Revenant

Mike recently helped bring to my attention that we're about to get our first new Zimbabwe coins in about 6 years and my Zimbabwe Coin and Note sets are going to be growing again.
The new currency was announced earlier this month (I think around the 5th) and they're supposed to release the new notes tomorrow (on the 30th) and there are already some interesting signs that things are not going well:
They announced 8 note denominations and 2 coin denominations (0.25 ZiG and 0.5 ZiG)

But there were almost immediately stories about the currency dropping in value against the dollar - even before you could get cash for it - and the government not taking the old ZWL dollars - even though they were supposedly good until 4/30 - and the fact that the government itself was still wanting to be paid for things in US dollars...
Now though, those coins are going to have denominations of 1 ZiG, 2 ZiG, and 5 Zig. Not the factional coins they said before. Three coin denominations that overlap with the currency denominations that they announced 3 weeks ago... that they haven't released yet...
The 2 ZiG and 5 ZiG coins were apparently announced over the weekend - Friday 4/26 and Saturday 4/27, based on the articles out there.


 
That's from the "Zimbabwe Situation." This feels like this can't be a good sign. This can't be going well.  
Supposedly 1/10 ZiG, 1/4 ZiG, and 1/2 ZiG coins are still coming but... Are they?  I can't help but notice that today we're getting specs released for 1 ZIG, 2 ZIG, and 5 ZIG but there's narry a peep about the fractionals.
I guess we'll see if I get 2 new coins, 3, or 6 to add to my collection. I guess it sounds like we're only getting 6 new notes now... but maybe we'll get a 1,000 ZIG note instead... and then a 5,000 ZiG note, and then a 10,000 ZiG note... Or they could just throw up their hands and admit that this is not going to work and write-off the whole idea.
The irritating part here is that there is no room for these in my 24-coin case that I got for all the other coins... Cleary time to start planning a new box...

As I've referenced recently, I've been sitting on and trying to accumulate some cash in my hobby budget to maybe buy a 1924 $20 double eagle in MS65 - my grandmother's birth year and now a newly 100-year-old coin. My grandmother would have been 100 years old in February if she were still alive.
I finally got some things moved around and have saved enough that I now have almost $2600 in my hobby budget, and the coin, back in January, was going for about $2,500-2,600.
But gold has moved up about $295/oz in the last 3 months and the coins are now going for about $2,900-3,000 now.
I'll soon have about $2,800 available. If I wanted to pull the trigger on it and get the coin while not quite having enough to buy in in my hobby budget I think Shandy wouldn't give me a hard time about it.
But I think I'm still just going to watch and wait a bit for now.
I may regret it later if the price of gold keeps heading up in the near term, but I don't know that it's going to stay at these levels.
The same people that have been predicting $3,000-5,000/oz for years are again going insane and screaming "buy now!" but, they've been saying this for quite a long time.
Gold hit about $2,050 in 2020 and hit about that same level in 2022. $2,050 in 2020 is about $2,475 now. So it would seem that this may only be an adjustment for 4 years of inflation. And that is the inflation adjusted 2020 peak. We might (and probably will) see it peak and drop back again, just like it always tends to. Until this recent spike, it's been basically flat for 4 years.

I looked up the all-in sustaining costs for some of the major gold miners and, they've gone up some, but they're still in the range of about $1,300-1,400 for most of the big ones, which is only up modestly from the $1,200-$1,300 it was a few years ago.
This spike up might have some legs yet, and it does bother me to watch something I want getting more expensive, but I'm going to calm myself and wait a bit yet.
The higher prices will inevitably bring more marginal production online with a lag, high prices always bring sellers onto the market, and spikes in demand spike premiums, which sour people on buying for a while. All of which will help reverse the trend.
Because of some bonuses and other things going on I'll probably get to add another $1100 to my hobby budget in the next 4-6 months, in addition to the $200 a month I normally get for my discretionary spending. And that also means that, barring a continued huge spike up, I might be able to get the double eagle and maybe one other thing - maybe a coin from Sweden to add to my old, world gold set.
On the other hand, maybe it's time to go for something from Mexico now that I have Venezuelan gold. Or maybe it's time to try to get some of those Zimbabwean bullion coins.
I guess we'll see how it all goes.

Well, I've been a bit quiet lately because I've been hoarding my cash and working on some other things, but I thought I'd pop in and check things out.
I got quite a shock when I saw this:


I've said before that I thought that set was strong enough that it had a good chance of holding up over time, so this immediately got my attention and then I see this:

I've been aware that Xanno was trying to complete his set and he was rapidly filling his in, but how is it even possible that he's suddenly beating me by a factor of about 6 and why is my 100% complete set now at 95%...???
 
Well... Apparently Xanno graded and added 2017 50 cent bond coin and so they had to add that as an eligible coin in the slot... except they apparently did this by disallowing the 2014 from the slot, even though it clearly fits the slot, kicked my MS66 out, and gave his MS64 coin a point value that makes most of my gold coins blush... 3,647 points? I mean... My MS69 $2 Bond coin only gets 205. 
3,647 points?  Someone was smoking something...  I accept no other explanation.
April 2nd... Someone was a little late, but this looks like a joke.




As you might imagine... I've put in a request to get my 50C back in... and if they don't change that score, I'm going to be asking for that too. That score makes the rest of the set completely irrelevant.

I mean... April 2nd was Tuesday. You can't even blame this on a case of the Monday's or a Friday afternoon. And the eclipse wasn't until the 8th so they couldn't have blinded themselves by this point...

 
All in good fun. I mostly find this so insane it's funny, but I wanted to remark on it and preserve it for future laughs.  
 
 
Edit: They added mine back, but left it at 20 points and left his at 3,600... I've requested the score change... I mean... really???

After my mother-in-law got me an MS70 2013 Koala, that got me looking at the set again. My wife got me the 2014 and 2016 in MS70 coins as part of my anniversary present a couple of weeks ago. Around the same time I scored pretty good deals on the 2019 and 2022 coins...
As a funny aside, entered in the 2022 coin this morning, and I saw the pictures entered in the data base for the coin... that... doesn't quite look right...  

So that leaves me just needing to get the 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023, and (soon) 2024 to bring that set back up to being 100% complete for the first time in years.
I started the set back in 2008 and 2009 and won "Best in Category" in it for those years (along with a bunch of other people), but I haven't had the set caught up and complete in... 15 years. Wow. Time has flown... 
But I'm having fun just making some low-effort pick-ups when I find one at a reasonable deal. I think I'll keep looking and slowly trying to get the remaining coins over the next 9 months or so as I find them at attractive prices. 
"Low-effort" might seem kind of blah / harsh but... when you compare buying large lots of raw coins, searching through them, and submitting yourself to just picking up pre-graded MS70s for barely more than the price of the silver + grading... it's a different process.  No dig to those that do this most of the time or exclusively in their collecting, but it's a different process and... it's just easier.
On another front, because my collecting efforts haven't been very cost-heavy the last year or so - in part because past major award wins have subsidized the grading and building of some of my last few project sets - I'm sitting on more hobby money than I've had in a while - pushing $2,000 - and I'm seriously considering continuing to hoard some cash until I have the ~$2500 I'd need to buy an MS65 1924 Double Eagle. It'd be a large gold coin - the largest I'd own by a wide margin - and it's a Double Eagle, which I think is one of those "must haves" if you collect US coins. And 1924 would be for my grandmother's birth year. If I ever went for a 2nd one, I'd go for a 1920 - grandpa's birth year, my namesake.
At the same time, not winning a major award this year and not having a $500 use-it-or-lose-it credit takes off the pressure to find / have things to submit and also frees me up to change my effort or where I spend my energy. I've been somewhat avoiding spending my time and budget on pre-graded stuff the last couple of years specifically because it doesn't help me with the goal of using / burning that credit.
But I will probably be submitting something, because I'll get the $150 credit when my membership renews, and that will probably go towards some turtle coins.
My step-father has discussed in the past the possibility of getting a non-1932 double eagle just to have one, just because neither of us see that 1932 double eagle in the cards.
As part of this I'm realizing that a gift card that my brother-in-law gave me for my birthday has a slightly higher balance than I'd anticipated, and I'm discussing / considering with my wife spending that on more household expenses and rolling the equivalent cash into my budget fun / hobby money to get closer to that $2,500.
Another one of the big ticket items that's kind of a soft-entry in my list of wants would be buying a new camera body - a mirrorless one this time - to replace my D600/D610. I've discussed / joked in the past that a double eagle could be my wife's 10th anniversary present to me. Maybe if I buy the coin, she could do that herself in 10 years.  I guess we'll see how it all works out.  

