Revenant

Looking back, I made the first entry into this journal on June 14, 2007, when I was not quite 21 years old (clocking in at 32 now, with a receding hairline. Oh, how it does sting a bit). 
 
This was 10 years before NGC would switch to the new (current) journal format and we’d gain the ability to give a unique name to our journals. I’ve given some thought over time to what I think I’d like to call this (other than just “Revenant” or “Revenant’s Journal”) and I think I’ve settled on an answer: 
“When I’m Wiser and I’m Older.” 
 
It’s a reference to a song by Avicii that I’ve loved ever since the first time that I heard it, called “Wake me up.” The first versus and the chorus of the song are as follows: 
 
Feeling my way through the darkness 
Guided by a beating heart 
I can't tell where the journey will end 
But I know where to start 
They tell me I'm too young to understand 
They say I'm caught up in a dream 
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes 
Well that's fine by me 
 
So wake me up when it's all over 
When I'm wiser and I'm older 
All this time I was finding myself, and I 
Didn't know I was lost 
 
I had this idea when thinking about a comment I made about the hobby and life being a journey and the self-discovery aspect of that on thisistheshow’s journal entry a few months ago. 
 
The part of the song I’ve always loved are the last two lines of the chorus, “all this time I was finding myself and I didn’t know I was lost.” I feel like that fits well with my experience and the changes I’ve undergone in the last 12 years – spanned and covered somewhat unevenly by this journal. 
It's hard to think of a core aspect of myself that hasn’t changed much since this journal was started. I’ve gone from being a single, 20-year-old, undergrad college student to being a married father of two, with a PhD, 7 published peer-reviewed papers. The things that were the all-consuming focus of my collecting life 10 years ago are almost an afterthought at the moment as I pursue radically different endeavors.
 
It’ll be interesting to see what I’m doing in another 10 years and if I’m still writing entries here. 
 
Naming the PMG journal “Gradually, then suddenly,” to match my signature set was pretty easy comparatively. That collection of entries / writings basically exists as a testament to  my obsession with those notes and hyperinflation notes in general – and, one of these days, when I’ve completed or mostly completed the Zimbabwe set, I am going to expand to include Yugoslavian, Venezuelan, Hungarian, Argentinian and other hyperinflation notes. At least, that’ll be the plan / hope. 
 
Who knows? Maybe one of these days all of this will offer my sons some insight into how my head works. 

Looking back, I made the first entry into this journal on June 14, 2007, when I was not quite 21 years old (clocking in at 32 now, with a receding hairline. Oh, how it does sting a bit). 
 
This was 10 years before NGC would switch to the new (current) journal format and we’d gain the ability to give a unique name to our journals. I’ve given some thought over time to what I think I’d like to call this (other than just “Revenant” or “Revenant’s Journal”) and I think I’ve settled on an answer: 
“When I’m Wiser and I’m Older.” 
 
It’s a reference to a song by Avicii that I’ve loved ever since the first time that I heard it, called “Wake me up.” The first versus and the chorus of the song are as follows: 
 
Feeling my way through the darkness 
Guided by a beating heart 
I can't tell where the journey will end 
But I know where to start 
They tell me I'm too young to understand 
They say I'm caught up in a dream 
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes 
Well that's fine by me 
 
So wake me up when it's all over 
When I'm wiser and I'm older 
All this time I was finding myself, and I 
Didn't know I was lost 
 
I had this idea when thinking about a comment I made about the hobby and life being a journey and the self-discovery aspect of that on thisistheshow’s journal entry a few months ago. 
 
The part of the song I’ve always loved are the last two lines of the chorus, “all this time I was finding myself and I didn’t know I was lost.” I feel like that fits well with my experience and the changes I’ve undergone in the last 12 years – spanned and covered somewhat unevenly by this journal. 
It's hard to think of a core aspect of myself that hasn’t changed much since this journal was started. I’ve gone from being a single, 20-year-old, undergrad college student to being a married father of two, with a PhD, 7 published peer-reviewed papers. The things that were the all-consuming focus of my collecting life 10 years ago are almost an afterthought at the moment as I pursue radically different endeavors.
 
