Revenant

One of my wife's favorite reasons to laugh and roll her eyes at me (other than my nerdy coin-collecting ways) is that she thinks I'm far too polite to people that come to the door trying to sell solar panels and telemarketers... It's how I was raised.
I try to be nice and civil and give people soft but firm nos. I try to respect the fact that they're just trying to earn a paycheck and a living, and I try never to abuse or be rude to them. And yet, lately, I find these people testing my patience.
Around the time Sam got out of the hospital someone must have sold their contact list, including my number, because I have been getting absurd numbers of calls from coin and bullion companies trying to sell me things and these people are obnoxiously pushy. I'm not going to buy from them.
1) I don't buy from cold calls for companies I haven't done business with.
2) I'm not buying bullion right now.
3) anyone trying to sell me PCGS coins doesn't know me as a collector.
4) even to the extent that I'm buying numismatics right now I'm making myself happy in an extremely niche world modern area that they are not going to be equipped to sell to.
And yet... all the pushy BS and aggressive, borderline condescending responses... I've been just hanging up on them more and more. Increasingly, once I've told them I'm not interested politely, I've met the standard of civility. If they choose not to respect that at that point, and try some aggressive pitch, then they're the one in breach of social norms and I'm good to just let them hear a "click." But these salespeople are just so obnoxious.
These are the calls I answer out of concern that its work or kid related. My phone is also getting flooded with calls flagged as "Scam Likely" that I just don't even answer.
I wish I knew who gave them the number. I'd probably never buy from them again.
 
In more positive news, after I got those 2010 25C 200th Independence Anniversary coins that I liked the condition of, I saw the same seller had some of the 50C coins made to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the BCV (Central Bank of Venezuela), so I picked up a bunch of those and I've been similarly pleased with the coins I got. So now I have everything except the 2011 25C commemorative, and I'm well set up to send in some coins in 2023 that will pretty much finish that Venezuelan type set.

It has been about a month since my wife greenlit a new gold coin purchase and, while I have something in mind, I haven't pulled the trigger because I've been waiting to see the fall-out from the hospital stay and a minor car fender-bender to play out before making any large, unnecessary purchases, no matter how secure I'm felling overall. But I have gotten her anniversary present ordered... Now I just have to figure out a Christmas present for her. She already has the kids pretty well planned out and taken care of.

One of my wife's favorite reasons to laugh and roll her eyes at me (other than my nerdy coin-collecting ways) is that she thinks I'm far too polite to people that come to the door trying to sell solar panels and telemarketers... It's how I was raised.
I try to be nice and civil and give people soft but firm nos. I try to respect the fact that they're just trying to earn a paycheck and a living, and I try never to abuse or be rude to them. And yet, lately, I find these people testing my patience.
Around the time Sam got out of the hospital someone must have sold their contact list, including my number, because I have been getting absurd numbers of calls from coin and bullion companies trying to sell me things and these people are obnoxiously pushy. I'm not going to buy from them.
1) I don't buy from cold calls for companies I haven't done business with.
2) I'm not buying bullion right now.
3) anyone trying to sell me PCGS coins doesn't know me as a collector.
4) even to the extent that I'm buying numismatics right now I'm making myself happy in an extremely niche world modern area that they are not going to be equipped to sell to.
And yet... all the pushy BS and aggressive, borderline condescending responses... I've been just hanging up on them more and more. Increasingly, once I've told them I'm not interested politely, I've met the standard of civility. If they choose not to respect that at that point, and try some aggressive pitch, then they're the one in breach of social norms and I'm good to just let them hear a "click." But these salespeople are just so obnoxious.
These are the calls I answer out of concern that its work or kid related. My phone is also getting flooded with calls flagged as "Scam Likely" that I just don't even answer.
I wish I knew who gave them the number. I'd probably never buy from them again.
 
In more positive news, after I got those 2010 25C 200th Independence Anniversary coins that I liked the condition of, I saw the same seller had some of the 50C coins made to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the BCV (Central Bank of Venezuela), so I picked up a bunch of those and I've been similarly pleased with the coins I got. So now I have everything except the 2011 25C commemorative, and I'm well set up to send in some coins in 2023 that will pretty much finish that Venezuelan type set.

It has been about a month since my wife greenlit a new gold coin purchase and, while I have something in mind, I haven't pulled the trigger because I've been waiting to see the fall-out from the hospital stay and a minor car fender-bender to play out before making any large, unnecessary purchases, no matter how secure I'm felling overall. But I have gotten her anniversary present ordered... Now I just have to figure out a Christmas present for her. She already has the kids pretty well planned out and taken care of.

One of my wife's favorite reasons to laugh and roll her eyes at me (other than my nerdy coin-collecting ways) is that she thinks I'm far too polite to people that come to the door trying to sell solar panels and telemarketers... It's how I was raised.
I try to be nice and civil and give people soft but firm nos. I try to respect the fact that they're just trying to earn a paycheck and a living, and I try never to abuse or be rude to them. And yet, lately, I find these people testing my patience.
Around the time Sam got out of the hospital someone must have sold their contact list, including my number, because I have been getting absurd numbers of calls from coin and bullion companies trying to sell me things and these people are obnoxiously pushy. I'm not going to buy from them.
1) I don't buy from cold calls for companies I haven't done business with.
2) I'm not buying bullion right now.
3) anyone trying to sell me PCGS coins doesn't know me as a collector.
4) even to the extent that I'm buying numismatics right now I'm making myself happy in an extremely niche world modern area that they are not going to be equipped to sell to.
And yet... all the pushy BS and aggressive, borderline condescending responses... I've been just hanging up on them more and more. Increasingly, once I've told them I'm not interested politely, I've met the standard of civility. If they choose not to respect that at that point, and try some aggressive pitch, then they're the one in breach of social norms and I'm good to just let them hear a "click." But these salespeople are just so obnoxious.
These are the calls I answer out of concern that its work or kid related. My phone is also getting flooded with calls flagged as "Scam Likely" that I just don't even answer.
I wish I knew who gave them the number. I'd probably never buy from them again.
 
In more positive news, after I got those 2010 25C 200th Independence Anniversary coins that I liked the condition of, I saw the same seller had some of the 50C coins made to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the BCV (Central Bank of Venezuela), so I picked up a bunch of those and I've been similarly pleased with the coins I got. So now I have everything except the 2011 25C commemorative, and I'm well set up to send in some coins in 2023 that will pretty much finish that Venezuelan type set.

It has been about a month since my wife greenlit a new gold coin purchase and, while I have something in mind, I haven't pulled the trigger because I've been waiting to see the fall-out from the hospital stay and a minor car fender-bender to play out before making any large, unnecessary purchases, no matter how secure I'm felling overall. But I have gotten her anniversary present ordered... Now I just have to figure out a Christmas present for her. She already has the kids pretty well planned out and taken care of.

Okay... So I was working during naptime and in the evenings over the weekend, and work has been slow the first half of this week - both because the client on my main project isn't answering my questions and I think because they're not putting much on me right now having just gotten back from being at the hospital for two weeks, so I've taken pictures, and edited them and done some writing... but I just really want to show off these Rhodesian Penny photos and these banner images because I'm really proud of how these came out:






 
Having gotten those made, I took the images for the 1962 - an MS67RD, the highest grade and nicest looking coin in the set - and made this banner image.

I also made the following for a Venezuelan Bolivar Set. Banner images for sets like this are a little more "interesting" to me because there's more than one design and so there's more that I want to show and highlight. With this one, the things I really wanted to show and pull out are 1) The two (old and new-2021) portraits for Bolivar on the obverse, and 2) the Bimetallic bolivar and 3) the coat of arms, which, other than Bolivar, is the most commonly featured device on the coins.

Also at this point, all 12 coins in the Venezuelan set have a comment on them. I had to laugh a little bit because, when I opened my old Word file for saving work on this, most of my work had been done on 1) the 1989 coins that are not in this set and 2) the 2016 coins that I ... forgot to submit.  So that pretty much had me starting from scratch except I'd pulled some vital stats on all the coins previously including weight, size, composition, etc. This is still going to be a work in progress as I still want to put in more design commentary and maybe layer in some more context. However, I went really hard on the history and the timeline for this period in my notes set, so I may not do that again for this coin set.
 
So... Yeah. I took advantage of some slow time to get this done, I'm very happy with what I got, and I wanted to share.
I took this recently and sent it to my wife saying, "can you tell how I like to relax?"

Okay... So I was working during naptime and in the evenings over the weekend, and work has been slow the first half of this week - both because the client on my main project isn't answering my questions and I think because they're not putting much on me right now having just gotten back from being at the hospital for two weeks, so I've taken pictures, and edited them and done some writing... but I just really want to show off these Rhodesian Penny photos and these banner images because I'm really proud of how these came out:






 
Having gotten those made, I took the images for the 1962 - an MS67RD, the highest grade and nicest looking coin in the set - and made this banner image.