So I'm probably going to come off like a bit of a "super judger" (as my wife puts it) while also preaching to the choir a bit, but I wanted to post about the work I've been doing on my Half Cent set recently.
I said recently that my wife gave me a 1955 Rhodesian Half Cent, following up on the 1957 and 1958 she'd given me at Christmas, buying things I'd put on my watch list. 
Putting this coin in my set put it in the #1 spot in the category. And so, it was a #1 ranked set for me - with none of my own photos, just NGC photos, no set banner image, no set description and no coin descriptions.
This happened in large part because I hadn't been focusing on this - I'd been focusing on buying and working on coins for another set that I'm also researching at the moment and I'm going to build it out as a phase 3 to what I've done with Zimbabwe and Venezuela. But then this new set snuck up on me, going from 20% complete and rank 5 to 80% complete and rank 1, driven completely by my wife, who knew I liked them and had heard me talking about them.
But once it was #1, I really felt a need to table some of the other stuff for a while, get pictures of these, and build out a presentation for the set. Because - I really think, if you made a #1 ranked set, you should make it worth looking at and fun to look at if you're at all able too - no shade intended at those that can't get a good photo of a coin, perhaps just because they don't have the equipment. But it is just so much nicer to click on a #1 ranked, 100% complete set and see gorgeous, lustrous, detailed, close-up photos. And I love that NGC made it easy to pop-in their verification photos... but that's photos are just not as good as what many of us can produce and they often do not do a good job of showing off the coin. Those photos are produced in a quick, generic, assembly line kind of way and you're not going to get the best images of a particular coin unless you're taking your time with each coin - something NGC just can't afford to do unless you're paying them an extra fee for their high-end photos.
And so, that's what I've done and built and at this point the set presentation is more or less finished and built. I have at least 1 more coin description to get to, as I'm about to get to.
Getting the 1955 meant I only had one more coin - the 1956 - left to get to complete the set. So getting that coin moved up my priority list in a big way after the 14th of last month.
As I started looking into building a presentation for the set, one of the things I like to look at and reference is the mintage for each year.
And that brought something to my attention - the 1956, the only coin I hadn't acquired, the only coin I hadn't even really seen for sale, is also the lowest mintage year with only 480,000 made that year. The next lowest had 720,000 made - 50% more - and all the other years were in the 1-2.5 million range. 
And, coincidentally, as I was looking at all of this and figuring all this out, a seller I've bought several of these Rhodesian coins from listed a 1956 in MS65RB. For reference, there are no coins at MS66 or above presently, there's a single MS65RD graded by NGC and only about 3 MS65RBs. So, this was one of the better NGC-graded examples.
So I immediately wanted that coin, and I have some hobby money saved up and I was ready to bid aggressively to get it, since it was an auction. Because, I'm not sure how long I might have to wait to see another one this good - maybe not long, maybe quite a while.
Turns out I didn't need to worry - no one else bid and no one fought me for it. But the set is now complete. 
I won the coin last weekend, and it arrived on Wednesday. I took some time last night to get pictures taken and edited to go with the pictures I took of the others last week. And so, here it is. I just need to get that last description finished.

And so the next post will probably focus on what I've been working on now that this is done.

I hope everyone on here had a Good Christmas a few days ago and is looking forward to a good New Year's Eve and New Years Day.
We'll be hosting a New Year's Eve party this year because Ben really liked it that one year and he wants one.
From a coin collecting standpoint this year was a little more muted than last year - Shandy got me a 2023 MS70 Panda, surprising me after head-faking with the Koalas.

I also got Choya a 1982-D Half dollar to fill in a hole in one of the year-sets we started years ago. That was a surprise for him because he claims that he'd been looking recently and hadn't seen anything on offer. I looked and had seen several things, but it's entirely possible that what I was willing to spend isn't the same thing as what he was willing to spend.  

Shandy also did me a HUGE favor on a non-coin collecting front and bought me a padded foam case for storing some of the minis I've been collecting and trying to slowly paint this year.
It amuses me to think that my old High School Art Teachers, if they're still around and kicking somewhere, would probably be happy to see me still painting and doing things with art supplies into my mid- and soon to be late-30s.
Lately I've continued working on a project of pink and purple mechs that I'm painting for Shandy:


My mother-in-law gave me a beefier version of my magnifying lamp that I can clamp onto my table and, when I get to do this stuff in my office, this will be doing like it's smaller brother and doing double-duty for coins and mini-painting... But I need to put it together... Shouldn't be too hard.


Shandy meanwhile is taking up crochete, and so there are times now when I'll be sitting and painting and she'll be working with yarn.
I'm quietly (for now) seeing if I can pull something off for Ben. If I pull it off, I'll probably be posting about it soon. We'll see on that front, but I never talk about it until it's done on these things.

I hope everyone on here had a Good Christmas a few days ago and is looking forward to a good New Year's Eve and New Years Day.
We'll be hosting a New Year's Eve party this year because Ben really liked it that one year and he wants one.
From a coin collecting standpoint this year was a little more muted than last year - Shandy got me a 2023 MS70 Panda, surprising me after head-faking with the Koalas.

I also got Choya a 1982-D Half dollar to fill in a hole in one of the year-sets we started years ago. That was a surprise for him because he claims that he'd been looking recently and hadn't seen anything on offer. I looked and had seen several things, but it's entirely possible that what I was willing to spend isn't the same thing as what he was willing to spend.  

Shandy also did me a HUGE favor on a non-coin collecting front and bought me a padded foam case for storing some of the minis I've been collecting and trying to slowly paint this year.
It amuses me to think that my old High School Art Teachers, if they're still around and kicking somewhere, would probably be happy to see me still painting and doing things with art supplies into my mid- and soon to be late-30s.
Lately I've continued working on a project of pink and purple mechs that I'm painting for Shandy:


My mother-in-law gave me a beefier version of my magnifying lamp that I can clamp onto my table and, when I get to do this stuff in my office, this will be doing like it's smaller brother and doing double-duty for coins and mini-painting... But I need to put it together... Shouldn't be too hard.


