blown away by it. Lots of "wows" and "cools." He grabbed several coins off my neat stacks to show me and we talked about it briefly before he brought up the real reason for coming over - after 3 episodes Netflix had paused his show and he couldn't find the remote. Lol of course, none of the coins he picked up to look at were returned to my neat little stacks...
I'm still not finished, but I'm getting closer. It is however becoming clear that I may need another binder - not a problem I was really expecting to have any time soon when I got that big 'ol thing a couple years back.

There are several coins in the lot that I could call out just for being cool to look at. Some of these will probably get more discussion but I'll try to do at least a little better than a simple, "Hey! LookIt! Ain't it cool?!?" - Although I could totally see taking pictures of a bunch of the coins from Greece and sharing those just because.

Well it has been a while since I actually bought a coin and 2020 turned out to be the first year in a long time that I didn’t pick up multiple lots at the major European auctions over the autumn. I should say this was not from a lack of trying, it is just that I was outbid on the lots I was interested in – sometimes quite spectacularly – so I was delighted when I picked up a 1809 20 Lire from the Milan mint of Napoleonic Italy in AU58 (although the mintage is 52,640 there are only 27 coins graded at NGC for this date and my coin is tied with one other at this grade with only a single coin finer at MS62).

Just to complicate things there are two known varieties for the 1809 issue which, like 1808, these differ in the stars on the reverse. For the 1808 varieties there are 3 or 6 stars on either side of the standard whereas the 1809 coins both have 3 stars in the design however it is the star below the crown which is now different and this has either 5-points or 6-points. In some examples the 6-point star looks very much like one 5-point star on top of another and these two interpretations exist in the reference books.

Corpus Nummorum Italicorum (1913), Pagani (1965), Krause and NGC do not differentiate between these varieties. Gadoury (2019) and PCGS highlight 5-pointed (4@XF45 and 2@AU53) and 6-pointed stars (one each at XF45, AU53 and MS62) whereas Montenegro (2020) describes the second variety as a 5-pointed star over another. Gigante (2021) highlights a total of four varieties, which are a combination of the normal 5-pointed star and one with extra points on the reverse coupled with two obverse dies depending on the position of the M mintmark relative to the 0 in the date, with this latter difference being known for the later dates.

I find coins endlessly fascinating however it is such details which means that the search is never over and it looks like I need to find at least 3 more varieties for 1809M!

So, counting the post yesterday on the PMG side this'll be three posts in three days but I guess things are finally starting to settle and I'm starting to de-stress and I feel like talking / writing again.
The good news on the tax return front, other developments in the political sphere that I've referenced before, and the recent dip in gold prices have me optimistic that, in the near future, I'll get to knock a coin off my wish list, and I think its going to be an Italian 20 Lire.
The more I think about it I'm increasingly liking the idea of making a small display with a Sovereign and the 20 Lire since my wife lived in those countries growing up (I brought this up in the "5 Years" post in January). Having discussed it with her I think see likes the idea too. This led to a bit of dreaming and browsing on Amazon and sharing some images / ideas with her, which she also seems to like. I really like the idea of combining this hobby of mine with a bit of her family history and something she loves and thinks of fondly for something we can look at and enjoy together.

Another idea that has some appeal to me though would be getting something a little bigger and including one of the Netherlands 10G coins, a Swiss 10 or 20 Franc, a French 20 Franc and maybe (eventually) a Prussian 20 Mark. This idea would be somewhat aspirational in nature too though in that she want's to return to Italy with me for a vacation one day and I think she's wanting to visit other places in Europe together over time because she just loves travel - she's very experienced based in her thinking and not at all really a collector or a "stuff" kind of person. Makes me wonder why she married a hording homebody like me but I probably shouldn't question it much.

But (and this is just more of me musing and dreaming) if I ever manage to complete a 10-coin date set of Willem III 10G coins I'd love to get either two of these or something that could display 10 coins and make a really cool display of that set. If I somehow manage to finish that set after like 15 years and get them all in pretty new-gen holders that match I have to find some fun and cool way to display that set. I just have to. I'd love to have them all in 1 case but I've only seen options with up to 8 coins displayed at a time. So if I want 10 I think I may need to find a custom option or get 2 of these 5 coin ones... If I'm dumb enough to get the 1879/7 variety and make it an 11-coin set I may be very SOL. Maybe I could put the 10 coin date set together and put the 9/7 in with the multi-currency displayed above. 
 
I wonder if anyone else here has experience with these things, owns some or use them to display anything? I see a lot of them for "challenge coins" too.
Oh my... me and my big dreams.  I used to laugh and roll my eyes at my mother for all of her big plans and big projects that never came to fruition and I still laugh at my wife for all of her day dreaming about things (like winning the lottery and going off on her millionth vacation idea) and here I am doing the same .Her favorite dream and point of discussion is possibly buying a home near her parents soon and moving away from this house.
Talking about all of this got her asking me about what my favorite coin(s) is / are. In response to my answers I got a "I love my coin nerd," and a "I would love to go to a show with you and be bored to tears just wandering about and holding your hand." I have this in writing in Messenger so there's proof and she can't call me a liar later!  
On a slightly random note on the 10G set, I almost never see anything over an MS66 graded by NGC but I have several times now seen PCGS graded coins at a MS67 or MS68 come up for sale - especially at Heritage and similar places. There's only two theories I can come up with on this - either 1) PCGS just grades higher / looser on these than NGC does or 2) all the REALLY high grade examples have gone to PCGS and not to NGC for grading because that was the preference of the owners / submitters at the time.
I'm worried that it might be number 1 given what I've heard with regard to PCGS world coin grading but I simply have not seen enough PCGS graded examples in-hand. All I can say is that I think the NGC MS66s I have look as nice or nicer to me than my 1875 MS67, which PCGS graded. But I'm not a grader, and I don't claim to be able to grade these (or anything) in that grade range where small nicks and differences count for so much. A lot of this has just continued to dim any hopes I had with regard to perhaps one day crossing that PCGS coin at the same grade and further convince me that getting the NGC graded 1875 to go with the NGC registry set instead was probably the way to go. I don't want to give up that MS67 on the slab if it ever comes time to resell (but I like the coin and I'm not in a huge rush to sell) but I also like the idea of having a full NGC-graded matched set one day.
That's all for now. I may have more soon though, either here or on the PMG side.