I also made the following for a Venezuelan Bolivar Set. Banner images for sets like this are a little more "interesting" to me because there's more than one design and so there's more that I want to show and highlight. With this one, the things I really wanted to show and pull out are 1) The two (old and new-2021) portraits for Bolivar on the obverse, and 2) the Bimetallic bolivar and 3) the coat of arms, which, other than Bolivar, is the most commonly featured device on the coins.

Also at this point, all 12 coins in the Venezuelan set have a comment on them. I had to laugh a little bit because, when I opened my old Word file for saving work on this, most of my work had been done on 1) the 1989 coins that are not in this set and 2) the 2016 coins that I ... forgot to submit.  So that pretty much had me starting from scratch except I'd pulled some vital stats on all the coins previously including weight, size, composition, etc. This is still going to be a work in progress as I still want to put in more design commentary and maybe layer in some more context. However, I went really hard on the history and the timeline for this period in my notes set, so I may not do that again for this coin set.
 
So... Yeah. I took advantage of some slow time to get this done, I'm very happy with what I got, and I wanted to share.
I took this recently and sent it to my wife saying, "can you tell how I like to relax?"

So, the awards deadline has come and gone, and I made the joke to Shandy along the lines of, "Well, I lost the 50 Lire this year, but I managed to win in 4 Italian categories instead of 2 this year, so that's cool, right?" Her response was, "So, you're going to get me 6 next year, right?" "You planning to up my budget? " More seriously, my quip back to her would be that I'll feel pretty good about it if I manage the defend the title on 2 or 3 of these 4 next year. I seem to be decently good at calling attention to categories and getting more sets created.  
Can you tell which one was created as a bit of an afterthought that I haven't had a chance to really mess with yet? Seriously.... I thought I'd made and posted a banner for all of these, then I actually looked at the 5 Lire set last night and was like...  "Ooops."

At some point I'm also wanting to work with an image of the 1994 500L to work on and differentiate the 500 Lire type set banner from the non-circulating commemorative date set. But it works for now. 
Most of these coins that I haven't bought raw and graded myself have come from 1 dealer in particular and they've had some MS67 1981 200 Lire coins - celebrating the first observation of UN FAO's World Food Day - that I'd been wanting to get and add to the 200 Lire Type set. The only problem was, consistent with their usual, they'd listed the coins at $300 each, which is.... Silly.  
Just for Lawls, and as a reminder to myself I watched the listing on eBay. The seller then offered me a 15% discount. $255. Which was... Slightly less silly. "Nah. You can still keep it at that price."
As has tended to be the case, they eventually listed one for $50, which was starting to become more reasonable. I'm pretty okay to let someone recover their grading fees and make a little money if it is a good grade and they're saving me the work of hunting and submitting myself. When they're half-way reasonable on price I like these people. They make my life much easier on these sets, letting me focus more energy in other areas, so I do want them to continue having an incentive to keep submitting and supplying me with coins.
So, I watched that listing thinking I might pull the trigger on it later. Then the seller offers me another 10% discount, knocking it down to $45. At that point I finally showed it to Shandy, and she was with me on taking it at that price.
$45 plus shipping - down 85% of the original ask.
I am still frequently amazed by and in awe of what people will ask for on these rarely-graded, thinly-collected-as-graded-coins, modern condition rarities, frequently bragging up that the coin is Top Pop (for now, but in no way guaranteed to remain such).
I'm really looking forward to getting this one in, and when I do, I think it's going to be time to look into updating the 200 Lire banner to show off some of the different designs.
I suspect she'll take this one and add it to her small-but-growing stash. So I may have to steal it for the short term to take the pictures.

One coin I'd particularly enjoy adding to this set would be the 1980 issue:

Between the child hugging the woman and the book in her lap I think that's almost a perfect design for my wife.
Interestingly, this coin also references UN FAO, but unlike with the 1981 coin, I haven't researched this to figure out what the connection to FAO is with this one.
 

So, the awards deadline has come and gone, and I made the joke to Shandy along the lines of, "Well, I lost the 50 Lire this year, but I managed to win in 4 Italian categories instead of 2 this year, so that's cool, right?" Her response was, "So, you're going to get me 6 next year, right?" "You planning to up my budget? " More seriously, my quip back to her would be that I'll feel pretty good about it if I manage the defend the title on 2 or 3 of these 4 next year. I seem to be decently good at calling attention to categories and getting more sets created.  
Can you tell which one was created as a bit of an afterthought that I haven't had a chance to really mess with yet? Seriously.... I thought I'd made and posted a banner for all of these, then I actually looked at the 5 Lire set last night and was like...  "Ooops."

At some point I'm also wanting to work with an image of the 1994 500L to work on and differentiate the 500 Lire type set banner from the non-circulating commemorative date set. But it works for now. 
Most of these coins that I haven't bought raw and graded myself have come from 1 dealer in particular and they've had some MS67 1981 200 Lire coins - celebrating the first observation of UN FAO's World Food Day - that I'd been wanting to get and add to the 200 Lire Type set. The only problem was, consistent with their usual, they'd listed the coins at $300 each, which is.... Silly.  
Just for Lawls, and as a reminder to myself I watched the listing on eBay. The seller then offered me a 15% discount. $255. Which was... Slightly less silly. "Nah. You can still keep it at that price."
As has tended to be the case, they eventually listed one for $50, which was starting to become more reasonable. I'm pretty okay to let someone recover their grading fees and make a little money if it is a good grade and they're saving me the work of hunting and submitting myself. When they're half-way reasonable on price I like these people. They make my life much easier on these sets, letting me focus more energy in other areas, so I do want them to continue having an incentive to keep submitting and supplying me with coins.
So, I watched that listing thinking I might pull the trigger on it later. Then the seller offers me another 10% discount, knocking it down to $45. At that point I finally showed it to Shandy, and she was with me on taking it at that price.
$45 plus shipping - down 85% of the original ask.
I am still frequently amazed by and in awe of what people will ask for on these rarely-graded, thinly-collected-as-graded-coins, modern condition rarities, frequently bragging up that the coin is Top Pop (for now, but in no way guaranteed to remain such).
I'm really looking forward to getting this one in, and when I do, I think it's going to be time to look into updating the 200 Lire banner to show off some of the different designs.
I suspect she'll take this one and add it to her small-but-growing stash. So I may have to steal it for the short term to take the pictures.

One coin I'd particularly enjoy adding to this set would be the 1980 issue:

Between the child hugging the woman and the book in her lap I think that's almost a perfect design for my wife.
Interestingly, this coin also references UN FAO, but unlike with the 1981 coin, I haven't researched this to figure out what the connection to FAO is with this one.
 

So, the awards deadline has come and gone, and I made the joke to Shandy along the lines of, "Well, I lost the 50 Lire this year, but I managed to win in 4 Italian categories instead of 2 this year, so that's cool, right?" Her response was, "So, you're going to get me 6 next year, right?" "You planning to up my budget? " More seriously, my quip back to her would be that I'll feel pretty good about it if I manage the defend the title on 2 or 3 of these 4 next year. I seem to be decently good at calling attention to categories and getting more sets created.  
Can you tell which one was created as a bit of an afterthought that I haven't had a chance to really mess with yet? Seriously.... I thought I'd made and posted a banner for all of these, then I actually looked at the 5 Lire set last night and was like...  "Ooops."

At some point I'm also wanting to work with an image of the 1994 500L to work on and differentiate the 500 Lire type set banner from the non-circulating commemorative date set. But it works for now. 
Most of these coins that I haven't bought raw and graded myself have come from 1 dealer in particular and they've had some MS67 1981 200 Lire coins - celebrating the first observation of UN FAO's World Food Day - that I'd been wanting to get and add to the 200 Lire Type set. The only problem was, consistent with their usual, they'd listed the coins at $300 each, which is.... Silly.  
Just for Lawls, and as a reminder to myself I watched the listing on eBay. The seller then offered me a 15% discount. $255. Which was... Slightly less silly. "Nah. You can still keep it at that price."
As has tended to be the case, they eventually listed one for $50, which was starting to become more reasonable. I'm pretty okay to let someone recover their grading fees and make a little money if it is a good grade and they're saving me the work of hunting and submitting myself. When they're half-way reasonable on price I like these people. They make my life much easier on these sets, letting me focus more energy in other areas, so I do want them to continue having an incentive to keep submitting and supplying me with coins.
So, I watched that listing thinking I might pull the trigger on it later. Then the seller offers me another 10% discount, knocking it down to $45. At that point I finally showed it to Shandy, and she was with me on taking it at that price.
$45 plus shipping - down 85% of the original ask.
I am still frequently amazed by and in awe of what people will ask for on these rarely-graded, thinly-collected-as-graded-coins, modern condition rarities, frequently bragging up that the coin is Top Pop (for now, but in no way guaranteed to remain such).
I'm really looking forward to getting this one in, and when I do, I think it's going to be time to look into updating the 200 Lire banner to show off some of the different designs.
I suspect she'll take this one and add it to her small-but-growing stash. So I may have to steal it for the short term to take the pictures.