Shandy meanwhile is taking up crochete, and so there are times now when I'll be sitting and painting and she'll be working with yarn.
I'm quietly (for now) seeing if I can pull something off for Ben. If I pull it off, I'll probably be posting about it soon. We'll see on that front, but I never talk about it until it's done on these things.

One of the predictable outcomes of me starting to work more seriously on a collection / set of coins with a turtle theme is that its going to have me branching out into some more things and giving me extra opportunities to digress into, "Hey! Look at this thing I just found!"
I recently found a seller offering 4 of these coins from that feature a sea turtle. I ordered all 4 of the ones they had listed. When those came in and looked great, and I saw the seller had listed 3 more, I ordered those too, just to have several to look at and for some extras.


I have to say, it was a little jarring to see the old hammer and sickle on a coin dated 2018 - 27 years after the fall of the USSR. And that whole design looks very very anachronistically soviet. 
Moldova is a very small country stuck between Ukraine and Romania and it's right next to the port of Odesa. It has about 2.5 Million people.

But as I read more, I've found that this coin doesn't actually come from Moldova.
There's an even smaller, unrecognized, breakaway state called Transnistria that tried to break away during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.
The Moldovan government has not had control or influence over the area since a ceasefire agreement was made to effectively end the Transnistria War in July 1992, and Transnistria (the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic) has its own president.

The currency of Moldova is the "Leu" and this coin is denominated in Roubles.
Transnistria dropped "Soviet" from their name in 1991 and nominally abandoned the socialist ideology... but apparently not the symbolism and iconography, if this coin is any indication.
Based on Numista, Transnistria puts out tons and tons of different 1 Rouble designs. It looks like in 2016 they did a whole "signs of the zodiac series" / set and in 2017 they had a "Coats of Arms of Transnistrian Cities series," several other commemorative issues, Chinese Zodiac issues... 2018 had their "Red Book of Transnistria" series, which included this coin, as well as a bunch of others.
They put out a lot of these things.... a lot a lot. If you look at the coins of the "third rouble" (which has only existed since 2000) on Numista, they have 11 pages of coins / coin designs - 530 results. Venezuela has 136 results for the period from 1843-date. SO.... yeah. This little republic apparently likes to pump out limited-run, non-circulating coins with the best of them. A lot like Niue, but with nickel-plated steel instead of 1 oz silver coins.
They are all non-circulating issues with limited mintages - this coin apparently has a mintage of only 50,000 - and they're all nickel-plated steel.
So, an interesting little find to be sure.
 

Posting this a little late, but I thought I'd say "Happy Thanksgiving" to everyone.
I found myself remembering a recent conversation with Ben, where he was wondering when he'd get his own cell phone (recall: he is 7), and we thought he'd probably get one in a few years, maybe as he's getting into middle school and starting to do things for school and such without us around or with him more, but we also pointed out that this would be subject to us having the money / funds available at the time for him to have a cell phone and pay the plan on it. We pointed out that it's always possible to have lean times and he just kind of shrugged that off and was like, "but that's not going to happen."
Oh, how I wish I could share his confidence!
He's too young to remember the year I didn't have a job. He's still really too young I think to remember much of the time before 2021, before his mother went back to work, and that was the point when we finally really got comfortable again - when we had 2 incomes again. Before that, we were making it, but we had to be more careful with the budget than we have been the last couple of years.
But that was something I just had to think about and laugh about on Thanksgiving. "Yes, lean times do come. But they're not here right now, and that's something to be grateful for. And we have savings and a buffer to help us when lean times do come. And that's something else to be grateful for."
 
On another note, I did manage to image the new 3P and 6P coins, and image the recent additions to my modern Italian projects.
I thought I'd call out the results with the 3P coins. They're copper-nickel coins, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, they tone in a manner similar to what you see with some old US Nickels.
There's a pretty major difference between the level of detail in the hair on the 1955 vs the 1957. I don't know if this is a die state issue or a strike quality issue. Were the details missing from the die at that point or did the coin just not get hit hard enough to transfer them? Overall, looking at the rest of the coin, I think the strike was solid but the die just didn't have the details to transfer.


Here's a 6P reverse, just to share how the Leopard looks:

 

Thought I’d throw some notes out about some other nonsense that probably doesn’t rate having a stand-alone post:
I recently found myself wanting/ needing to get more boxes again for the first time since 2020, and I decided to do something a little different. I remembered that NGC had sold red boxes with gold lettering instead of the standard grey / silver ones with blue lettering. NGC is sold out of those but there are sellers on Amazon that have them for re-sale at reasonable-ish prices. Just for fun I picked up some of them and I’m going to be using those to store the Italian coins I’ve bought to build sets for Shandy. I took the two silver boxes these coins had been in back for myself.

Because, yes, what started out a couple of random modern Italian purchases to win a few BiC certificates and ribbons and make a quirky romantic gesture to my wife has slowly grown over 2-3 years into something a little bigger and (maybe?) more impressive.
 
After adding the 20 Kroner coin from Denmark and the 20 Bolivar coin to my collection of world gold coins, I'd been at a bit of a loss on where to go next the last year or two. But it recently occurred to me that I work for a Scottish company that is majority owned by a Swedish company. I have a British Sovereign, but I don't have any Swedish coins in this set, and there are Swedish 20 Kroner coins that clock in at about 0.25 ozt and 23 mm in diameter that, while on the larger side (with the British Sovereign), do match the theme for the set. So I may be looking into one of those soon / next. Another option I've consider is getting one or more of the 10 Gulden coins for the Netherlands that have the different Wilhelmia portraits - currently I only have the Wilhelm III coins. I've also considered trying to pick up one of the older 20 Franc designs from Switzerland from the late 1800s.



Regarding getting back into the Koalas, having remembered that my MIL got me that Koala at my wife’s suggestion, remembering that this was one of my wife’s ideas for buying me presents, and remembering that Christmas, our Anniversary, and Valentine’s day are all coming up, I’ve decided NOT to touch the rest of the Koala’s that I “need” for now. I don’t know if my wife will buy more coins for me for this set for any or all of these occasions, but I’m going to leave it alone to leave the option open for her, just in case it ends up making her life easier.

One of the predictable outcomes of me starting to work more seriously on a collection / set of coins with a turtle theme is that its going to have me branching out into some more things and giving me extra opportunities to digress into, "Hey! Look at this thing I just found!"
I recently found a seller offering 4 of these coins from that feature a sea turtle. I ordered all 4 of the ones they had listed. When those came in and looked great, and I saw the seller had listed 3 more, I ordered those too, just to have several to look at and for some extras.


I have to say, it was a little jarring to see the old hammer and sickle on a coin dated 2018 - 27 years after the fall of the USSR. And that whole design looks very very anachronistically soviet. 
Moldova is a very small country stuck between Ukraine and Romania and it's right next to the port of Odesa. It has about 2.5 Million people.

But as I read more, I've found that this coin doesn't actually come from Moldova.
There's an even smaller, unrecognized, breakaway state called Transnistria that tried to break away during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.
The Moldovan government has not had control or influence over the area since a ceasefire agreement was made to effectively end the Transnistria War in July 1992, and Transnistria (the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic) has its own president.