It’ll be interesting to see what I’m doing in another 10 years and if I’m still writing entries here. 
 
Naming the PMG journal “Gradually, then suddenly,” to match my signature set was pretty easy comparatively. That collection of entries / writings basically exists as a testament to  my obsession with those notes and hyperinflation notes in general – and, one of these days, when I’ve completed or mostly completed the Zimbabwe set, I am going to expand to include Yugoslavian, Venezuelan, Hungarian, Argentinian and other hyperinflation notes. At least, that’ll be the plan / hope. 
 
Who knows? Maybe one of these days all of this will offer my sons some insight into how my head works. 

My wife hit upon the idea of putting coins / spare change in some of the eggs for the Easter egg hunt we set up for Benjamin late in the day on Easter Sunday. We had dinner with her parents and then did an egg hunt just for him in the back yard around 6:30 or so. Shandy came up with the idea of letting him have money in some of his eggs completely on her own. It was her idea. I had nothing to do with it – I swear! Some of the eggs hand your standard fair – jelly beans, chocolate kisses, Reese’s peanut butter cups – and some of them had quarters, nickels and dimes.

Ben was quite excited to have the money in some of his eggs. As he started emptying them, I got him 2 zip-lock sandwich bags = one for the coins and one for the candy. I’ll admit that I wasn’t totally thrilled about him touching the coins and the candy together / one after another while stuffing his face. Pocket change isn’t terribly clean / sanitary, but I guess the germs will be good for him in the long run.

He didn’t even get half way through opening the many, many eggs they left for him to find before he got bored and went back to playing. When the family asked what was in his basket it went a bit like this:

“What was in your Easter basket?”

“EGGS!”

“Okay… What was in the eggs?”

“Lots of money!! … and lots of candy.”

Seriously – he said money first. Like he was more excited about the coins than the candy.

Interesting… This has potential.

We’ll have to empty the rest of them later. He’ll be hopped up on sugar for days. The coins will go into the puppy.

...And now I have it! A search encompassing a fair number of years has culminated with the purchase of an MS-61 1882-H Newfoundland $2 gold coin. This is like a dream come true from the first time I knew that this coin existed until now. FYI, I bought the book, "The Gold Coins of Newfoundland 1865-1888" shortly after it was published in 2017.

In 1865 the Royal Mint began striking new coins exclusively for Newfoundland including a $2 gold coin for a then population of 122,631 people. You will notice the conversion values for this coin on the reverse of 200 cents/100 pence. This is related to Newfoundland's coinage being based on the British Pound well before Great Britain adopted the decimal  system for its currency. Thus there was 240 pence to the pound which converted to $4.80 in Newfoundland currency.

The Newfoundland $2 gold coins were struck for circulation irregularly between 1865 and 1888 from a low mintage of 2,500 to a high mintage of 25,000. Incidentally my coin has a mintage of 25,000. The 1882 coin also has an H mintmark denoting that it was struck at the Heaton Mint in Birmingham. This coin was designed to be nearly equivalent to the American Gold Eagle which also circulated in Newfoundland. A US gold eagle contained 0.48375 ounces of gold while the 0.91666 fine Newfoundland $2 coin  had 0.0981 ounces of pure gold. Thus the Newfoundland $2 gold coin was worth $2.0277 US dollars. The diameter of the Newfoundland $2 coin is 17.983mm and the weight is 3.328 grams.

I have been looking for a suitable yet affordable example of this coin for many years. My problem is that this coin is scarce and was popular as a circulating coin. Thus there are very few nice looking coins to be had. I had decided that if I was going to pay good money for this coin, I wanted it to look nice. With only a handful of MS-65 coins and steep prices for an MS-64 coin, I was looking for something in the AU-58 to MS-62 range. Without really looking too hard this coin popped up on e-bay with a best-offer option. I put forth my best offer and it was a sale. The gold toning on this coin gives it contrast. As such it is a very nice looking coin with lots of eye appeal. Gary

In fairness to a seller that I have and now continue to do business with I think I need to take back my earlier assessment that they overcharged my wife when she bought that ungraded Zimbabwean 20 Trillion Note for $60. 
 