One coin I'd particularly enjoy adding to this set would be the 1980 issue:

Between the child hugging the woman and the book in her lap I think that's almost a perfect design for my wife.
Interestingly, this coin also references UN FAO, but unlike with the 1981 coin, I haven't researched this to figure out what the connection to FAO is with this one.
 

Okay... So I was working during naptime and in the evenings over the weekend, and work has been slow the first half of this week - both because the client on my main project isn't answering my questions and I think because they're not putting much on me right now having just gotten back from being at the hospital for two weeks, so I've taken pictures, and edited them and done some writing... but I just really want to show off these Rhodesian Penny photos and these banner images because I'm really proud of how these came out:






 
Having gotten those made, I took the images for the 1962 - an MS67RD, the highest grade and nicest looking coin in the set - and made this banner image.

I also made the following for a Venezuelan Bolivar Set. Banner images for sets like this are a little more "interesting" to me because there's more than one design and so there's more that I want to show and highlight. With this one, the things I really wanted to show and pull out are 1) The two (old and new-2021) portraits for Bolivar on the obverse, and 2) the Bimetallic bolivar and 3) the coat of arms, which, other than Bolivar, is the most commonly featured device on the coins.

Also at this point, all 12 coins in the Venezuelan set have a comment on them. I had to laugh a little bit because, when I opened my old Word file for saving work on this, most of my work had been done on 1) the 1989 coins that are not in this set and 2) the 2016 coins that I ... forgot to submit.  So that pretty much had me starting from scratch except I'd pulled some vital stats on all the coins previously including weight, size, composition, etc. This is still going to be a work in progress as I still want to put in more design commentary and maybe layer in some more context. However, I went really hard on the history and the timeline for this period in my notes set, so I may not do that again for this coin set.
 
So... Yeah. I took advantage of some slow time to get this done, I'm very happy with what I got, and I wanted to share.
I took this recently and sent it to my wife saying, "can you tell how I like to relax?"

Okay... So I was working during naptime and in the evenings over the weekend, and work has been slow the first half of this week - both because the client on my main project isn't answering my questions and I think because they're not putting much on me right now having just gotten back from being at the hospital for two weeks, so I've taken pictures, and edited them and done some writing... but I just really want to show off these Rhodesian Penny photos and these banner images because I'm really proud of how these came out:






 
Having gotten those made, I took the images for the 1962 - an MS67RD, the highest grade and nicest looking coin in the set - and made this banner image.

I also made the following for a Venezuelan Bolivar Set. Banner images for sets like this are a little more "interesting" to me because there's more than one design and so there's more that I want to show and highlight. With this one, the things I really wanted to show and pull out are 1) The two (old and new-2021) portraits for Bolivar on the obverse, and 2) the Bimetallic bolivar and 3) the coat of arms, which, other than Bolivar, is the most commonly featured device on the coins.

Also at this point, all 12 coins in the Venezuelan set have a comment on them. I had to laugh a little bit because, when I opened my old Word file for saving work on this, most of my work had been done on 1) the 1989 coins that are not in this set and 2) the 2016 coins that I ... forgot to submit.  So that pretty much had me starting from scratch except I'd pulled some vital stats on all the coins previously including weight, size, composition, etc. This is still going to be a work in progress as I still want to put in more design commentary and maybe layer in some more context. However, I went really hard on the history and the timeline for this period in my notes set, so I may not do that again for this coin set.
 
So... Yeah. I took advantage of some slow time to get this done, I'm very happy with what I got, and I wanted to share.
I took this recently and sent it to my wife saying, "can you tell how I like to relax?"

Sam was finally allowed to go home last night. We had a follow-up with his pediatrician today and he should get to go back to school and ease back into normal activity on Monday. Ben is still, somewhat comically, trying to get his new front teeth in.
It was very difficult getting out of there. I have rarely wanted to call a nurse a insufficiently_thoughtful_person to her face so badly. They tried to give him 2 vaccines in his two thighs at the same time and didn't restrain his hands while I held his legs so he tried to grab their hands and the syringe and could have broken the needle in his thigh.

We got to go home the day after spending my birthday in the hospital. I would have been just as happy to ignore the day and celebrate at a different time, but Ben had been having a hard time and clearly needed to mark the day and spend some time as a family more than I did so we made it happen.




I was more than a bit surprised to look here yesterday and see the timer counting down about 12 days to the awards cut off. I’d completely forgotten a while ago that the deadline was moved up this year.

With November no longer available and the last two weeks lost to a void of fatigue and stress, I have two sets that would need a lot of work to get them ready and I think I’m going to have to choose between the Rhodesian Pennies and the Venezuelan Set for getting something mostly ready for the cut-off. And I think it’s going to be the Rhodesian Pennies.

I think I can maybe get pictures up for both and I might even be able to get a banner image up for both. I can maybe even get descriptions in for the Venezuelan coins about how they were bought and such. But I’d hoped to have a lot of information about that set about the history of the coins and the country, the timeline of events and such and I just do not have the time or the energy to research that and put that together at this point. I want that set to be an equal companion to the notes set and the Zimbabwean sets, and that just takes a lot of time and a lot of work, and I haven’t been able to do it up to now and now we’re at the end, at least for this year.
Fortunately, I was able to take pictures of the new 500 Lire coins that came back - pictures that match up pretty well visually with what was there before - and that set is pretty ready to go. I’m happy with that one and I’m proud of what I built for Shandy. So that one at least I don’t have to worry about.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll just bust my butt this weekend and next and surprise myself?
The birthday present ended up lining up with the circumstances better than I would have imagined. The Zimbabwean note set is so closely associated for me with Sam and Sam’s birth and now this set, which expands upon it, takes a big step forward on a birthday I spent in the hospital with him.
Maybe I just need to abandon the whole damn thing and, if I do, he’ll stop having to go back to the hospital? Anyone think I’m that lucky? Nah. I think I'm just stuck with the hobby as my stress relief.

Following up on some recent points:
I got that 2010 25C Venezuelan Independence Commemorative from that seller and liked how the one looked so I ordered 4 more, bringing the total to 5, consistent with what I’ve been doing, and I’ll be sending the best of the 5 in to fill that slot in that set later. (Seller's images but the coins look good in hand)

I’ve also gotten in the new three-coin sets with the 50 Bolivar coins from 2016, though I haven’t had a chance to look at those yet. However, these coins do mean that, if the Venezuelan set isn’t really ready for primetime this year, it should be nearly complete and firing on all cylinders for next year. I need to try to cut those loose from the paper holder he shipped them in and get them into flips. This is perhaps a petty complaint given the first half of this post but I absolutely hate seeing coins arrive packed like this... because, yes, those are staples separating the coins between sheets of 20-pound paper.

The day before we went to the hospital, I got an offer from a seller offering me an old 1965 Venezuelan 1 Bolivar coin – the last year they were made of 0.832 silver. They offered it to me for $29. On Tuesday 10/11 I looked at it on my phone and saw the offer was expiring in like 10 minutes and I just took it. It arrived about a week later. In that price, at that grade, it felt reasonable enough and I just felt like it, so took it. It hadn’t been my plan to try to mess with extending the coins in this set back to the “silver age” but sometimes opportunities come up. (Again, seller's images)

One of my eBay saved searched also flagged up to me this morning that one of my favorite notes dealers has, at long last, started listing PMG-graded examples of the new Digital Bolivar notes from 2021. So, I may be expanding the Venezuela Note set to include those in the near future. It's a little funny and amusing that the persion that had been thumping me rather badly on the PMG side and buying all the high-end notes for ZImbabwe and Venezuela seems to have lost interest for now. They haven't been buying, adding or competing for recent new releases when they come up in high grades. I'm wondering if Mike is seeing the same thing in Ukraine.

My in-laws had my car through most of the last 2 weeks so they could have car-seats to help with Ben, so they got together and detailed / cleaned the 6-year-old car and it looks quite nice now. I'll have to try to treat the car a little better and try to keep it a little cleaner and nicer this time. This is something Shandy and I had been wanting and planning to do since we paid it off and then they decided to do it for my birthday. Shandy is now offering, since that now didn’t come out of our budget, to let me go out and use a roughly equivalent amount for some nice coin or something else I couldn’t normally ask for from family for a gift. So I’ll have to give some thought to what I might want to use that for. I have no major leads or thoughts at the moment. I had considered going for a Gold 20 Bolivar from around 1930 but I'm not really seeing anything like that at a price I like at the moment. 
So, there is the rambling, multi-front update.

Sam was finally allowed to go home last night. We had a follow-up with his pediatrician today and he should get to go back to school and ease back into normal activity on Monday. Ben is still, somewhat comically, trying to get his new front teeth in.
It was very difficult getting out of there. I have rarely wanted to call a nurse a insufficiently_thoughtful_person to her face so badly. They tried to give him 2 vaccines in his two thighs at the same time and didn't restrain his hands while I held his legs so he tried to grab their hands and the syringe and could have broken the needle in his thigh.

We got to go home the day after spending my birthday in the hospital. I would have been just as happy to ignore the day and celebrate at a different time, but Ben had been having a hard time and clearly needed to mark the day and spend some time as a family more than I did so we made it happen.