The currency of Moldova is the "Leu" and this coin is denominated in Roubles.
Transnistria dropped "Soviet" from their name in 1991 and nominally abandoned the socialist ideology... but apparently not the symbolism and iconography, if this coin is any indication.
Based on Numista, Transnistria puts out tons and tons of different 1 Rouble designs. It looks like in 2016 they did a whole "signs of the zodiac series" / set and in 2017 they had a "Coats of Arms of Transnistrian Cities series," several other commemorative issues, Chinese Zodiac issues... 2018 had their "Red Book of Transnistria" series, which included this coin, as well as a bunch of others.
They put out a lot of these things.... a lot a lot. If you look at the coins of the "third rouble" (which has only existed since 2000) on Numista, they have 11 pages of coins / coin designs - 530 results. Venezuela has 136 results for the period from 1843-date. SO.... yeah. This little republic apparently likes to pump out limited-run, non-circulating coins with the best of them. A lot like Niue, but with nickel-plated steel instead of 1 oz silver coins.
They are all non-circulating issues with limited mintages - this coin apparently has a mintage of only 50,000 - and they're all nickel-plated steel.
So, an interesting little find to be sure.
 

One of the predictable outcomes of me starting to work more seriously on a collection / set of coins with a turtle theme is that its going to have me branching out into some more things and giving me extra opportunities to digress into, "Hey! Look at this thing I just found!"
I recently found a seller offering 4 of these coins from that feature a sea turtle. I ordered all 4 of the ones they had listed. When those came in and looked great, and I saw the seller had listed 3 more, I ordered those too, just to have several to look at and for some extras.


I have to say, it was a little jarring to see the old hammer and sickle on a coin dated 2018 - 27 years after the fall of the USSR. And that whole design looks very very anachronistically soviet. 
Moldova is a very small country stuck between Ukraine and Romania and it's right next to the port of Odesa. It has about 2.5 Million people.

But as I read more, I've found that this coin doesn't actually come from Moldova.
There's an even smaller, unrecognized, breakaway state called Transnistria that tried to break away during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990.
The Moldovan government has not had control or influence over the area since a ceasefire agreement was made to effectively end the Transnistria War in July 1992, and Transnistria (the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic) has its own president.

The currency of Moldova is the "Leu" and this coin is denominated in Roubles.
Transnistria dropped "Soviet" from their name in 1991 and nominally abandoned the socialist ideology... but apparently not the symbolism and iconography, if this coin is any indication.
Based on Numista, Transnistria puts out tons and tons of different 1 Rouble designs. It looks like in 2016 they did a whole "signs of the zodiac series" / set and in 2017 they had a "Coats of Arms of Transnistrian Cities series," several other commemorative issues, Chinese Zodiac issues... 2018 had their "Red Book of Transnistria" series, which included this coin, as well as a bunch of others.
They put out a lot of these things.... a lot a lot. If you look at the coins of the "third rouble" (which has only existed since 2000) on Numista, they have 11 pages of coins / coin designs - 530 results. Venezuela has 136 results for the period from 1843-date. SO.... yeah. This little republic apparently likes to pump out limited-run, non-circulating coins with the best of them. A lot like Niue, but with nickel-plated steel instead of 1 oz silver coins.
They are all non-circulating issues with limited mintages - this coin apparently has a mintage of only 50,000 - and they're all nickel-plated steel.
So, an interesting little find to be sure.
 

Thought I’d throw some notes out about some other nonsense that probably doesn’t rate having a stand-alone post:
I recently found myself wanting/ needing to get more boxes again for the first time since 2020, and I decided to do something a little different. I remembered that NGC had sold red boxes with gold lettering instead of the standard grey / silver ones with blue lettering. NGC is sold out of those but there are sellers on Amazon that have them for re-sale at reasonable-ish prices. Just for fun I picked up some of them and I’m going to be using those to store the Italian coins I’ve bought to build sets for Shandy. I took the two silver boxes these coins had been in back for myself.

Because, yes, what started out a couple of random modern Italian purchases to win a few BiC certificates and ribbons and make a quirky romantic gesture to my wife has slowly grown over 2-3 years into something a little bigger and (maybe?) more impressive.
 
After adding the 20 Kroner coin from Denmark and the 20 Bolivar coin to my collection of world gold coins, I'd been at a bit of a loss on where to go next the last year or two. But it recently occurred to me that I work for a Scottish company that is majority owned by a Swedish company. I have a British Sovereign, but I don't have any Swedish coins in this set, and there are Swedish 20 Kroner coins that clock in at about 0.25 ozt and 23 mm in diameter that, while on the larger side (with the British Sovereign), do match the theme for the set. So I may be looking into one of those soon / next. Another option I've consider is getting one or more of the 10 Gulden coins for the Netherlands that have the different Wilhelmia portraits - currently I only have the Wilhelm III coins. I've also considered trying to pick up one of the older 20 Franc designs from Switzerland from the late 1800s.



Regarding getting back into the Koalas, having remembered that my MIL got me that Koala at my wife’s suggestion, remembering that this was one of my wife’s ideas for buying me presents, and remembering that Christmas, our Anniversary, and Valentine’s day are all coming up, I’ve decided NOT to touch the rest of the Koala’s that I “need” for now. I don’t know if my wife will buy more coins for me for this set for any or all of these occasions, but I’m going to leave it alone to leave the option open for her, just in case it ends up making her life easier.

I had mentioned recently that I’d ordered a Rhodesian 3 Pence (1 1957 in MS66) to go with the Rhodesian Federation 6 pence my wife gave me for my Birthday.
Shortly thereafter I saw that I seller I’ve used for a lot of my Rhodesian Federation coinage had a 1955 and a 1964 in MS66, so I put in some offers, which they accepted.
After the coins spent a week in the Post Office, after the substitute carrier once again just put a slip of paper in the mailbox and didn’t come to the door, ring the doorbell, or see if I was actually home or not (or claimed to, since this time they didn’t even put the slip in our box and I had to print the tracking information of the website to take with me, but I’m digressing..) I was able to finally get out and get them picked up.
I still need to image the coins, but, as promised in another recent entry, here we get “A Bouquet of Flame Lilies.”
As my prior posts and my naming conventions for these tend to indicate, I tend to view all of these Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland sets as 1 project in multiple parts and I’ve taken advantage of the different short-run denominational sets to break it into smaller, easier to tackle chunks that I’ve mostly taken on one at a time.

At least for now, unlike the penny and half penny sets, this one is not a #1 ranked set. There’s a 100% complete set in the category, and that’s hard to overcome with a 50% complete set. The other problem I’m going to face here is that the 1956 is a key-date from a points perspective. That coin is worth considerably more than most of the other dates in the set in similar grades so it’s going to be hard to take the top spot in the category without getting one of those.
There currently are no pictures that are up to my normal standards for these coins and sets, but one thing that you might be able to notice from looking at NGC’s pictures of the coins in the slabs is that these 3 pence coins in particular are quite small. At 16.3 mm in diameter, they are a fair bit smaller than even a Roosevelt dime, which clocks in at 17.9 mm. The 6 pence coins come in a little larger than a US penny, with a diameter of 19.4 mm. I have to wonder a little WHY did they make these so small given that they’re not silver – they’re copper-nickel – so it wouldn’t have been an issue of keeping the silver value / melt value down.