I guess the thing that should have been my first clue was that they’ve always offered returns and gave us a perfect, no-fuss return on the note and I’ve always been able to get very reasonable prices from them on so many other things, including most of my other Zimbabwe notes. 
 
In saying that they overcharged her I was thinking about what paid for most of my Trillions notes back in late 2015. It would appear, since that time, the Trillions notes specifically have appreciated in value. As I’ve been shopping around, I’ve seen other sellers asking that much for the note and some asking quite a bit more. 
 
I can’t find the records of the sale anymore, but I think when I bought my 100 Trillion note in 67EPQ a few years ago I paid about $35-40 for it. The other trillions notes that I have are 65EPQ or 66EPQ and I got them for about $20-25 if I remember right. The other day I saw one of the 100 Trillion notes in 65EPQ sell for $95 (+$6 shipping) with another recently getting $92 (+$8 shipping), putting the price around $100 for a 65EPQ. These weren’t BIN sales. These were auctions with the bidders getting to determine the final price. 65EPQs have achieved up to $142 recently after shipping and it looks like 66EPQs have achieved up to $170. A 67EPQ sold recently for $350, and, I won’t lie, that one shocked me. 
 
I am very glad that I bought examples of the Trillions notes when I did and got them for the kinds of prices that I did. If I was shopping for them today, I don’t think I’d ever be able to buy them. I could just never imagine or get behind spending the same amount on that 100 Trillion note that I did to get that 1886A 20 Franc - more than what I paid to get my long sought after 1877 10G. As it was, it was a stretch for me to pay what I did back in the day. I only did that to get a graded example and I wanted a high grade because that note was inevitably going to be a highlight / centerpiece of the set I was hoping to build. 
 
I feel like there is a crazy but cool message about subjective valuation here. A coin with 130 years of history and nearly a fifth of a troy ounce of gold vs a 10-year-old piece of paper with ink and a lot of zeros on it, but, to the right people, they can both be sold for $300+. Of course, I know there are people out there that pay $8,000+ for US Education Series notes and people out there that pay $100,000+ for 1932 double eagles, so maybe this shouldn't surprise me as much as it does. I think part of it for me is the fact that those old notes and coins are actually fairly rare. These 100 Trillion notes still seem almost as common as sand on the beach. You still see people selling even the 100 Trillion note by the brick. It's hard for me to wrap my head around that valuation when they're still seemingly just so excessively available.
 
My wife has attempted to mess with my head by suggesting that I might want to sell the Trillions notes at these higher prices and use the money to pick up some gold coins - like an old British Sovereign or an 19th Century Italian 20 Lira, both of which are pieces I’d like to own. I’d likely be more tempted by this if not for the fact that I’m trying to build the set out more, note liquidate it, and getting rid of the Trillions notes would be quite a blow to the set. 
 
The higher prices are largely confined to the four Trillions issues (the 10, 20, 50 and 100 Trillion notes, P-88 through P-91) but the 100 Trillion issue in particular. Most of the other issues in the third dollar series can be purchased raw for a $5 or less and graded 65-67EPQ by PMG for $15-25 - barely more than the grading fees. That as much as anything is what threw me off at first. I was seeing low prices for everything else and what feels like moon-money for the Trillion series. But, clearly, for those notes, some people are willing to pay it. 
 
At $15-20 for a graded note I’m definitely a buyer of this series. I enjoy them and they’re worth it to me at that level. I feel like I don’t have to feel bad about spending it or worry about taking a bath on re-selling them later if I decide to. At $25-30 and above I have a harder time going for them. I have paid up to $40 for some first dollar issues in the past and I may do that again to get my hands on a few rarer, older, issues for that set when and if the time comes, but I don’t think I’ll ever spend much more than that for one of these. At that price, as my wife recently pointed out when we were talking, I can get some nice silver rounds and government bullion issues - sometimes already graded by NGC - and I feel like the silver content of those makes them a better value proposition over time – and, on the whole, I enjoy shiny metal more than paper.