A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup."
We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe.
Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even when we got it back we were under a boil water notice until about the 22nd or 23rd (hard to remember now). We lost power around midnight on Tuesday the 16th. It was out for 22 hours. We got it back for 4 hours, lost it again, and didn't have it again. We brought the boys into our bed for warmth (and a miserable night for us) and bundled up under 4 or 5 layers to stay warm.

Our ceiling caved in around 5 PM Tuesday. A pipe burst in two places. Shandy rushed in to try to poke holes and drain the water and was rewarded with sheetrock and insulation falling on her head.
Shortly before all that happened we'd been camping out in the back end of our fully gassed-up mini-van just to be in a warm place for a while - but we were smart enough to no do this with the car in the garage.
The pipe that burst was uninsulated copper pipe. With no insulation, no heat, and water cutting in and out I'm just not sure what we could have done to stop this.
One of the worst things about all of this is that we had a 9000 Watt generator and a 1500 Watt heater that could have kept us with heat in 1 room and some lights - we could have been a lot more comfortable, but we didn't buy enough gas to keep the generator running very long because we were not expecting it to be this bad. The warnings they gave before the storm were about lines coming down for a while - not power plants failing and day long blackouts. I'm not going to make that mistake again. Over the weekend we bought 4 more 5 gallon gas tanks and the next time this comes we're going to have enough gas to run the heaters, the refrigerator, the and the freezer (all that food ruined...) for 2-3 days straight. I've taken my lumps and I'm going to be better equipped next time.


Shandy was crying... I came in, looked at this, and just laughed. Shandy didn't appreciate that much but it was just too ridiculous at that point.
We left the house early Wednesday to go somewhere warmer and dryer.
The landlady got a plumber out on Thursday of last week and I returned to supervise and to dry things out and clean up as best I could since we had power back at that point.
A clean-up company then came out on Saturday to rip out the ceiling and start working on drying out the ceiling / attic. There's still a massive hole in the roof but we've been back in the House since Saturday. We still have the biggest hole in the ceiling I think I've ever seen and the room is unusable as a result with plastic sheeting everywhere but we're doing better than many / most.
We've been working on our renter's insurance claim and had adjusters out. Nothing tooo terrible lost and we can replace all of it - mostly baby books and baby toys.
In slightly better news, we're working on wrapping up our taxes and things are looking good there. Some of that money is probably going to have to be used to offset the insurance deductible but I'm still hopeful I can talk my wife into letting me get away with something small, yellow, and shiny in a plastic housing. It might be a good time to do it with the dive Gold is taking this week.
No news on performance evals, raises or bonuses this year - I'm honestly not optimistic on that front for facilitating a shiny purchase but stranger things have happened and I'm mostly just grateful to continue to have a job after the 2020 many others had.
Barring a timely gold purchase the next "coin & currency" buy is going to be a currency / pseudo currency buy.
Speaking of Ben - he is increasingly showing interest in collections and collecting things, but the things he wants to collect are 1) Beyblades, 2) Bakugan and 3) [now] pokemon cards apparently. 

A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup."
We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe.
Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even when we got it back we were under a boil water notice until about the 22nd or 23rd (hard to remember now). We lost power around midnight on Tuesday the 16th. It was out for 22 hours. We got it back for 4 hours, lost it again, and didn't have it again. We brought the boys into our bed for warmth (and a miserable night for us) and bundled up under 4 or 5 layers to stay warm.

Our ceiling caved in around 5 PM Tuesday. A pipe burst in two places. Shandy rushed in to try to poke holes and drain the water and was rewarded with sheetrock and insulation falling on her head.
Shortly before all that happened we'd been camping out in the back end of our fully gassed-up mini-van just to be in a warm place for a while - but we were smart enough to no do this with the car in the garage.
The pipe that burst was uninsulated copper pipe. With no insulation, no heat, and water cutting in and out I'm just not sure what we could have done to stop this.
One of the worst things about all of this is that we had a 9000 Watt generator and a 1500 Watt heater that could have kept us with heat in 1 room and some lights - we could have been a lot more comfortable, but we didn't buy enough gas to keep the generator running very long because we were not expecting it to be this bad. The warnings they gave before the storm were about lines coming down for a while - not power plants failing and day long blackouts. I'm not going to make that mistake again. Over the weekend we bought 4 more 5 gallon gas tanks and the next time this comes we're going to have enough gas to run the heaters, the refrigerator, the and the freezer (all that food ruined...) for 2-3 days straight. I've taken my lumps and I'm going to be better equipped next time.