I had mentioned recently that I’d ordered a Rhodesian 3 Pence (1 1957 in MS66) to go with the Rhodesian Federation 6 pence my wife gave me for my Birthday.
Shortly thereafter I saw that I seller I’ve used for a lot of my Rhodesian Federation coinage had a 1955 and a 1964 in MS66, so I put in some offers, which they accepted.
After the coins spent a week in the Post Office, after the substitute carrier once again just put a slip of paper in the mailbox and didn’t come to the door, ring the doorbell, or see if I was actually home or not (or claimed to, since this time they didn’t even put the slip in our box and I had to print the tracking information of the website to take with me, but I’m digressing..) I was able to finally get out and get them picked up.
I still need to image the coins, but, as promised in another recent entry, here we get “A Bouquet of Flame Lilies.”
As my prior posts and my naming conventions for these tend to indicate, I tend to view all of these Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland sets as 1 project in multiple parts and I’ve taken advantage of the different short-run denominational sets to break it into smaller, easier to tackle chunks that I’ve mostly taken on one at a time.

At least for now, unlike the penny and half penny sets, this one is not a #1 ranked set. There’s a 100% complete set in the category, and that’s hard to overcome with a 50% complete set. The other problem I’m going to face here is that the 1956 is a key-date from a points perspective. That coin is worth considerably more than most of the other dates in the set in similar grades so it’s going to be hard to take the top spot in the category without getting one of those.
There currently are no pictures that are up to my normal standards for these coins and sets, but one thing that you might be able to notice from looking at NGC’s pictures of the coins in the slabs is that these 3 pence coins in particular are quite small. At 16.3 mm in diameter, they are a fair bit smaller than even a Roosevelt dime, which clocks in at 17.9 mm. The 6 pence coins come in a little larger than a US penny, with a diameter of 19.4 mm. I have to wonder a little WHY did they make these so small given that they’re not silver – they’re copper-nickel – so it wouldn’t have been an issue of keeping the silver value / melt value down.

I got some belated birthday presents from my wife’s family this weekend and I finally got to find out what my wife said when she said she’d given her mother her “other idea.” My MIL gave me an NGC MS70 2013 Koala.
I had not been looking at these in a while and they weren’t on my wish list on eBay. She went into my registry sets and found a coin I didn’t have for a set and went on eBay and found it, in the right grade. The rest of the set up to this point has been all MS70s and they got an MS70.
I’m quite surprised – she’s getting better at figuring this stuff out and finding stuff on her own.
This does however make it more important to register things and have them in sets after I get them though. It would be sad to see her efforts wasted and fouled by an out-dated registry set.
I’m not sure if it’s the byproduct of getting back into things here to finish the Austral set up and running after my submission came back but before the deadline or of getting a coin from my wife a few weeks ago, but I seem to have the bug back.
I’d been building up quite a bit of money in my coin budget because I hadn’t been buying anything. I’d bought the raw Argentinian coins a while back and then nothing, and the raw coins were cheap. Now I’ve been buying a few things again – a few things for the 5 and 10 L sets, a couple of new Rhodesian coins…
And it has me pumped to start making a few more posts here to talk about some of this.
Also – miracle of miracles – I’ve updated that World Gold Coin custom set to include more coins and include some of the pertinent facts and design details. I know... It’s shocking.
I think when I first got back into the registry a few years ago I bought a few more coins for the Koala set myself, but I dropped it because it was going to take too much of my budget at the time and I couldn’t do that and other things. Having gotten this 2013 Koala, I am seeing that several more of the 9 coins I’d need are on eBay in MS70 for only about $60-75. It wouldn’t be hard for me to get that set back to being much closer to being complete and up to date again for the first time in a very long time.
We’ll see. I’ll be giving it some thought, and I may get a couple now / soon and a few more later. They are a nice  group of coins and they’ve never been as impacted by the spotting issues. That’s why I played with them again a few years ago.

I got some belated birthday presents from my wife’s family this weekend and I finally got to find out what my wife said when she said she’d given her mother her “other idea.” My MIL gave me an NGC MS70 2013 Koala.
I had not been looking at these in a while and they weren’t on my wish list on eBay. She went into my registry sets and found a coin I didn’t have for a set and went on eBay and found it, in the right grade. The rest of the set up to this point has been all MS70s and they got an MS70.
I’m quite surprised – she’s getting better at figuring this stuff out and finding stuff on her own.
This does however make it more important to register things and have them in sets after I get them though. It would be sad to see her efforts wasted and fouled by an out-dated registry set.
I’m not sure if it’s the byproduct of getting back into things here to finish the Austral set up and running after my submission came back but before the deadline or of getting a coin from my wife a few weeks ago, but I seem to have the bug back.
I’d been building up quite a bit of money in my coin budget because I hadn’t been buying anything. I’d bought the raw Argentinian coins a while back and then nothing, and the raw coins were cheap. Now I’ve been buying a few things again – a few things for the 5 and 10 L sets, a couple of new Rhodesian coins…
And it has me pumped to start making a few more posts here to talk about some of this.
Also – miracle of miracles – I’ve updated that World Gold Coin custom set to include more coins and include some of the pertinent facts and design details. I know... It’s shocking.
I think when I first got back into the registry a few years ago I bought a few more coins for the Koala set myself, but I dropped it because it was going to take too much of my budget at the time and I couldn’t do that and other things. Having gotten this 2013 Koala, I am seeing that several more of the 9 coins I’d need are on eBay in MS70 for only about $60-75. It wouldn’t be hard for me to get that set back to being much closer to being complete and up to date again for the first time in a very long time.
We’ll see. I’ll be giving it some thought, and I may get a couple now / soon and a few more later. They are a nice  group of coins and they’ve never been as impacted by the spotting issues. That’s why I played with them again a few years ago.

I got some belated birthday presents from my wife’s family this weekend and I finally got to find out what my wife said when she said she’d given her mother her “other idea.” My MIL gave me an NGC MS70 2013 Koala.
I had not been looking at these in a while and they weren’t on my wish list on eBay. She went into my registry sets and found a coin I didn’t have for a set and went on eBay and found it, in the right grade. The rest of the set up to this point has been all MS70s and they got an MS70.
I’m quite surprised – she’s getting better at figuring this stuff out and finding stuff on her own.
This does however make it more important to register things and have them in sets after I get them though. It would be sad to see her efforts wasted and fouled by an out-dated registry set.
I’m not sure if it’s the byproduct of getting back into things here to finish the Austral set up and running after my submission came back but before the deadline or of getting a coin from my wife a few weeks ago, but I seem to have the bug back.
I’d been building up quite a bit of money in my coin budget because I hadn’t been buying anything. I’d bought the raw Argentinian coins a while back and then nothing, and the raw coins were cheap. Now I’ve been buying a few things again – a few things for the 5 and 10 L sets, a couple of new Rhodesian coins…
And it has me pumped to start making a few more posts here to talk about some of this.
Also – miracle of miracles – I’ve updated that World Gold Coin custom set to include more coins and include some of the pertinent facts and design details. I know... It’s shocking.
I think when I first got back into the registry a few years ago I bought a few more coins for the Koala set myself, but I dropped it because it was going to take too much of my budget at the time and I couldn’t do that and other things. Having gotten this 2013 Koala, I am seeing that several more of the 9 coins I’d need are on eBay in MS70 for only about $60-75. It wouldn’t be hard for me to get that set back to being much closer to being complete and up to date again for the first time in a very long time.
We’ll see. I’ll be giving it some thought, and I may get a couple now / soon and a few more later. They are a nice  group of coins and they’ve never been as impacted by the spotting issues. That’s why I played with them again a few years ago.