I was more than a bit surprised to look here yesterday and see the timer counting down about 12 days to the awards cut off. I’d completely forgotten a while ago that the deadline was moved up this year.

With November no longer available and the last two weeks lost to a void of fatigue and stress, I have two sets that would need a lot of work to get them ready and I think I’m going to have to choose between the Rhodesian Pennies and the Venezuelan Set for getting something mostly ready for the cut-off. And I think it’s going to be the Rhodesian Pennies.

I think I can maybe get pictures up for both and I might even be able to get a banner image up for both. I can maybe even get descriptions in for the Venezuelan coins about how they were bought and such. But I’d hoped to have a lot of information about that set about the history of the coins and the country, the timeline of events and such and I just do not have the time or the energy to research that and put that together at this point. I want that set to be an equal companion to the notes set and the Zimbabwean sets, and that just takes a lot of time and a lot of work, and I haven’t been able to do it up to now and now we’re at the end, at least for this year.
Fortunately, I was able to take pictures of the new 500 Lire coins that came back - pictures that match up pretty well visually with what was there before - and that set is pretty ready to go. I’m happy with that one and I’m proud of what I built for Shandy. So that one at least I don’t have to worry about.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll just bust my butt this weekend and next and surprise myself?
The birthday present ended up lining up with the circumstances better than I would have imagined. The Zimbabwean note set is so closely associated for me with Sam and Sam’s birth and now this set, which expands upon it, takes a big step forward on a birthday I spent in the hospital with him.
Maybe I just need to abandon the whole damn thing and, if I do, he’ll stop having to go back to the hospital? Anyone think I’m that lucky? Nah. I think I'm just stuck with the hobby as my stress relief.

Following up on some recent points:
I got that 2010 25C Venezuelan Independence Commemorative from that seller and liked how the one looked so I ordered 4 more, bringing the total to 5, consistent with what I’ve been doing, and I’ll be sending the best of the 5 in to fill that slot in that set later. (Seller's images but the coins look good in hand)

I’ve also gotten in the new three-coin sets with the 50 Bolivar coins from 2016, though I haven’t had a chance to look at those yet. However, these coins do mean that, if the Venezuelan set isn’t really ready for primetime this year, it should be nearly complete and firing on all cylinders for next year. I need to try to cut those loose from the paper holder he shipped them in and get them into flips. This is perhaps a petty complaint given the first half of this post but I absolutely hate seeing coins arrive packed like this... because, yes, those are staples separating the coins between sheets of 20-pound paper.

The day before we went to the hospital, I got an offer from a seller offering me an old 1965 Venezuelan 1 Bolivar coin – the last year they were made of 0.832 silver. They offered it to me for $29. On Tuesday 10/11 I looked at it on my phone and saw the offer was expiring in like 10 minutes and I just took it. It arrived about a week later. In that price, at that grade, it felt reasonable enough and I just felt like it, so took it. It hadn’t been my plan to try to mess with extending the coins in this set back to the “silver age” but sometimes opportunities come up. (Again, seller's images)

One of my eBay saved searched also flagged up to me this morning that one of my favorite notes dealers has, at long last, started listing PMG-graded examples of the new Digital Bolivar notes from 2021. So, I may be expanding the Venezuela Note set to include those in the near future. It's a little funny and amusing that the persion that had been thumping me rather badly on the PMG side and buying all the high-end notes for ZImbabwe and Venezuela seems to have lost interest for now. They haven't been buying, adding or competing for recent new releases when they come up in high grades. I'm wondering if Mike is seeing the same thing in Ukraine.

My in-laws had my car through most of the last 2 weeks so they could have car-seats to help with Ben, so they got together and detailed / cleaned the 6-year-old car and it looks quite nice now. I'll have to try to treat the car a little better and try to keep it a little cleaner and nicer this time. This is something Shandy and I had been wanting and planning to do since we paid it off and then they decided to do it for my birthday. Shandy is now offering, since that now didn’t come out of our budget, to let me go out and use a roughly equivalent amount for some nice coin or something else I couldn’t normally ask for from family for a gift. So I’ll have to give some thought to what I might want to use that for. I have no major leads or thoughts at the moment. I had considered going for a Gold 20 Bolivar from around 1930 but I'm not really seeing anything like that at a price I like at the moment. 
So, there is the rambling, multi-front update.

It has been a while but my graded Napoleon typeset is now complete

Congratulations must go to @Mac5 who reached 100% first.
Next challenge will be a Custom Set and will be one coin per mint, only about a third of the way there so that may take some time as most of my Typeset are from Paris - mintmark A.
A project for the next few generations will be the Sets for Italy, Spain, Westphalia, Holland and all the tokens and medals before even attempting date runs. As we don't have any grand children yet I need to have a word with the kids!

I have to lead into this with the fact that I’m just very displeased with both USPS and FedEx at the moment.
First, I go to the mailbox this morning and see a slip of pink paper saying that there was a package requiring a signature – that I’m 90% sure is the coins Shandy ordered – that they “attempted delivery” on late last week.
We were home all day that day. We have a Ring Doorbell that logs motion events and people ringing the door. They did not attempt to deliver that package. They just left the slip in the box and now we have to go to the Post Office to get it from them in their laziness. I’m 90% sure this must have been a sub because our normal mail guy actually brings things to the door. Ya know – he actually tries to do the job.
On Sunday I’d gotten a message from FedEx saying I was getting a box from Sarasota, FL that needed a signature on Monday. I check this morning and it says the package is estimated to arrive between 12:30-3:30 PM… Okay. Cool. I run out for literally 15 minutes at 9:45 AM. The package arrives when I’m gone… at 9:55… Nearly 3 hours before the start of their estimated window… Thanks, Guys. That’s… really helpful… when you give an estimate that’s… completely wrong…
Normally I’d be annoyed because I missed the delivery because they came well outside their estimated window and now, I’d have to go get it… except… they left it… on the front porch. The guy walks up and just leaves the box by the door. No signature. He doesn’t even ring the doorbell. I know this, because, again, my smart doorbell would have logged the ring.
Way to go, folks! You both stink for different reasons…
But… I have the Venezuelan and Italian coins back in my possession again! And so tonight will be another shared unboxing event.
 
We opened the box tonight after the kids are in bed as is our practice. Very happy to have these home.


 




Somewhat to my surprise, she commented on how many Venezuelan coins there were, including relative to the number of Italian coins, but there's a reason why I pay for this out of my hobby and spending money.
She has now been given a 2nd Coin box as, with these 6 new ones, all of hers can't fit in the 1 box, and I'm not done working on this and there will be more.  
I have lots more to say about these coins coming up as I’m already working to integrate them into new and existing sets. I’m just going to try to space it out and try not to dump too much too fast.
We popped over to the PO to get the other package this morning. I tried to pick it up and Shandy snatched it out of my hand and wouldn't even allow me to touch or hold it while declaring that I can't have it until my birthday, while some older guys in line chuckled. She is still attempting to claim that this package - that came awfully fast and is the only such package to come - is some new Italian coin that she found and bought and not the Rhodesian Pennies... It's all seriously kinda rude. 

It is only now, now that I’ve taken the coins from the submission and populated a competitive set that I realize I made a massive boo-boo when I sent these coins in:
I had 5 examples each of the 10 Bolivar and 100 Bolivar Fuertes coins from 2016… but I forgot to look at them with Shandy, pick one of each out and include them with the submission. I should have submitted 24 Venezuelan coins, not 22.
I think this happened 1) Because the number of coins and the number of different types with the same denominations kept growing on me and so I forgot about these Bolivar Fuertes coins, remembering instead only the 2004-dated Bolivar coins with the same face value. 2) They were in a page alone together in the back of my binder and I think I grabbed them up with the rest of the BsF coins, trying to get to the BsS coins, and literally flipped past them in my binder.
So now I’m sitting here, kicking myself, because there’s a massive hole in the set now when there should only be the 1 missing 50 Bolivar coin that I had not managed to acquire… for… reasons…

Speaking of the 50 Bolivar... I'd found a seller offering 3-coin sets of the 10, 50, and 100 bolivar from 2016. They were priced reasonably at $6 per set but the shipping was $6 per set and they said in the listing that each additional lot was $6... So buying the 3 sets they had would be $18... plus $18 shipping. I emailed the guy like, are you seriously going to charge $18 to ship 9 small coins (that collectively way 52 grams). The response was, that he does combine shipping based on the weight of the box. Just request an invoice at checkout. I'm like, okay, fine! I committed to buy and asked for the invoice... apparently I should have looked at his chart more closely because his combined shipping fee was $16... to ship a box that by his own admission weighs 80 grams, or about 0.2 pounds... I'm more than a little salty about this... but, lesson learned. This will be the first and last time I buy from him. But I'll get at least a few examples of the 50 bolivar coin and a few more examples of the 10 and 100 that may or may not be better than what I have now.
I'd also found a seller offering the 25C 2010 200th Anniversary coin for $ 6.99 each + $1 shipping, but if you ordered 4+ they'd be $5.59 each. I found this tempting to get one of these circulating commem type coins, but, not having bought from this person before and not 100% sure what I'd get, I wasn't sure I wanted to do my normal and get 4-5 of these to pick through from them on a first purchase. I just added it to my watch list to think about it. The next day they offered me $4.80 + $1 shipping for one of them. At that point I just said, "Sure, I'll spend $6 to get a peek at what you have and see if I want to get more later." So, we'll see how that goes. But if that works out that would leave me only needing the 2011 25C and the 2010 50C to have all the slots in that set filled.
So… on that note… I go to bang my head on my desk. For more than one reason now.
I hope you all continue to enjoy the sharing of my crazy and my misadventures... some of which blow up in my face, just a little.
 