Shandy was crying... I came in, looked at this, and just laughed. Shandy didn't appreciate that much but it was just too ridiculous at that point.
We left the house early Wednesday to go somewhere warmer and dryer.
The landlady got a plumber out on Thursday of last week and I returned to supervise and to dry things out and clean up as best I could since we had power back at that point.
A clean-up company then came out on Saturday to rip out the ceiling and start working on drying out the ceiling / attic. There's still a massive hole in the roof but we've been back in the House since Saturday. We still have the biggest hole in the ceiling I think I've ever seen and the room is unusable as a result with plastic sheeting everywhere but we're doing better than many / most.
We've been working on our renter's insurance claim and had adjusters out. Nothing tooo terrible lost and we can replace all of it - mostly baby books and baby toys.
In slightly better news, we're working on wrapping up our taxes and things are looking good there. Some of that money is probably going to have to be used to offset the insurance deductible but I'm still hopeful I can talk my wife into letting me get away with something small, yellow, and shiny in a plastic housing. It might be a good time to do it with the dive Gold is taking this week.
No news on performance evals, raises or bonuses this year - I'm honestly not optimistic on that front for facilitating a shiny purchase but stranger things have happened and I'm mostly just grateful to continue to have a job after the 2020 many others had.
Barring a timely gold purchase the next "coin & currency" buy is going to be a currency / pseudo currency buy.
Speaking of Ben - he is increasingly showing interest in collections and collecting things, but the things he wants to collect are 1) Beyblades, 2) Bakugan and 3) [now] pokemon cards apparently. 

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.

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.

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.

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

With my anniversary present now in hand I have reached a milestone that I’d thought about a number of times over the years.
I bought my first gold coin in 2007 - an MS70 graded 1/4th oz gold eagle - as a way of celebrating my 21st birthday that didn’t involve getting drunk - which didn’t interest me much at the time (or now, really).

The idea of “first gold” seems to be special for a lot of people - people will often post about their first gold purchase in the “SilverBugs” subreddit. It is definitely an interesting and cool experience to hold, see and own a gold coin - especially for the first time - especially if it’s old, classic gold and not NCLT (but we’ll leave that argument for other venues and times).
For a long time that coin sat in an NGC 20-coin box with a bunch of other, mostly silver coins, and it was just joined by other gold coins as I gradually added a couple more. I always thought in those days that it would be a very long time before I could hope to fill a 20-coin NGC box with just gold coins.
When I got up to about 10 coins, I broke them out into their own box - with a lot of empty room in it. I used the extra slots to separate out the NCLT from the 10G coins and other classic gold and had them in pods / groups in the box. And I that point I wondered if I would ever reach a point where the box was full and there were no more gaps or spacers in the box.
Turns out the answer to “how long?” would be about 13 years - from Oct 2007 to Jan 2021. The box is now full of graded gold coins.


(Yeah. It's 19 to one, which is probably roughly representative of my collection of graded coins as a whole - but... no bias here. )
Granted, most of them are small, with the smallest being about 9% of an ounce. It is not a box full of nothing but double eagles. It is not 20 oz of gold. But, still, it is 20 gold coins - many 100+ years old - which feels like no small accomplishment. Looking at them laid out like that also makes it strike home for me just how fortunate I am in some aspects of my life - in many aspects of my life, really.
It will be an accomplishment of a different sort and on its own when and if I ever decide to (and convince my wife to agree to) buy a double eagle or similar, larger gold coin. The largest I have so far is about a quarter of an ounce.
The progress towards this goal has definitely been loaded more towards the back end / the last few (~6) years. Even with the costs of raising children and a long stint of unemployment, the version of me that has a PhD and a full-time job has found it easier to afford such luxuries than the version of me that was a graduate student on a monthly stipend.  

So yesterday was our 5th anniversary - we are over 6 years into the relationship.
The 5th anniversary is supposed to be “Wood” so my wife had considered getting me a challenge coin / coin holder make of wood with the idea of putting a coin that relates to us / our relationship in it, but I don’t really have a coin that fits that bill - the closest I had was that Standing Liberty half she got me as an anniversary present last year, and, since it is in a slab, it wouldn’t have worked for this. And I did not want to crack it out.
We’ve been to England together and she lived there for several years as a child. She also lived in Italy for several years as a kid and wants to go back there with me one day. Maybe one of these days we can put together a display with a British Sovereign and an Italian 20 Lira coin. Maybe in one of those display boxes that holds two graded coins… That would look nice, I think. 😊
After some back-and-forth discussion she decided to get me this: A 2016 $5 GAE in MS70.

I’d tried to go in the favor of a 2014 coin - the year we met - and avoid 2016 - which also happens to be Ben’s Birthyear, but she wanted to go with 2016 and I understand that. It’s a $5 face value coin as a 5th anniversary present. Not a bad parallel / coincidence.
Before gold prices went up so much in the last year I probably would have tried to stretch for or toss in some of my coin budget to get a 1/4th oz coin, even though I already have one I’m holding to give to Ben one day. This one would be mine to keep! I may try to go for a 1986 coin or another 1/4th oz coin in a few months in the unlikely event that I get a bonus this year - we were profitable in 2020, which is nice, but I don’t know if we were profitable enough for everyone to get a bonus. Of course, I may go for that 20 Lira coin instead if I do… choices… so many options…
I still have not decided when exactly that 2016 gold coin is going to transfer to Ben’s possession but it’s going to be after I’m convinced that he’s old enough to make good decisions with it.
One of these days, when I win the lotto, I’ll get a 1 oz for 1986 (birth year for both of us) and 2016… and some 1920 and 1924 double eagles. Lol Anyway… I’ll dream more later… I’m good at dreaming.
The 5th anniversary can also be marked with Sapphires so that was the direction I went in - blue sapphire necklace and earrings set in sterling silver. The necklace was here in time, but the earrings haven’t shipped yet (supposedly I’ll get them around the 26th).
 