A couple of weeks ago I reached out to my Mom to ask her about the date ranges for the time when they were in Argentina, where they were, etc.
I wanted to have a little more information so I could incorporate this into the set description for my Austral set:

The coins I had gotten came mostly from my grandmother, giving me coins my grandfather had kept.
However, apparently, not long after I reached out to my mother, my sister found this in a bunch of papers and other things my mother had given her:

Inside she found these:

My mother had her 14th birthday about a month after they got into Argentina, and her classmates had given her 1 Peso coins, which she put in this tin, and those coins have been in this tin for 50 years I guess. You can see "Birthday $" written on it.
My sister returned the tin to my mother.
Last night we were getting together to celebrate some birthdays - mine and my nephews. My mother had the tin. She gave each of her 4 grandchildren one of the pesos and then gave the tin and the rest of them to me.
The coins are obviously circulated, but, more interestingly, they're about a 50/50 mix between the 1810-1960 1-year issue 150-years after the May Revolution coin (KM58) and the KM57 1 peso coin. But the coins are all from 1957, 1958, and 1960... Nothing from the later 1960s... and my mother got these in the 2nd half of 1970. And it didn't make sense for that to be a coincidence.


It turns out, after a bit of looking, that Argentina last produced KM57 in 1962 and didn't produce 1 peso coins again until 1974 - years after they'd left the country. So, at the time my mother was in the country, the newest 1 peso coins that had been made were 8 years old.
Odd to think about.
I think I'll probably keep these in the tin for now. I could take them out and put them in flips but... The tin feels like part of the story for these.
 

A couple of weeks ago I reached out to my Mom to ask her about the date ranges for the time when they were in Argentina, where they were, etc.
I wanted to have a little more information so I could incorporate this into the set description for my Austral set:

The coins I had gotten came mostly from my grandmother, giving me coins my grandfather had kept.
However, apparently, not long after I reached out to my mother, my sister found this in a bunch of papers and other things my mother had given her:

Inside she found these:

My mother had her 14th birthday about a month after they got into Argentina, and her classmates had given her 1 Peso coins, which she put in this tin, and those coins have been in this tin for 50 years I guess. You can see "Birthday $" written on it.
My sister returned the tin to my mother.
Last night we were getting together to celebrate some birthdays - mine and my nephews. My mother had the tin. She gave each of her 4 grandchildren one of the pesos and then gave the tin and the rest of them to me.
The coins are obviously circulated, but, more interestingly, they're about a 50/50 mix between the 1810-1960 1-year issue 150-years after the May Revolution coin (KM58) and the KM57 1 peso coin. But the coins are all from 1957, 1958, and 1960... Nothing from the later 1960s... and my mother got these in the 2nd half of 1970. And it didn't make sense for that to be a coincidence.


It turns out, after a bit of looking, that Argentina last produced KM57 in 1962 and didn't produce 1 peso coins again until 1974 - years after they'd left the country. So, at the time my mother was in the country, the newest 1 peso coins that had been made were 8 years old.
Odd to think about.
I think I'll probably keep these in the tin for now. I could take them out and put them in flips but... The tin feels like part of the story for these.
 

A couple of weeks ago I reached out to my Mom to ask her about the date ranges for the time when they were in Argentina, where they were, etc.
I wanted to have a little more information so I could incorporate this into the set description for my Austral set:

The coins I had gotten came mostly from my grandmother, giving me coins my grandfather had kept.
However, apparently, not long after I reached out to my mother, my sister found this in a bunch of papers and other things my mother had given her:

Inside she found these:

My mother had her 14th birthday about a month after they got into Argentina, and her classmates had given her 1 Peso coins, which she put in this tin, and those coins have been in this tin for 50 years I guess. You can see "Birthday $" written on it.
My sister returned the tin to my mother.
Last night we were getting together to celebrate some birthdays - mine and my nephews. My mother had the tin. She gave each of her 4 grandchildren one of the pesos and then gave the tin and the rest of them to me.
The coins are obviously circulated, but, more interestingly, they're about a 50/50 mix between the 1810-1960 1-year issue 150-years after the May Revolution coin (KM58) and the KM57 1 peso coin. But the coins are all from 1957, 1958, and 1960... Nothing from the later 1960s... and my mother got these in the 2nd half of 1970. And it didn't make sense for that to be a coincidence.


It turns out, after a bit of looking, that Argentina last produced KM57 in 1962 and didn't produce 1 peso coins again until 1974 - years after they'd left the country. So, at the time my mother was in the country, the newest 1 peso coins that had been made were 8 years old.
Odd to think about.
I think I'll probably keep these in the tin for now. I could take them out and put them in flips but... The tin feels like part of the story for these.
 

I don't think this post is going to be long for the world - I'll probably pull it down in the near future because it's not going to have any relevance here beyond the fact that I know there are a few here that are probably curious and I don't know that I've really addressed it.
The rebound / recovery from a shunt revision isn't necessarily as bad as you might think it is from dealing with other surgeries on the body or thinking of it as "Brain surgery." Because they're not opening the gut, cutting into a lot of tissue and muscle. This isn't something where you spend days in the hospital afterwards while they're waiting for you to walk around the nurse station and waiting for you to have a good bowel movement. Yes, they are cutting into the person's head - there is an incision and a scar, but they're inserting a tube into the brain - they're not cutting into it or anything. In this case it was a step less than that. They just replaced his value. The tube / catheter going into his brain and the part going to his stomach were fine. They just replaced the valve - the hardware that's normally under his skin but outside his skull.
So, his recovery is almost immediate afterwards. He has to get out of the anesthesia and the have to make sure he's okay. We have to be careful about the cut to keep it clean, keep him from damaging stitches and keep it from getting infected...
However...
He starts feeling better immediately.
As in, they operated at 8:30 AM, he was out of surgery and awake by about 9:30 or 10:00 and before lunch time was even properly here, he had his appetite back and he was eating.
We were released the next day - about 30 hours after surgery we were going out the door and driving home. 
He was walking around fine, and not only that but jumping and trying to roll on his head of all things. He's feeling great and you have to hold him back and tell him to be careful - especially near his head and the incision.
He went home feeling fine, playing with toys again, eating like I don't think he's eaten in weeks.
The recovery is immediate, the only thing is the cut has to heal.
We went out on Tuesday night - just 4 days after surgery, and he stayed up late, walking on his own around the neighborhood, refusing his pediatric wheelchair so he could walk with his mother and walk up to houses. to say "Trick or Treat."





 

I don't think this post is going to be long for the world - I'll probably pull it down in the near future because it's not going to have any relevance here beyond the fact that I know there are a few here that are probably curious and I don't know that I've really addressed it.
The rebound / recovery from a shunt revision isn't necessarily as bad as you might think it is from dealing with other surgeries on the body or thinking of it as "Brain surgery." Because they're not opening the gut, cutting into a lot of tissue and muscle. This isn't something where you spend days in the hospital afterwards while they're waiting for you to walk around the nurse station and waiting for you to have a good bowel movement. Yes, they are cutting into the person's head - there is an incision and a scar, but they're inserting a tube into the brain - they're not cutting into it or anything. In this case it was a step less than that. They just replaced his value. The tube / catheter going into his brain and the part going to his stomach were fine. They just replaced the valve - the hardware that's normally under his skin but outside his skull.
So, his recovery is almost immediate afterwards. He has to get out of the anesthesia and the have to make sure he's okay. We have to be careful about the cut to keep it clean, keep him from damaging stitches and keep it from getting infected...
However...
He starts feeling better immediately.
As in, they operated at 8:30 AM, he was out of surgery and awake by about 9:30 or 10:00 and before lunch time was even properly here, he had his appetite back and he was eating.
We were released the next day - about 30 hours after surgery we were going out the door and driving home. 
He was walking around fine, and not only that but jumping and trying to roll on his head of all things. He's feeling great and you have to hold him back and tell him to be careful - especially near his head and the incision.
He went home feeling fine, playing with toys again, eating like I don't think he's eaten in weeks.
The recovery is immediate, the only thing is the cut has to heal.
We went out on Tuesday night - just 4 days after surgery, and he stayed up late, walking on his own around the neighborhood, refusing his pediatric wheelchair so he could walk with his mother and walk up to houses. to say "Trick or Treat."