I have to lead into this with the fact that I’m just very displeased with both USPS and FedEx at the moment.
First, I go to the mailbox this morning and see a slip of pink paper saying that there was a package requiring a signature – that I’m 90% sure is the coins Shandy ordered – that they “attempted delivery” on late last week.
We were home all day that day. We have a Ring Doorbell that logs motion events and people ringing the door. They did not attempt to deliver that package. They just left the slip in the box and now we have to go to the Post Office to get it from them in their laziness. I’m 90% sure this must have been a sub because our normal mail guy actually brings things to the door. Ya know – he actually tries to do the job.
On Sunday I’d gotten a message from FedEx saying I was getting a box from Sarasota, FL that needed a signature on Monday. I check this morning and it says the package is estimated to arrive between 12:30-3:30 PM… Okay. Cool. I run out for literally 15 minutes at 9:45 AM. The package arrives when I’m gone… at 9:55… Nearly 3 hours before the start of their estimated window… Thanks, Guys. That’s… really helpful… when you give an estimate that’s… completely wrong…
Normally I’d be annoyed because I missed the delivery because they came well outside their estimated window and now, I’d have to go get it… except… they left it… on the front porch. The guy walks up and just leaves the box by the door. No signature. He doesn’t even ring the doorbell. I know this, because, again, my smart doorbell would have logged the ring.
Way to go, folks! You both stink for different reasons…
But… I have the Venezuelan and Italian coins back in my possession again! And so tonight will be another shared unboxing event.
 
We opened the box tonight after the kids are in bed as is our practice. Very happy to have these home.


 




Somewhat to my surprise, she commented on how many Venezuelan coins there were, including relative to the number of Italian coins, but there's a reason why I pay for this out of my hobby and spending money.
She has now been given a 2nd Coin box as, with these 6 new ones, all of hers can't fit in the 1 box, and I'm not done working on this and there will be more.  
I have lots more to say about these coins coming up as I’m already working to integrate them into new and existing sets. I’m just going to try to space it out and try not to dump too much too fast.
We popped over to the PO to get the other package this morning. I tried to pick it up and Shandy snatched it out of my hand and wouldn't even allow me to touch or hold it while declaring that I can't have it until my birthday, while some older guys in line chuckled. She is still attempting to claim that this package - that came awfully fast and is the only such package to come - is some new Italian coin that she found and bought and not the Rhodesian Pennies... It's all seriously kinda rude. 

So here we discuss the Italian coins – 6 coins that come in 2 sets of three: 3 coins to fill out the 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Birth Year Set and 3 coins to fill some of the remaining gaps in the 500L set she wanted. Though the 1986 500L actually fits in with both groups even though it was acquired primarily for the 500 Lire set / as part of that effort.
Here are the grades:

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

2000:

2001:

Shandy asked me last night if I could go ahead and add the coins now or if I had to wait until I got them. I told her that the system lets me add the coins to my inventory in the registry as soon as they ship and technically I could add them in now, but I'm not going to because don't think that's how NGC prefers that we play. With them coming back now I have plenty of time to pop them in and image them and in the mean time I can be working on writing up text in Word files if I need to.
Meanwhile she has started teasing me that the Rhodesian pennies are going to go back and she's going to buy some Italian coins instead... Looking at these sets and what's about to come in, I can't imagine what she thinks she'd buy and she doesn't usually like buying things like this unless I link her to it.

So here we discuss the Italian coins – 6 coins that come in 2 sets of three: 3 coins to fill out the 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Birth Year Set and 3 coins to fill some of the remaining gaps in the 500L set she wanted. Though the 1986 500L actually fits in with both groups even though it was acquired primarily for the 500 Lire set / as part of that effort.
Here are the grades:

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

2000:

2001:

Shandy asked me last night if I could go ahead and add the coins now or if I had to wait until I got them. I told her that the system lets me add the coins to my inventory in the registry as soon as they ship and technically I could add them in now, but I'm not going to because don't think that's how NGC prefers that we play. With them coming back now I have plenty of time to pop them in and image them and in the mean time I can be working on writing up text in Word files if I need to.
Meanwhile she has started teasing me that the Rhodesian pennies are going to go back and she's going to buy some Italian coins instead... Looking at these sets and what's about to come in, I can't imagine what she thinks she'd buy and she doesn't usually like buying things like this unless I link her to it.

My grades have finally posted! I checked early this morning and the submission listed as shipped! Yay!
And the box is in the mail and so it will probably arrive at the house before we leave for a short vacation and won’t end up stuck in the Post Office until I get back – Double Yay!
I also now feel especially smart for getting the last post out on Wednesday night because I don’t like to make too many posts on the same day or too clos together. I had a feeling these were about to drop.
 
As I did with the Big Zimbabwe / Italy submission results I’m going to talk about the Venezuelan and the Italian Grade results separately, each in their own post, because 28 coins is a lot to talk about and the 2 countries make for a clean, easy, division.
So here are the results:

So… Getting the obvious pain point out of the way first… that 62… Man! Ouch! That stings and burns a little. I missed the mark on that one.
Other than that one really really low point, I’m very happy with how these did.
Only that one coin did not grade Gem (65) or better. Only 3 other coins got an MS65, so only 4 coins out of 22 got below an MS66. That’s pretty good for being not-a-pro and a lot better than I did back in the day. These results seem like they’re probably at least about even with what some more active submitters and dealers get based on things I’ve been seeing on eBay (more on that later). So I’ll take that as a collector with cornea scaring in one eye working with his wife. I’m not in this set to make money anyway.
There were 3 MS68s and a MS69 though, which I’m very excited to see. Another 5 scored an MS67 with MS66 being the most common grade with 9 coins.
It’s not lost on me that the low grades were heavily focused on larger coins like the 1B and 5B but the high grades were heavily concentrated on smaller coins – 1C, 5C, 10C. I’m wondering if I’m not giving enough attention to relatively small flaws on the larger coins that individually or collectively are still enough to pull the grades down on the larger coins. I feel like I also struggled in relative terms on some of the Larger Zimbabwean coins, hitting some of my lowest grades on things like the 50C and the $1 coins. But then, I also got some really good grades with those on the $1 and $2 bond coins. But that may have just been a factor of getting lucky with getting nice coins in my orders from the dealer.
At the end of the day, I’m buying usually 5 to 10 examples of each coin and sending in the one we think is the best. If I just get a “bad” batch the best of the bunch is the best of the bunch and still only a lower-gem grade. So then is the take away to just not send in anything and buy more raw examples hoping to get something better rather than just sending the best I have gotten so far to fill the hole, lay a foundation, and maybe build from there?
I feel a small measure of extra vindication with the 2007 1C, 5C and 25C coins coming back so high – There have been some coins already graded by NGC on eBay the last couple of months in MS66RD and MS67RD grades. I had seen these get listed when I was still planning and preparing my submission and I seriously thought about just buying those and taking the guaranteed MS67RD rather than rolling the dice on my eyes and skills. The problem I had was the sellers were asking $50-70 each for these 1C and 5C coins. There is also an MS66 12.5C and a MS67 25C that sellers are asking $65 each for + shipping.
If the sellers had been offering guaranteed MS68s for that price, I probably would have been more tempted. I still don’t know if I would have bit at that price, but it would have been tempting. But with what they were asking, for an 66 or 67, it wasn’t worth it to me. I was happier spending $20 per coin to roll the dice and see how I did.
I missed by one point on the 12.5C, but I did at least 1 point better on the three others. Overall, a big win for me.
Edited to add,
eBay also has a 2012 1B Bimetallic in MS66 with an asking price of $60 that I matched point-for-point. If I had bought those 5 coins pre-graded I would have been out about $300 and this entire 28 coin submission (including the Italian coins which we'll talk about tomorrow probably), set me back about $430 in grading fees (Well... and $150 in credits too i guess. But i got a discount there).
I guess, yeah, I spent a chunk buying all the raw examples to search though, but I'd already sunk that cost in deciding to send these in vs buying pre-graded, and I enjoyed looking at them all with my wife, and I still have all those other raw examples too now.
With Zimbabwe and now these Venezuelan and Italian coins, I've been enjoying collecting this way for these sets - looking at raw with the Wife and grading myself.