She also got a new blue wrap dress to go with it the necklace and earrings. She seems to like all three (or will like the earrings when they get here based on responses to pictures).
My shenanigans with all of this "coins" and "currency" and "photography" stuff all predates the marriage so she can't say she didn't know what she agreed to! But she's the real MS70.
I'll have to get a full body shot of her out at the park in some sunlight to do her justice in the dress.

 

So yesterday was our 5th anniversary - we are over 6 years into the relationship.
The 5th anniversary is supposed to be “Wood” so my wife had considered getting me a challenge coin / coin holder make of wood with the idea of putting a coin that relates to us / our relationship in it, but I don’t really have a coin that fits that bill - the closest I had was that Standing Liberty half she got me as an anniversary present last year, and, since it is in a slab, it wouldn’t have worked for this. And I did not want to crack it out.
We’ve been to England together and she lived there for several years as a child. She also lived in Italy for several years as a kid and wants to go back there with me one day. Maybe one of these days we can put together a display with a British Sovereign and an Italian 20 Lira coin. Maybe in one of those display boxes that holds two graded coins… That would look nice, I think. 😊
After some back-and-forth discussion she decided to get me this: A 2016 $5 GAE in MS70.

I’d tried to go in the favor of a 2014 coin - the year we met - and avoid 2016 - which also happens to be Ben’s Birthyear, but she wanted to go with 2016 and I understand that. It’s a $5 face value coin as a 5th anniversary present. Not a bad parallel / coincidence.
Before gold prices went up so much in the last year I probably would have tried to stretch for or toss in some of my coin budget to get a 1/4th oz coin, even though I already have one I’m holding to give to Ben one day. This one would be mine to keep! I may try to go for a 1986 coin or another 1/4th oz coin in a few months in the unlikely event that I get a bonus this year - we were profitable in 2020, which is nice, but I don’t know if we were profitable enough for everyone to get a bonus. Of course, I may go for that 20 Lira coin instead if I do… choices… so many options…
I still have not decided when exactly that 2016 gold coin is going to transfer to Ben’s possession but it’s going to be after I’m convinced that he’s old enough to make good decisions with it.
One of these days, when I win the lotto, I’ll get a 1 oz for 1986 (birth year for both of us) and 2016… and some 1920 and 1924 double eagles. Lol Anyway… I’ll dream more later… I’m good at dreaming.
The 5th anniversary can also be marked with Sapphires so that was the direction I went in - blue sapphire necklace and earrings set in sterling silver. The necklace was here in time, but the earrings haven’t shipped yet (supposedly I’ll get them around the 26th).
 
She also got a new blue wrap dress to go with it the necklace and earrings. She seems to like all three (or will like the earrings when they get here based on responses to pictures).
My shenanigans with all of this "coins" and "currency" and "photography" stuff all predates the marriage so she can't say she didn't know what she agreed to! But she's the real MS70.
I'll have to get a full body shot of her out at the park in some sunlight to do her justice in the dress.

 

So yesterday was our 5th anniversary - we are over 6 years into the relationship.
The 5th anniversary is supposed to be “Wood” so my wife had considered getting me a challenge coin / coin holder make of wood with the idea of putting a coin that relates to us / our relationship in it, but I don’t really have a coin that fits that bill - the closest I had was that Standing Liberty half she got me as an anniversary present last year, and, since it is in a slab, it wouldn’t have worked for this. And I did not want to crack it out.
We’ve been to England together and she lived there for several years as a child. She also lived in Italy for several years as a kid and wants to go back there with me one day. Maybe one of these days we can put together a display with a British Sovereign and an Italian 20 Lira coin. Maybe in one of those display boxes that holds two graded coins… That would look nice, I think. 😊
After some back-and-forth discussion she decided to get me this: A 2016 $5 GAE in MS70.

I’d tried to go in the favor of a 2014 coin - the year we met - and avoid 2016 - which also happens to be Ben’s Birthyear, but she wanted to go with 2016 and I understand that. It’s a $5 face value coin as a 5th anniversary present. Not a bad parallel / coincidence.
Before gold prices went up so much in the last year I probably would have tried to stretch for or toss in some of my coin budget to get a 1/4th oz coin, even though I already have one I’m holding to give to Ben one day. This one would be mine to keep! I may try to go for a 1986 coin or another 1/4th oz coin in a few months in the unlikely event that I get a bonus this year - we were profitable in 2020, which is nice, but I don’t know if we were profitable enough for everyone to get a bonus. Of course, I may go for that 20 Lira coin instead if I do… choices… so many options…
I still have not decided when exactly that 2016 gold coin is going to transfer to Ben’s possession but it’s going to be after I’m convinced that he’s old enough to make good decisions with it.
One of these days, when I win the lotto, I’ll get a 1 oz for 1986 (birth year for both of us) and 2016… and some 1920 and 1924 double eagles. Lol Anyway… I’ll dream more later… I’m good at dreaming.
The 5th anniversary can also be marked with Sapphires so that was the direction I went in - blue sapphire necklace and earrings set in sterling silver. The necklace was here in time, but the earrings haven’t shipped yet (supposedly I’ll get them around the 26th).
 