 

I don't think this post is going to be long for the world - I'll probably pull it down in the near future because it's not going to have any relevance here beyond the fact that I know there are a few here that are probably curious and I don't know that I've really addressed it.
The rebound / recovery from a shunt revision isn't necessarily as bad as you might think it is from dealing with other surgeries on the body or thinking of it as "Brain surgery." Because they're not opening the gut, cutting into a lot of tissue and muscle. This isn't something where you spend days in the hospital afterwards while they're waiting for you to walk around the nurse station and waiting for you to have a good bowel movement. Yes, they are cutting into the person's head - there is an incision and a scar, but they're inserting a tube into the brain - they're not cutting into it or anything. In this case it was a step less than that. They just replaced his value. The tube / catheter going into his brain and the part going to his stomach were fine. They just replaced the valve - the hardware that's normally under his skin but outside his skull.
So, his recovery is almost immediate afterwards. He has to get out of the anesthesia and the have to make sure he's okay. We have to be careful about the cut to keep it clean, keep him from damaging stitches and keep it from getting infected...
However...
He starts feeling better immediately.
As in, they operated at 8:30 AM, he was out of surgery and awake by about 9:30 or 10:00 and before lunch time was even properly here, he had his appetite back and he was eating.
We were released the next day - about 30 hours after surgery we were going out the door and driving home. 
He was walking around fine, and not only that but jumping and trying to roll on his head of all things. He's feeling great and you have to hold him back and tell him to be careful - especially near his head and the incision.
He went home feeling fine, playing with toys again, eating like I don't think he's eaten in weeks.
The recovery is immediate, the only thing is the cut has to heal.
We went out on Tuesday night - just 4 days after surgery, and he stayed up late, walking on his own around the neighborhood, refusing his pediatric wheelchair so he could walk with his mother and walk up to houses. to say "Trick or Treat."





 

I don't think this post is going to be long for the world - I'll probably pull it down in the near future because it's not going to have any relevance here beyond the fact that I know there are a few here that are probably curious and I don't know that I've really addressed it.
The rebound / recovery from a shunt revision isn't necessarily as bad as you might think it is from dealing with other surgeries on the body or thinking of it as "Brain surgery." Because they're not opening the gut, cutting into a lot of tissue and muscle. This isn't something where you spend days in the hospital afterwards while they're waiting for you to walk around the nurse station and waiting for you to have a good bowel movement. Yes, they are cutting into the person's head - there is an incision and a scar, but they're inserting a tube into the brain - they're not cutting into it or anything. In this case it was a step less than that. They just replaced his value. The tube / catheter going into his brain and the part going to his stomach were fine. They just replaced the valve - the hardware that's normally under his skin but outside his skull.
So, his recovery is almost immediate afterwards. He has to get out of the anesthesia and the have to make sure he's okay. We have to be careful about the cut to keep it clean, keep him from damaging stitches and keep it from getting infected...
However...
He starts feeling better immediately.
As in, they operated at 8:30 AM, he was out of surgery and awake by about 9:30 or 10:00 and before lunch time was even properly here, he had his appetite back and he was eating.
We were released the next day - about 30 hours after surgery we were going out the door and driving home. 
He was walking around fine, and not only that but jumping and trying to roll on his head of all things. He's feeling great and you have to hold him back and tell him to be careful - especially near his head and the incision.
He went home feeling fine, playing with toys again, eating like I don't think he's eaten in weeks.
The recovery is immediate, the only thing is the cut has to heal.
We went out on Tuesday night - just 4 days after surgery, and he stayed up late, walking on his own around the neighborhood, refusing his pediatric wheelchair so he could walk with his mother and walk up to houses. to say "Trick or Treat."





 

I don't think this post is going to be long for the world - I'll probably pull it down in the near future because it's not going to have any relevance here beyond the fact that I know there are a few here that are probably curious and I don't know that I've really addressed it.
The rebound / recovery from a shunt revision isn't necessarily as bad as you might think it is from dealing with other surgeries on the body or thinking of it as "Brain surgery." Because they're not opening the gut, cutting into a lot of tissue and muscle. This isn't something where you spend days in the hospital afterwards while they're waiting for you to walk around the nurse station and waiting for you to have a good bowel movement. Yes, they are cutting into the person's head - there is an incision and a scar, but they're inserting a tube into the brain - they're not cutting into it or anything. In this case it was a step less than that. They just replaced his value. The tube / catheter going into his brain and the part going to his stomach were fine. They just replaced the valve - the hardware that's normally under his skin but outside his skull.
So, his recovery is almost immediate afterwards. He has to get out of the anesthesia and the have to make sure he's okay. We have to be careful about the cut to keep it clean, keep him from damaging stitches and keep it from getting infected...
However...
He starts feeling better immediately.
As in, they operated at 8:30 AM, he was out of surgery and awake by about 9:30 or 10:00 and before lunch time was even properly here, he had his appetite back and he was eating.
We were released the next day - about 30 hours after surgery we were going out the door and driving home. 
He was walking around fine, and not only that but jumping and trying to roll on his head of all things. He's feeling great and you have to hold him back and tell him to be careful - especially near his head and the incision.
He went home feeling fine, playing with toys again, eating like I don't think he's eaten in weeks.
The recovery is immediate, the only thing is the cut has to heal.
We went out on Tuesday night - just 4 days after surgery, and he stayed up late, walking on his own around the neighborhood, refusing his pediatric wheelchair so he could walk with his mother and walk up to houses. to say "Trick or Treat."





 