My grades have finally posted! I checked early this morning and the submission listed as shipped! Yay!
And the box is in the mail and so it will probably arrive at the house before we leave for a short vacation and won’t end up stuck in the Post Office until I get back – Double Yay!
I also now feel especially smart for getting the last post out on Wednesday night because I don’t like to make too many posts on the same day or too clos together. I had a feeling these were about to drop.
 
As I did with the Big Zimbabwe / Italy submission results I’m going to talk about the Venezuelan and the Italian Grade results separately, each in their own post, because 28 coins is a lot to talk about and the 2 countries make for a clean, easy, division.
So here are the results:

So… Getting the obvious pain point out of the way first… that 62… Man! Ouch! That stings and burns a little. I missed the mark on that one.
Other than that one really really low point, I’m very happy with how these did.
Only that one coin did not grade Gem (65) or better. Only 3 other coins got an MS65, so only 4 coins out of 22 got below an MS66. That’s pretty good for being not-a-pro and a lot better than I did back in the day. These results seem like they’re probably at least about even with what some more active submitters and dealers get based on things I’ve been seeing on eBay (more on that later). So I’ll take that as a collector with cornea scaring in one eye working with his wife. I’m not in this set to make money anyway.
There were 3 MS68s and a MS69 though, which I’m very excited to see. Another 5 scored an MS67 with MS66 being the most common grade with 9 coins.
It’s not lost on me that the low grades were heavily focused on larger coins like the 1B and 5B but the high grades were heavily concentrated on smaller coins – 1C, 5C, 10C. I’m wondering if I’m not giving enough attention to relatively small flaws on the larger coins that individually or collectively are still enough to pull the grades down on the larger coins. I feel like I also struggled in relative terms on some of the Larger Zimbabwean coins, hitting some of my lowest grades on things like the 50C and the $1 coins. But then, I also got some really good grades with those on the $1 and $2 bond coins. But that may have just been a factor of getting lucky with getting nice coins in my orders from the dealer.
At the end of the day, I’m buying usually 5 to 10 examples of each coin and sending in the one we think is the best. If I just get a “bad” batch the best of the bunch is the best of the bunch and still only a lower-gem grade. So then is the take away to just not send in anything and buy more raw examples hoping to get something better rather than just sending the best I have gotten so far to fill the hole, lay a foundation, and maybe build from there?
I feel a small measure of extra vindication with the 2007 1C, 5C and 25C coins coming back so high – There have been some coins already graded by NGC on eBay the last couple of months in MS66RD and MS67RD grades. I had seen these get listed when I was still planning and preparing my submission and I seriously thought about just buying those and taking the guaranteed MS67RD rather than rolling the dice on my eyes and skills. The problem I had was the sellers were asking $50-70 each for these 1C and 5C coins. There is also an MS66 12.5C and a MS67 25C that sellers are asking $65 each for + shipping.
If the sellers had been offering guaranteed MS68s for that price, I probably would have been more tempted. I still don’t know if I would have bit at that price, but it would have been tempting. But with what they were asking, for an 66 or 67, it wasn’t worth it to me. I was happier spending $20 per coin to roll the dice and see how I did.
I missed by one point on the 12.5C, but I did at least 1 point better on the three others. Overall, a big win for me.
Edited to add,
eBay also has a 2012 1B Bimetallic in MS66 with an asking price of $60 that I matched point-for-point. If I had bought those 5 coins pre-graded I would have been out about $300 and this entire 28 coin submission (including the Italian coins which we'll talk about tomorrow probably), set me back about $430 in grading fees (Well... and $150 in credits too i guess. But i got a discount there).
I guess, yeah, I spent a chunk buying all the raw examples to search though, but I'd already sunk that cost in deciding to send these in vs buying pre-graded, and I enjoyed looking at them all with my wife, and I still have all those other raw examples too now.
With Zimbabwe and now these Venezuelan and Italian coins, I've been enjoying collecting this way for these sets - looking at raw with the Wife and grading myself.

My grades have finally posted! I checked early this morning and the submission listed as shipped! Yay!
And the box is in the mail and so it will probably arrive at the house before we leave for a short vacation and won’t end up stuck in the Post Office until I get back – Double Yay!
I also now feel especially smart for getting the last post out on Wednesday night because I don’t like to make too many posts on the same day or too clos together. I had a feeling these were about to drop.
 
As I did with the Big Zimbabwe / Italy submission results I’m going to talk about the Venezuelan and the Italian Grade results separately, each in their own post, because 28 coins is a lot to talk about and the 2 countries make for a clean, easy, division.
So here are the results:

So… Getting the obvious pain point out of the way first… that 62… Man! Ouch! That stings and burns a little. I missed the mark on that one.
Other than that one really really low point, I’m very happy with how these did.
Only that one coin did not grade Gem (65) or better. Only 3 other coins got an MS65, so only 4 coins out of 22 got below an MS66. That’s pretty good for being not-a-pro and a lot better than I did back in the day. These results seem like they’re probably at least about even with what some more active submitters and dealers get based on things I’ve been seeing on eBay (more on that later). So I’ll take that as a collector with cornea scaring in one eye working with his wife. I’m not in this set to make money anyway.
There were 3 MS68s and a MS69 though, which I’m very excited to see. Another 5 scored an MS67 with MS66 being the most common grade with 9 coins.
It’s not lost on me that the low grades were heavily focused on larger coins like the 1B and 5B but the high grades were heavily concentrated on smaller coins – 1C, 5C, 10C. I’m wondering if I’m not giving enough attention to relatively small flaws on the larger coins that individually or collectively are still enough to pull the grades down on the larger coins. I feel like I also struggled in relative terms on some of the Larger Zimbabwean coins, hitting some of my lowest grades on things like the 50C and the $1 coins. But then, I also got some really good grades with those on the $1 and $2 bond coins. But that may have just been a factor of getting lucky with getting nice coins in my orders from the dealer.
At the end of the day, I’m buying usually 5 to 10 examples of each coin and sending in the one we think is the best. If I just get a “bad” batch the best of the bunch is the best of the bunch and still only a lower-gem grade. So then is the take away to just not send in anything and buy more raw examples hoping to get something better rather than just sending the best I have gotten so far to fill the hole, lay a foundation, and maybe build from there?
I feel a small measure of extra vindication with the 2007 1C, 5C and 25C coins coming back so high – There have been some coins already graded by NGC on eBay the last couple of months in MS66RD and MS67RD grades. I had seen these get listed when I was still planning and preparing my submission and I seriously thought about just buying those and taking the guaranteed MS67RD rather than rolling the dice on my eyes and skills. The problem I had was the sellers were asking $50-70 each for these 1C and 5C coins. There is also an MS66 12.5C and a MS67 25C that sellers are asking $65 each for + shipping.
If the sellers had been offering guaranteed MS68s for that price, I probably would have been more tempted. I still don’t know if I would have bit at that price, but it would have been tempting. But with what they were asking, for an 66 or 67, it wasn’t worth it to me. I was happier spending $20 per coin to roll the dice and see how I did.
I missed by one point on the 12.5C, but I did at least 1 point better on the three others. Overall, a big win for me.
Edited to add,
eBay also has a 2012 1B Bimetallic in MS66 with an asking price of $60 that I matched point-for-point. If I had bought those 5 coins pre-graded I would have been out about $300 and this entire 28 coin submission (including the Italian coins which we'll talk about tomorrow probably), set me back about $430 in grading fees (Well... and $150 in credits too i guess. But i got a discount there).
I guess, yeah, I spent a chunk buying all the raw examples to search though, but I'd already sunk that cost in deciding to send these in vs buying pre-graded, and I enjoyed looking at them all with my wife, and I still have all those other raw examples too now.
With Zimbabwe and now these Venezuelan and Italian coins, I've been enjoying collecting this way for these sets - looking at raw with the Wife and grading myself.

When I was starting to shop for the 50 & 500 Lire coins, I used to start my Italian project for Shandy in November of last year I noticed that the same seller had MS66RD and 1 MS67RD 1962 Rhodesian Penny.
It’s an interesting coin – it features two dancing elephants.

It got my attention for 2 reasons:
1)     As a Rhodesian coin it is closely associated with the work I’d been doing with my Zimbabwe type set.
2)     As I had been wrapping up / mostly wrapping up the Zimbabwe set – because, yeah, I could and I may yet try to upgrade and improve that set but on a practical level it is more or less finished and future changes will be slow and gradual in comparison – my wife had said that something she’d enjoy seeing me tackle was Turtle coins (Ben’s nursery theme was turtles) or Elephants (Sam’s nursery theme).
I actually have signature sets on the PMG side where I’ve started slowly slowly working on Turtle and Elephant thematic sets.
The fact elephants, as one of the African “Big 5” feature on so many Zimbabwean notes make it even more appropriate as a Sam-inspired set / project and those Zimbabwean notes have started the foundation of that thematic set.
Anyway… (I digress a lot. This is a thing. I’m aware of it.)
At the time (Nov 2021) the seller was only offering the MS66s at a price even resembling reasonable and had the MS67 listed with a BIN of $300. Hard Pass. So I waited.
Fast forward to January 2022, the seller finally listed the MS67 for ~$45. I looked at it, said, “I could do that,” bid and won unopposed. The first coin in what has become the set.