She also got a new blue wrap dress to go with it the necklace and earrings. She seems to like all three (or will like the earrings when they get here based on responses to pictures).
My shenanigans with all of this "coins" and "currency" and "photography" stuff all predates the marriage so she can't say she didn't know what she agreed to! But she's the real MS70.
I'll have to get a full body shot of her out at the park in some sunlight to do her justice in the dress.

 

Looking over the NGC registry awards this year, I realized that I had overlooked a valuable platform to share my numismatic journey, the journals. This year I intend to change that by sharing my collecting journey throughout the year. Each month I will do my best to share either a new addition to the collection, grading results from NGC, or any tidbits of numismatic knowledge I acquire. 
With that said, this is my first journal entry since 2013! In this installment, I would like to share the newest addition to my collection. An 1806 Irish Farthing graded MS-66 BN by NGC. This is the highest graded example at NGC (tied with two others) or PCGS (2 in this grade). I have a soft spot for Irish copper coinage, but it can be challenging to track down nicely preserved specimens. Well circulated examples are abundant, and at times you can find uncirculated pieces for sale, but they are often marred by environmental damage. The holder is pretty scuffed, so I will need to send it in for a reholder. In part, this is what I plan to spend the $500 grading credit that accompanied the registry award I won this year. I am still in awe of NGC's generosity. 

This particular example is a marked upgrade to my PCGS MS-64 example.  My newest addition is nothing short of stunning. If the dripping luster is not enough to entice your fancy, perhaps the wholly original neon blue toning will do the trick. I have an affinity for naturally blue-toned copper coinage. Of course, one must avoid chemically altered coins (e.g., MS-70) while on the hunt. Like most numismatic skills, this takes some time and a lot of practice. Luckily this example shows a natural toning progression one would expect to see on an original piece. 
The fact that this example is nicely toned, Irish, struck at the Soho Mint, and nearly pristine makes it a grand slam for me. It has earned a coveted spot in my “top shelf” box alongside other nicely blue-hued copper pieces such as the coin pictured below. 

Out of curiosity, are there any other Irish coin collectors lurking on these boards? Or perhaps a fellow Soho Mint enthusiast? If you are neither, please consider sharing some of your numismatic “weaknesses”. What makes your wallet suddenly become a little thinner? 

Many many moons ago...... ok..... let me try something different....
It was a dark and stormy night....... NAW.... that doesn't work......
OK..... this just out of Brooklyn..... nope..... that's not me.....
My parents kind of started me into coin collecting.... yea I know LOL
MY parents were the typical "Nuclear Family" raised parents. They didn't want me to be smothered and wanted to make me understand what money was all about. They did in a way that I didn't know I would be collecting.
They would give me "new minted" coins on my birthday..... rolls mostly..... but like any other kid.... I spent them...... but I would keep one to remind me what my Parents wanted me to do you could say. Some coins I still have today.... never been touched.  Half dollars and Eisenhower Dollars were the thing..... My Benny and Kennedy 1/2 dollars, a 1921 Morgan and Bicentennial Eisenhower were part of my collection.
It wouldn't be till I'm 35 years old to see the light. Coins I was growing up with were becoming scarce and worth more than they were...... to collectors of course. 
Over the years (especially the last 5) I've built up a collection of raw coins that I started sending them in to be rated at NGC in 2019.  Latest batch were mostly of British Virgin Island $1 coins with a Rwanda gold coin. The next batch should finish the BVI set and be full of Kennedy effigy coins from around the world.

So, this will be long and perhaps rambling, but I have several things to touch on and I don't like making multiple posts too close together, so I just refuse to break this up.
At a different time in my life this probably would have been posted yesterday but you don't always get time to sit down and write with 2 kids under 5 around in the time of CoVID, and I had cube organizers to build. I snuck in some posting on the boards mostly on my phone, but I wanted to take my time with this more.
First and foremost, I need to thank NGC for the 3-peat on the Journal award and PMG for the “Best Presented Set” for my Zimbabwe signature set, “Gradually, then Suddenly.”
 
The journal award continues to be a great, and appreciated, compliment to these writings. I’m glad NGC likes them. I’m always glad to hear others say they enjoy what I write.
That note set has been a labor of love for 2 years now. I’m super-excited to, next month, when I have a bit more spending money again, buy some raw examples of some notes I need to fill some final gaps and send those in for grading. I may also buy some old fuel coupons, branch into that and add that to the set / display / story of that set. I will probably go into more details on this later in a journal entry on the PMG side.
I think that’s also going to mostly close the book on that note set for a while. I’m not going to be in any hurry to start any major upgrades on that set for now. I’ve been building it like a man possessed for 2 years now and I’m starting to just feel a little tired and ready to move on to some other project, and I have some other projects / initiatives coming up in my life that are going to demand more of my time for a while. And, given that credit, I want to fill those holes and leave that set feeling more or less “finished” and it a good place, and that credit will let me do that. But, Again, “Thank you” to PMG, both for this award and also the article highlighting my Venezuelan Bolivares Fuertes Set in December. The greatest praise that that set has received however are the other collectors here that have called it out, said it inspired them to start collecting that series / those series (depending on how you look at it) or who say they’ve used to teach their kids something. There have been a lot of kind words sent my way from members and PMG lately, both for my family and about my writing, and it is really appreciated. I was also touched to see the call out to / for Samuel in the awards announcement. Sam is going to be posing with another plaque this year.
Speaking of Sam… It has become apparent that his shunt was mostly blocked and he was experiencing some ill effects of elevated intracranial pressure for a while – probably 6 months to a year. We had no way of knowing this before the surgery and you make the best decisions you can with what you know then. But, now that the pressure is gone his eyes are crossing less, he’s speaking more, he’s picking up new words faster, he’s getting better at walking faster. He was a Rockstar according to his physical therapists before but he’s accelerating. He’s showing signs of headaches still but those can apparently continue for 2+ weeks after the surgery. The cut meanwhile is healing well and we’re almost done with the period of daily baths that it required to keep him clean.
I still haven’t mailed those coins in, though I admit that at this point I’m also being given pause by the long back-log of packages they seem to be dealing with and the crush of new 2021 coins they’re getting in bulk submissions now. I’ve been stressing about having the grading credit from 2019 expire, but, now, I may just let it expire and use the 2020 credit again – since my brief reading of the front matter suggests that they’re giving the Journal authors the $500 credit again this year. I really do want to get those 10G coins re-holdered so they’ll all match and be super pretty and I want to get a few other things graded but this winter (year!) has been rough and crazy.
My wife and I had a little wine together after the kids were in bed. In part because of this, in part because the cube organizer was finally done, and in part because wine is just good.
The anniversary is coming up and I have part of her present. We'll see if I get the other part before Friday. One of her students yesterday morning told her that her Boyfriend was a lucky guy. 😆 When she showed him the ring, he said that He had an awesome wife. I'll agree with both statements. 😆

Well the 2020 registry awards are in the books, it was a good year for me with 6 best in category awards one better than last year.  Hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of additions and hang on to those for next year, that task may be much more difficult depending on if the launce of the ANA registry brings in more heavy hitters from the PCGS registry.  But maybe with a couple of adds here or there I can keep up on most of last years wins.  Time to begin planning and chasing once again to further my collection and hunt down a few new coins for 2021, thanks to  fellow forum member Six MiIe Rick I was able to add a few zincoln coins to my 09 to date Lincoln set already this year including my first shield cents.

So, this will be long and perhaps rambling, but I have several things to touch on and I don't like making multiple posts too close together, so I just refuse to break this up.
At a different time in my life this probably would have been posted yesterday but you don't always get time to sit down and write with 2 kids under 5 around in the time of CoVID, and I had cube organizers to build. I snuck in some posting on the boards mostly on my phone, but I wanted to take my time with this more.
First and foremost, I need to thank NGC for the 3-peat on the Journal award and PMG for the “Best Presented Set” for my Zimbabwe signature set, “Gradually, then Suddenly.”
 
The journal award continues to be a great, and appreciated, compliment to these writings. I’m glad NGC likes them. I’m always glad to hear others say they enjoy what I write.
That note set has been a labor of love for 2 years now. I’m super-excited to, next month, when I have a bit more spending money again, buy some raw examples of some notes I need to fill some final gaps and send those in for grading. I may also buy some old fuel coupons, branch into that and add that to the set / display / story of that set. I will probably go into more details on this later in a journal entry on the PMG side.
I think that’s also going to mostly close the book on that note set for a while. I’m not going to be in any hurry to start any major upgrades on that set for now. I’ve been building it like a man possessed for 2 years now and I’m starting to just feel a little tired and ready to move on to some other project, and I have some other projects / initiatives coming up in my life that are going to demand more of my time for a while. And, given that credit, I want to fill those holes and leave that set feeling more or less “finished” and it a good place, and that credit will let me do that. But, Again, “Thank you” to PMG, both for this award and also the article highlighting my Venezuelan Bolivares Fuertes Set in December. The greatest praise that that set has received however are the other collectors here that have called it out, said it inspired them to start collecting that series / those series (depending on how you look at it) or who say they’ve used to teach their kids something. There have been a lot of kind words sent my way from members and PMG lately, both for my family and about my writing, and it is really appreciated. I was also touched to see the call out to / for Samuel in the awards announcement. Sam is going to be posing with another plaque this year.
Speaking of Sam… It has become apparent that his shunt was mostly blocked and he was experiencing some ill effects of elevated intracranial pressure for a while – probably 6 months to a year. We had no way of knowing this before the surgery and you make the best decisions you can with what you know then. But, now that the pressure is gone his eyes are crossing less, he’s speaking more, he’s picking up new words faster, he’s getting better at walking faster. He was a Rockstar according to his physical therapists before but he’s accelerating. He’s showing signs of headaches still but those can apparently continue for 2+ weeks after the surgery. The cut meanwhile is healing well and we’re almost done with the period of daily baths that it required to keep him clean.
I still haven’t mailed those coins in, though I admit that at this point I’m also being given pause by the long back-log of packages they seem to be dealing with and the crush of new 2021 coins they’re getting in bulk submissions now. I’ve been stressing about having the grading credit from 2019 expire, but, now, I may just let it expire and use the 2020 credit again – since my brief reading of the front matter suggests that they’re giving the Journal authors the $500 credit again this year. I really do want to get those 10G coins re-holdered so they’ll all match and be super pretty and I want to get a few other things graded but this winter (year!) has been rough and crazy.
My wife and I had a little wine together after the kids were in bed. In part because of this, in part because the cube organizer was finally done, and in part because wine is just good.
The anniversary is coming up and I have part of her present. We'll see if I get the other part before Friday. One of her students yesterday morning told her that her Boyfriend was a lucky guy. 😆 When she showed him the ring, he said that He had an awesome wife. I'll agree with both statements. 😆