I bring up all the forgoing because, while there are many themes / threads in this journal and a lot of sets I talk about at various times and over time, they do all tie together and interconnect and, since 2016, that connective tissue tends to be my wife and sons inspiring my collecting and these various newer sets are oftentimes born out of love for them.
A couple of months after that I found another seller offering an MS64RD and MS65RD 1963 for $40-50. I decided to go for the MS65RD. I won it unopposed and the MS54RD went unsold. The seller later relisted the MS64RD for a lower price and I thought about bidding on it at that point just for fun, but… I didn’t, and someone else took it.

In some ways I later regretted not going for it because later they popped up with an MS66RD, for the same price I’d won the MS65RD at, and… I won that one… because maybe I’m crazy.
In retrospect I can’t help but think the MS64, MS65 and MS66 could have been an interesting looking grading set… but, I’m crazy. Anyway…

At that point I had 2 dates of what is only a 7-date set, and I’d become aware of another seller that had a 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962 and 1963 in grades ranging from MS63 to MS65RD mostly. The eBay seller has the same username as a user here in the registry that at one time had a set in the category for these coins, but that set was curiously not as complete as this eBay seller’s inventory would suggest it should be, and it was since disappeared – or this person just changed their username here. Hard to say… Anyway.
The selling price on these things was, to put it nicely, somewhat above the market rate, and, even though they took offers, and I tried, they weren’t willing to come down enough to make the coins a good “Fair Market” buy and this honestly had the feeling of dealing with a collector that honestly wasn’t all that motivated to sell.
None of us know anything about that, right?
After a couple of months, having some cash and just wanting it, as much as anything just to have all of the later dates, I bit the bullet and gave them what they wanted (less $10) for an MS65RD 1961.

And so, there’s date #3.
And now we come to the present (day).
I’ve been watching their MS64RB 1955, their MS64RB 1957, and their 2 MS65RD 1958s…. If I just got them I’d have a 6/7 complete set. But, while I knew I wanted these, and while I was tempted to just get them, because, “what’s $200 in the grand scheme?” I just had a hard time pulling the trigger knowing the price on these was just probably high.
But, my birthday was coming up, and I knew Shandy hadn’t gotten me anything yet because she had said she needed to get something ordered, and so I messaged her about them and was just like, hey, “if you want an idea / suggestion…”
She asked me to send her the links so she could “look” at them.
I’m like, “Okay,” and send the links. We’re each staying with a kid in different rooms at the time waiting while a kid falls asleep.
I’m expecting her to look at them and for us to have a conversation later about which 2 or the 3 I like more and where I can tell her about the fact that I’m sure we could easily get $10 taken off each coin if we put in an offer and then maybe she might order them later.
I’m really thinking she might get me 2 of them and then I can snap up the 3rd out of my spending money.
What I did NOT expect her to do was just use the links to just pull the dang trigger and snap up all three coins for $225 – didn’t even ask for an invoice to try to combine shipping. She just snapped them up.
So, then I just come downstairs, having picked up the other 4 coins to show her and to talk about it, and I start telling her about how we could probably haggle down the price a little and she gets this weird look on her face and I’m just like, “What?!?” and what follows is this horrible, awkward, hilarious conversation where I’m just like, “No! You didn’t and she’s just trying so hard to be evasive about it and she’d been planning to taunt me and tease me about it later about getting more Italian coins instead and then finally she admits that she got them. So… Anyway… And what followed was lots of awkward teasing for ruining the surprise and awkward, sheepish, “thank you”s…
She has this little facebook girls-group chat with like 4 other women and they spent part of the rest of the evening laughing at me over this, but it’s cool. I told her she could tell them and laugh at me. She was going to be making fun of me all night anyway.
So… Yeah. Assuming she actually still gives them to me and doesn’t chose to enforce the household rule we gave to Ben wherein if you find out what your gift is early it goes back, and you don’t get it… In a month I’ll have a 6/7 complete set of these coins…
I just have to laugh. It’s a funny story that will now live with and probably get integrated into the Registry set as I build it now. I’m going to be happy to have them, I’ll be happy to stop arguing with myself internally about it now, they’re a gift and now I don’t have to feel bad about “overpaying” and, what’s $30-40 in the grand scheme?
… and this is the set I’ve been quietly working on in the background this year while I’ve been submitting and talking about other things… because when I got that first coin in January I didn’t want to do what I’ve done with past sets (Zimbabwe, the 500L) where in the first year of a set I buy 1 lone set and go into December with a sub-50% complete set that can’t be in the running for the “New Set” Awards, because, while I’m by no means a shoe-in, it is at least nice to know you’re in the running and eligible for consideration. When you’re going to put in the effort on a set.
Side note, but, even though these coins were produced before the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in Nov 1965, these coins reference Queen Elizabeth II but they don’t show her portrait like the coins of many other commonwealth countries. It has the Elephants instead. However, because her name is on the side with the elephants, I consider the elephants side to be Obverse and the side with the denomination and date to be the Reverse. However, this is another one of those coins where NGC tends to flip-flop on which side of the coin is on the label-side of the holder. As I get shots of these taken I’m going to be posting images with the Elephant side consistently in the Obverse photo position, regardless of how the coin is presented in the slab, the same thing I do with some of my Australian silver, which as the same issue.
And… side note… because, I have no self-control some days, I also bought a half-penny, dated 1958. MS67RD, one of the finest examples currently graded by NGC. It has Giraffes. I think it is neat. I am crazy and sometimes have no impulse control with money in proximity to shiny objects.

I finally got those reports issued for those big projects and put in my OT request – apparently, I just made it under the wire for payroll this month so I’ll get the money next week and not at the end of October. I told Shandy I was expecting to net about $500 on it after taxes. She said, “Well, that’s almost enough for a gold coin.” My response was I’d been thinking that would off-set the first month and registration fee for Ben’s Karate and maybe let me have $100-200 to have a little fun with. Kids are so expensive.
I’m writing this as I’ve issued three major reports in the last 2 working days that together total about 2 months of work and about 1300 pages. And I finally get some time to breathe, relax, and drink my coffee as smaller things come in. It helped with making the day quiet yesterday in that the UK office was closed for QEII’s funeral.

A couple of days ago my Venezuela & Italy submission finally hit grading / quality control. I'd said about a month ago I was hoping to have grades by yesterday or maybe sooner but it was not to be.
I'm increasingly accepting that waiting longer than the advertised turnaround time is partially the price I pay for submitting things that are rarely submitted and which they probably have to put extra incremental effort into grading vs, say, a monster box of American Eagles. Like I said in a previous post, I'm pretty sure I "lost" about 3 days on this one just with them doing some research and variety attribution before the coins even got in the system good.
I am still very much looking forward to filling out that 500 Lire set.
The 1995 500Lire coin I got as part of a 4 coin lot for $2.65 and the coin looks... okay. It does look uncirculated. It does have good looking surfaces, but the brass / bronze-like center has a little bit of discoloration on it as is common with these so I'm not 100% in love with it. It was worth $2.65 for a shot in the dark and I will be keeping it in my back pocket as a part of a possible 2023 submission to build out the set the rest of the way.
I still have not gotten the 2000 and 2001 I bought off someone in Germany but I can't say that is entirely surprising.   But I will be looking forward to seeing those.
This is my first day off in 2 weeks where I haven't been using nap-time to do work on a project that had to be rushed through because an old client / project had had the bad idea of spit in a regulator's coffee and earn themselves a lot of frustration and pain on their permitting process. This rush project was on top of two other bigger projects that were also demanding attention! Right now! Because everyone's problems are important!  But... once I fill out my paperwork and put in for it on Monday, now that things are slowing down a bit I'll probably get a few hundred in OT pay and I might get to use some of that on something nice for myself.
I'm also coming up on a vacation with 5 days of no email access. Yay! The way it should be.
 
Just thought I'd add, Ben has lost like 3 teeth in the last month, including his two front teeth. He also started Kirate / MMA this week. The net result is... amusing.

A kid in a Gi, missing his two front teeth.  

A couple of days ago my Venezuela & Italy submission finally hit grading / quality control. I'd said about a month ago I was hoping to have grades by yesterday or maybe sooner but it was not to be.
I'm increasingly accepting that waiting longer than the advertised turnaround time is partially the price I pay for submitting things that are rarely submitted and which they probably have to put extra incremental effort into grading vs, say, a monster box of American Eagles. Like I said in a previous post, I'm pretty sure I "lost" about 3 days on this one just with them doing some research and variety attribution before the coins even got in the system good.
I am still very much looking forward to filling out that 500 Lire set.
The 1995 500Lire coin I got as part of a 4 coin lot for $2.65 and the coin looks... okay. It does look uncirculated. It does have good looking surfaces, but the brass / bronze-like center has a little bit of discoloration on it as is common with these so I'm not 100% in love with it. It was worth $2.65 for a shot in the dark and I will be keeping it in my back pocket as a part of a possible 2023 submission to build out the set the rest of the way.
I still have not gotten the 2000 and 2001 I bought off someone in Germany but I can't say that is entirely surprising.   But I will be looking forward to seeing those.
This is my first day off in 2 weeks where I haven't been using nap-time to do work on a project that had to be rushed through because an old client / project had had the bad idea of spit in a regulator's coffee and earn themselves a lot of frustration and pain on their permitting process. This rush project was on top of two other bigger projects that were also demanding attention! Right now! Because everyone's problems are important!  But... once I fill out my paperwork and put in for it on Monday, now that things are slowing down a bit I'll probably get a few hundred in OT pay and I might get to use some of that on something nice for myself.
I'm also coming up on a vacation with 5 days of no email access. Yay! The way it should be.
 