So, this will be long and perhaps rambling, but I have several things to touch on and I don't like making multiple posts too close together, so I just refuse to break this up.
At a different time in my life this probably would have been posted yesterday but you don't always get time to sit down and write with 2 kids under 5 around in the time of CoVID, and I had cube organizers to build. I snuck in some posting on the boards mostly on my phone, but I wanted to take my time with this more.
First and foremost, I need to thank NGC for the 3-peat on the Journal award and PMG for the “Best Presented Set” for my Zimbabwe signature set, “Gradually, then Suddenly.”
 
The journal award continues to be a great, and appreciated, compliment to these writings. I’m glad NGC likes them. I’m always glad to hear others say they enjoy what I write.
That note set has been a labor of love for 2 years now. I’m super-excited to, next month, when I have a bit more spending money again, buy some raw examples of some notes I need to fill some final gaps and send those in for grading. I may also buy some old fuel coupons, branch into that and add that to the set / display / story of that set. I will probably go into more details on this later in a journal entry on the PMG side.
I think that’s also going to mostly close the book on that note set for a while. I’m not going to be in any hurry to start any major upgrades on that set for now. I’ve been building it like a man possessed for 2 years now and I’m starting to just feel a little tired and ready to move on to some other project, and I have some other projects / initiatives coming up in my life that are going to demand more of my time for a while. And, given that credit, I want to fill those holes and leave that set feeling more or less “finished” and it a good place, and that credit will let me do that. But, Again, “Thank you” to PMG, both for this award and also the article highlighting my Venezuelan Bolivares Fuertes Set in December. The greatest praise that that set has received however are the other collectors here that have called it out, said it inspired them to start collecting that series / those series (depending on how you look at it) or who say they’ve used to teach their kids something. There have been a lot of kind words sent my way from members and PMG lately, both for my family and about my writing, and it is really appreciated. I was also touched to see the call out to / for Samuel in the awards announcement. Sam is going to be posing with another plaque this year.
Speaking of Sam… It has become apparent that his shunt was mostly blocked and he was experiencing some ill effects of elevated intracranial pressure for a while – probably 6 months to a year. We had no way of knowing this before the surgery and you make the best decisions you can with what you know then. But, now that the pressure is gone his eyes are crossing less, he’s speaking more, he’s picking up new words faster, he’s getting better at walking faster. He was a Rockstar according to his physical therapists before but he’s accelerating. He’s showing signs of headaches still but those can apparently continue for 2+ weeks after the surgery. The cut meanwhile is healing well and we’re almost done with the period of daily baths that it required to keep him clean.
I still haven’t mailed those coins in, though I admit that at this point I’m also being given pause by the long back-log of packages they seem to be dealing with and the crush of new 2021 coins they’re getting in bulk submissions now. I’ve been stressing about having the grading credit from 2019 expire, but, now, I may just let it expire and use the 2020 credit again – since my brief reading of the front matter suggests that they’re giving the Journal authors the $500 credit again this year. I really do want to get those 10G coins re-holdered so they’ll all match and be super pretty and I want to get a few other things graded but this winter (year!) has been rough and crazy.
My wife and I had a little wine together after the kids were in bed. In part because of this, in part because the cube organizer was finally done, and in part because wine is just good.
The anniversary is coming up and I have part of her present. We'll see if I get the other part before Friday. One of her students yesterday morning told her that her Boyfriend was a lucky guy. 😆 When she showed him the ring, he said that He had an awesome wife. I'll agree with both statements. 😆

So, this will be long and perhaps rambling, but I have several things to touch on and I don't like making multiple posts too close together, so I just refuse to break this up.
At a different time in my life this probably would have been posted yesterday but you don't always get time to sit down and write with 2 kids under 5 around in the time of CoVID, and I had cube organizers to build. I snuck in some posting on the boards mostly on my phone, but I wanted to take my time with this more.
First and foremost, I need to thank NGC for the 3-peat on the Journal award and PMG for the “Best Presented Set” for my Zimbabwe signature set, “Gradually, then Suddenly.”
 
The journal award continues to be a great, and appreciated, compliment to these writings. I’m glad NGC likes them. I’m always glad to hear others say they enjoy what I write.
That note set has been a labor of love for 2 years now. I’m super-excited to, next month, when I have a bit more spending money again, buy some raw examples of some notes I need to fill some final gaps and send those in for grading. I may also buy some old fuel coupons, branch into that and add that to the set / display / story of that set. I will probably go into more details on this later in a journal entry on the PMG side.
I think that’s also going to mostly close the book on that note set for a while. I’m not going to be in any hurry to start any major upgrades on that set for now. I’ve been building it like a man possessed for 2 years now and I’m starting to just feel a little tired and ready to move on to some other project, and I have some other projects / initiatives coming up in my life that are going to demand more of my time for a while. And, given that credit, I want to fill those holes and leave that set feeling more or less “finished” and it a good place, and that credit will let me do that. But, Again, “Thank you” to PMG, both for this award and also the article highlighting my Venezuelan Bolivares Fuertes Set in December. The greatest praise that that set has received however are the other collectors here that have called it out, said it inspired them to start collecting that series / those series (depending on how you look at it) or who say they’ve used to teach their kids something. There have been a lot of kind words sent my way from members and PMG lately, both for my family and about my writing, and it is really appreciated. I was also touched to see the call out to / for Samuel in the awards announcement. Sam is going to be posing with another plaque this year.
Speaking of Sam… It has become apparent that his shunt was mostly blocked and he was experiencing some ill effects of elevated intracranial pressure for a while – probably 6 months to a year. We had no way of knowing this before the surgery and you make the best decisions you can with what you know then. But, now that the pressure is gone his eyes are crossing less, he’s speaking more, he’s picking up new words faster, he’s getting better at walking faster. He was a Rockstar according to his physical therapists before but he’s accelerating. He’s showing signs of headaches still but those can apparently continue for 2+ weeks after the surgery. The cut meanwhile is healing well and we’re almost done with the period of daily baths that it required to keep him clean.
I still haven’t mailed those coins in, though I admit that at this point I’m also being given pause by the long back-log of packages they seem to be dealing with and the crush of new 2021 coins they’re getting in bulk submissions now. I’ve been stressing about having the grading credit from 2019 expire, but, now, I may just let it expire and use the 2020 credit again – since my brief reading of the front matter suggests that they’re giving the Journal authors the $500 credit again this year. I really do want to get those 10G coins re-holdered so they’ll all match and be super pretty and I want to get a few other things graded but this winter (year!) has been rough and crazy.
My wife and I had a little wine together after the kids were in bed. In part because of this, in part because the cube organizer was finally done, and in part because wine is just good.
The anniversary is coming up and I have part of her present. We'll see if I get the other part before Friday. One of her students yesterday morning told her that her Boyfriend was a lucky guy. 😆 When she showed him the ring, he said that He had an awesome wife. I'll agree with both statements. 😆

So, this will be long and perhaps rambling, but I have several things to touch on and I don't like making multiple posts too close together, so I just refuse to break this up.
At a different time in my life this probably would have been posted yesterday but you don't always get time to sit down and write with 2 kids under 5 around in the time of CoVID, and I had cube organizers to build. I snuck in some posting on the boards mostly on my phone, but I wanted to take my time with this more.
First and foremost, I need to thank NGC for the 3-peat on the Journal award and PMG for the “Best Presented Set” for my Zimbabwe signature set, “Gradually, then Suddenly.”
 
The journal award continues to be a great, and appreciated, compliment to these writings. I’m glad NGC likes them. I’m always glad to hear others say they enjoy what I write.
That note set has been a labor of love for 2 years now. I’m super-excited to, next month, when I have a bit more spending money again, buy some raw examples of some notes I need to fill some final gaps and send those in for grading. I may also buy some old fuel coupons, branch into that and add that to the set / display / story of that set. I will probably go into more details on this later in a journal entry on the PMG side.
I think that’s also going to mostly close the book on that note set for a while. I’m not going to be in any hurry to start any major upgrades on that set for now. I’ve been building it like a man possessed for 2 years now and I’m starting to just feel a little tired and ready to move on to some other project, and I have some other projects / initiatives coming up in my life that are going to demand more of my time for a while. And, given that credit, I want to fill those holes and leave that set feeling more or less “finished” and it a good place, and that credit will let me do that. But, Again, “Thank you” to PMG, both for this award and also the article highlighting my Venezuelan Bolivares Fuertes Set in December. The greatest praise that that set has received however are the other collectors here that have called it out, said it inspired them to start collecting that series / those series (depending on how you look at it) or who say they’ve used to teach their kids something. There have been a lot of kind words sent my way from members and PMG lately, both for my family and about my writing, and it is really appreciated. I was also touched to see the call out to / for Samuel in the awards announcement. Sam is going to be posing with another plaque this year.
Speaking of Sam… It has become apparent that his shunt was mostly blocked and he was experiencing some ill effects of elevated intracranial pressure for a while – probably 6 months to a year. We had no way of knowing this before the surgery and you make the best decisions you can with what you know then. But, now that the pressure is gone his eyes are crossing less, he’s speaking more, he’s picking up new words faster, he’s getting better at walking faster. He was a Rockstar according to his physical therapists before but he’s accelerating. He’s showing signs of headaches still but those can apparently continue for 2+ weeks after the surgery. The cut meanwhile is healing well and we’re almost done with the period of daily baths that it required to keep him clean.
I still haven’t mailed those coins in, though I admit that at this point I’m also being given pause by the long back-log of packages they seem to be dealing with and the crush of new 2021 coins they’re getting in bulk submissions now. I’ve been stressing about having the grading credit from 2019 expire, but, now, I may just let it expire and use the 2020 credit again – since my brief reading of the front matter suggests that they’re giving the Journal authors the $500 credit again this year. I really do want to get those 10G coins re-holdered so they’ll all match and be super pretty and I want to get a few other things graded but this winter (year!) has been rough and crazy.
My wife and I had a little wine together after the kids were in bed. In part because of this, in part because the cube organizer was finally done, and in part because wine is just good.
The anniversary is coming up and I have part of her present. We'll see if I get the other part before Friday. One of her students yesterday morning told her that her Boyfriend was a lucky guy. 😆 When she showed him the ring, he said that He had an awesome wife. I'll agree with both statements. 😆