Just thought I'd add, Ben has lost like 3 teeth in the last month, including his two front teeth. He also started Kirate / MMA this week. The net result is... amusing.

A kid in a Gi, missing his two front teeth.  

Work has had me crazy this week but I wanted to steal a few minutes and share something fun.
My Venezuela submission took a few more days than I normally see as typical to go from just "Received" to being able to see the list of the coins. When the coins did come up I saw some variety information that I hadn't had had been entered in.
Notably, one of the coins I sent in was the non-magnetic, non-steel, zinc-aluminum version (2001-2004) and not the steel version (2000-2002).
I had not even thought to check this or test this personally. All of the other coins that I had from that batch / date range from those lots I bought from my Ukranian dealer were dated 2004. So they were after the date range of the steel versions and they had to be zinc-aluminum. So, In that context, it makes perfect sense that the 2002 10Bs were also zinc-aluminum and not the steel version - where there was such a version. Interestingly, it doesn't look like the 50B version had a zinc version. Those appear to have been steel consistently. Same thing for the 100B coins from 2001-2004.
So I'm thinking the seeming delay might have been because they had to research these a little or look them up to see what and how to enter them in.

 
This might seem like an odd thing to say but I'm almost more excited about the Italian coins than the Venezuelan coins this time because the Italian coins will be mostly completing established sets and they won't be much work. On the other hand, I have a lot of buying, searching, submitting, and writing to do before I can honestly say the Venezuela set is complete and I just don't even know how it's going to happen. If you can find these things for sale in MS at all you don't see a lot of listings saying if the coin is magnetic or not. How am I going to try to hunt these varieties in the wild.
I'm more or less "on-hold" with building out that custom set for the Venezuela coins because, with how custom sets get built on the NGC side, it will be far easier for me to build the set if I just wait and enter the coins in as I build the slots. It really is jarring to me some days just how different things are for custom sets on the PMG vs NGC side. It was quite easy on the PMG side to build out empty slots for notes I didn't have yet but on the NGC side it feels quite awkward. I don't know if this is bias from being used to / accustomed to the PMG side or what.
Also, now I can't help but wonder: The Magnetic nickel-clad-steel 10B is 2.33 grams. The non-magnetic zinc aluminum 10B is 1.74 grams. So if they have a reasonably accurate scale they could have told the difference by weighing it, but I just have this visual in my head now of them touching a magnet to it (through the flip to not scratch it, of course) to see if the coin responded or not.

In some new, interesting developments, it looks like the 50 Lire category picked up 2 new sets in a day and I'm bumped to #3 for now. I think this happened just yesterday.
I kinda had a feeling this would happen and that that would be a 1-year win when I made the set but had no plans to heavily develop it thus year - opting instead to focus on the 500 Lire set.
I'm not ruling out building that 50 L set some more and giving the newcomers a bit of a fight. But the 500 Lire has always been the focus and flagship of this effort and my priority and it still is.
On that front, I'm hoping what I've done - which will soon build that set out to 11 coins in the 14 slots - will be enough to keep that set on top a while longer.
I'm still eyeing making it a complete 14/14 set.
On that front, I was doing a bit of shopping and found 1) a seller with a lot of coins that included a 1995 500 Lire that looked really solid in the photos and 2) a seller in Germany that was selling these by the date and had 1 2000 and 1 2001 listed for sale. The coins are shown in flips in the pictures and I'm hoping they'll be in good condition when they come.
I decided to spend ~$20 taking a shot in the dark. I bought all three.
With these 3 coins I will at least have a representative piece for each date / year that is currently included in that set category.
I may continue shopping and buying some things that look promising in the interim, but I think when my membership renews next year and I have $150 to spend I'll send in 1 per date ( the best of each that I find) and make that a full graded set of the non-comemmorative issues. 
Then maybe I'll slug it out with someone over 50 Lire coins.
 
Side note but a 14 coin set is an awkward number to display.
Am I bum if I get a really fancy case / display for my Zimbabwe birds but not this 500 L set for my wife?
 
2nd side note, but, as was pointed out to me on the PMG side, the RBZ has announced that they will be making 1/10th, 1/4th, and 1/2 oz versions of their "popular" new 1 oz gold coins and that those will be coming out in November. I think I will definitely be begging the wife for the 1/10rh and the 1/4th oz.
 

In some new, interesting developments, it looks like the 50 Lire category picked up 2 new sets in a day and I'm bumped to #3 for now. I think this happened just yesterday.
I kinda had a feeling this would happen and that that would be a 1-year win when I made the set but had no plans to heavily develop it thus year - opting instead to focus on the 500 Lire set.
I'm not ruling out building that 50 L set some more and giving the newcomers a bit of a fight. But the 500 Lire has always been the focus and flagship of this effort and my priority and it still is.
On that front, I'm hoping what I've done - which will soon build that set out to 11 coins in the 14 slots - will be enough to keep that set on top a while longer.
I'm still eyeing making it a complete 14/14 set.
On that front, I was doing a bit of shopping and found 1) a seller with a lot of coins that included a 1995 500 Lire that looked really solid in the photos and 2) a seller in Germany that was selling these by the date and had 1 2000 and 1 2001 listed for sale. The coins are shown in flips in the pictures and I'm hoping they'll be in good condition when they come.
I decided to spend ~$20 taking a shot in the dark. I bought all three.
With these 3 coins I will at least have a representative piece for each date / year that is currently included in that set category.
I may continue shopping and buying some things that look promising in the interim, but I think when my membership renews next year and I have $150 to spend I'll send in 1 per date ( the best of each that I find) and make that a full graded set of the non-comemmorative issues. 
Then maybe I'll slug it out with someone over 50 Lire coins.
 
Side note but a 14 coin set is an awkward number to display.
Am I bum if I get a really fancy case / display for my Zimbabwe birds but not this 500 L set for my wife?
 
2nd side note, but, as was pointed out to me on the PMG side, the RBZ has announced that they will be making 1/10th, 1/4th, and 1/2 oz versions of their "popular" new 1 oz gold coins and that those will be coming out in November. I think I will definitely be begging the wife for the 1/10rh and the 1/4th oz.
 

Work has had me crazy this week but I wanted to steal a few minutes and share something fun.
My Venezuela submission took a few more days than I normally see as typical to go from just "Received" to being able to see the list of the coins. When the coins did come up I saw some variety information that I hadn't had had been entered in.
Notably, one of the coins I sent in was the non-magnetic, non-steel, zinc-aluminum version (2001-2004) and not the steel version (2000-2002).
I had not even thought to check this or test this personally. All of the other coins that I had from that batch / date range from those lots I bought from my Ukranian dealer were dated 2004. So they were after the date range of the steel versions and they had to be zinc-aluminum. So, In that context, it makes perfect sense that the 2002 10Bs were also zinc-aluminum and not the steel version - where there was such a version. Interestingly, it doesn't look like the 50B version had a zinc version. Those appear to have been steel consistently. Same thing for the 100B coins from 2001-2004.
So I'm thinking the seeming delay might have been because they had to research these a little or look them up to see what and how to enter them in.

 
This might seem like an odd thing to say but I'm almost more excited about the Italian coins than the Venezuelan coins this time because the Italian coins will be mostly completing established sets and they won't be much work. On the other hand, I have a lot of buying, searching, submitting, and writing to do before I can honestly say the Venezuela set is complete and I just don't even know how it's going to happen. If you can find these things for sale in MS at all you don't see a lot of listings saying if the coin is magnetic or not. How am I going to try to hunt these varieties in the wild.
I'm more or less "on-hold" with building out that custom set for the Venezuela coins because, with how custom sets get built on the NGC side, it will be far easier for me to build the set if I just wait and enter the coins in as I build the slots. It really is jarring to me some days just how different things are for custom sets on the PMG vs NGC side. It was quite easy on the PMG side to build out empty slots for notes I didn't have yet but on the NGC side it feels quite awkward. I don't know if this is bias from being used to / accustomed to the PMG side or what.
Also, now I can't help but wonder: The Magnetic nickel-clad-steel 10B is 2.33 grams. The non-magnetic zinc aluminum 10B is 1.74 grams. So if they have a reasonably accurate scale they could have told the difference by weighing it, but I just have this visual in my head now of them touching a magnet to it (through the flip to not scratch it, of course) to see if the coin responded or not.