So I'm probably going to come off like a bit of a "super judger" (as my wife puts it) while also preaching to the choir a bit, but I wanted to post about the work I've been doing on my Half Cent set recently.
I said recently that my wife gave me a 1955 Rhodesian Half Cent, following up on the 1957 and 1958 she'd given me at Christmas, buying things I'd put on my watch list. 
Putting this coin in my set put it in the #1 spot in the category. And so, it was a #1 ranked set for me - with none of my own photos, just NGC photos, no set banner image, no set description and no coin descriptions.
This happened in large part because I hadn't been focusing on this - I'd been focusing on buying and working on coins for another set that I'm also researching at the moment and I'm going to build it out as a phase 3 to what I've done with Zimbabwe and Venezuela. But then this new set snuck up on me, going from 20% complete and rank 5 to 80% complete and rank 1, driven completely by my wife, who knew I liked them and had heard me talking about them.
But once it was #1, I really felt a need to table some of the other stuff for a while, get pictures of these, and build out a presentation for the set. Because - I really think, if you made a #1 ranked set, you should make it worth looking at and fun to look at if you're at all able too - no shade intended at those that can't get a good photo of a coin, perhaps just because they don't have the equipment. But it is just so much nicer to click on a #1 ranked, 100% complete set and see gorgeous, lustrous, detailed, close-up photos. And I love that NGC made it easy to pop-in their verification photos... but that's photos are just not as good as what many of us can produce and they often do not do a good job of showing off the coin. Those photos are produced in a quick, generic, assembly line kind of way and you're not going to get the best images of a particular coin unless you're taking your time with each coin - something NGC just can't afford to do unless you're paying them an extra fee for their high-end photos.
And so, that's what I've done and built and at this point the set presentation is more or less finished and built. I have at least 1 more coin description to get to, as I'm about to get to.
Getting the 1955 meant I only had one more coin - the 1956 - left to get to complete the set. So getting that coin moved up my priority list in a big way after the 14th of last month.
As I started looking into building a presentation for the set, one of the things I like to look at and reference is the mintage for each year.
And that brought something to my attention - the 1956, the only coin I hadn't acquired, the only coin I hadn't even really seen for sale, is also the lowest mintage year with only 480,000 made that year. The next lowest had 720,000 made - 50% more - and all the other years were in the 1-2.5 million range. 
And, coincidentally, as I was looking at all of this and figuring all this out, a seller I've bought several of these Rhodesian coins from listed a 1956 in MS65RB. For reference, there are no coins at MS66 or above presently, there's a single MS65RD graded by NGC and only about 3 MS65RBs. So, this was one of the better NGC-graded examples.
So I immediately wanted that coin, and I have some hobby money saved up and I was ready to bid aggressively to get it, since it was an auction. Because, I'm not sure how long I might have to wait to see another one this good - maybe not long, maybe quite a while.
Turns out I didn't need to worry - no one else bid and no one fought me for it. But the set is now complete. 
I won the coin last weekend, and it arrived on Wednesday. I took some time last night to get pictures taken and edited to go with the pictures I took of the others last week. And so, here it is. I just need to get that last description finished.

And so the next post will probably focus on what I've been working on now that this is done.

So I'm probably going to come off like a bit of a "super judger" (as my wife puts it) while also preaching to the choir a bit, but I wanted to post about the work I've been doing on my Half Cent set recently.
I said recently that my wife gave me a 1955 Rhodesian Half Cent, following up on the 1957 and 1958 she'd given me at Christmas, buying things I'd put on my watch list. 
Putting this coin in my set put it in the #1 spot in the category. And so, it was a #1 ranked set for me - with none of my own photos, just NGC photos, no set banner image, no set description and no coin descriptions.
This happened in large part because I hadn't been focusing on this - I'd been focusing on buying and working on coins for another set that I'm also researching at the moment and I'm going to build it out as a phase 3 to what I've done with Zimbabwe and Venezuela. But then this new set snuck up on me, going from 20% complete and rank 5 to 80% complete and rank 1, driven completely by my wife, who knew I liked them and had heard me talking about them.
But once it was #1, I really felt a need to table some of the other stuff for a while, get pictures of these, and build out a presentation for the set. Because - I really think, if you made a #1 ranked set, you should make it worth looking at and fun to look at if you're at all able too - no shade intended at those that can't get a good photo of a coin, perhaps just because they don't have the equipment. But it is just so much nicer to click on a #1 ranked, 100% complete set and see gorgeous, lustrous, detailed, close-up photos. And I love that NGC made it easy to pop-in their verification photos... but that's photos are just not as good as what many of us can produce and they often do not do a good job of showing off the coin. Those photos are produced in a quick, generic, assembly line kind of way and you're not going to get the best images of a particular coin unless you're taking your time with each coin - something NGC just can't afford to do unless you're paying them an extra fee for their high-end photos.
And so, that's what I've done and built and at this point the set presentation is more or less finished and built. I have at least 1 more coin description to get to, as I'm about to get to.
Getting the 1955 meant I only had one more coin - the 1956 - left to get to complete the set. So getting that coin moved up my priority list in a big way after the 14th of last month.
As I started looking into building a presentation for the set, one of the things I like to look at and reference is the mintage for each year.
And that brought something to my attention - the 1956, the only coin I hadn't acquired, the only coin I hadn't even really seen for sale, is also the lowest mintage year with only 480,000 made that year. The next lowest had 720,000 made - 50% more - and all the other years were in the 1-2.5 million range. 
And, coincidentally, as I was looking at all of this and figuring all this out, a seller I've bought several of these Rhodesian coins from listed a 1956 in MS65RB. For reference, there are no coins at MS66 or above presently, there's a single MS65RD graded by NGC and only about 3 MS65RBs. So, this was one of the better NGC-graded examples.
So I immediately wanted that coin, and I have some hobby money saved up and I was ready to bid aggressively to get it, since it was an auction. Because, I'm not sure how long I might have to wait to see another one this good - maybe not long, maybe quite a while.
Turns out I didn't need to worry - no one else bid and no one fought me for it. But the set is now complete. 
I won the coin last weekend, and it arrived on Wednesday. I took some time last night to get pictures taken and edited to go with the pictures I took of the others last week. And so, here it is. I just need to get that last description finished.

And so the next post will probably focus on what I've been working on now that this is done.

So I'm probably going to come off like a bit of a "super judger" (as my wife puts it) while also preaching to the choir a bit, but I wanted to post about the work I've been doing on my Half Cent set recently.
I said recently that my wife gave me a 1955 Rhodesian Half Cent, following up on the 1957 and 1958 she'd given me at Christmas, buying things I'd put on my watch list. 
Putting this coin in my set put it in the #1 spot in the category. And so, it was a #1 ranked set for me - with none of my own photos, just NGC photos, no set banner image, no set description and no coin descriptions.
This happened in large part because I hadn't been focusing on this - I'd been focusing on buying and working on coins for another set that I'm also researching at the moment and I'm going to build it out as a phase 3 to what I've done with Zimbabwe and Venezuela. But then this new set snuck up on me, going from 20% complete and rank 5 to 80% complete and rank 1, driven completely by my wife, who knew I liked them and had heard me talking about them.
But once it was #1, I really felt a need to table some of the other stuff for a while, get pictures of these, and build out a presentation for the set. Because - I really think, if you made a #1 ranked set, you should make it worth looking at and fun to look at if you're at all able too - no shade intended at those that can't get a good photo of a coin, perhaps just because they don't have the equipment. But it is just so much nicer to click on a #1 ranked, 100% complete set and see gorgeous, lustrous, detailed, close-up photos. And I love that NGC made it easy to pop-in their verification photos... but that's photos are just not as good as what many of us can produce and they often do not do a good job of showing off the coin. Those photos are produced in a quick, generic, assembly line kind of way and you're not going to get the best images of a particular coin unless you're taking your time with each coin - something NGC just can't afford to do unless you're paying them an extra fee for their high-end photos.
And so, that's what I've done and built and at this point the set presentation is more or less finished and built. I have at least 1 more coin description to get to, as I'm about to get to.
Getting the 1955 meant I only had one more coin - the 1956 - left to get to complete the set. So getting that coin moved up my priority list in a big way after the 14th of last month.
As I started looking into building a presentation for the set, one of the things I like to look at and reference is the mintage for each year.
And that brought something to my attention - the 1956, the only coin I hadn't acquired, the only coin I hadn't even really seen for sale, is also the lowest mintage year with only 480,000 made that year. The next lowest had 720,000 made - 50% more - and all the other years were in the 1-2.5 million range. 
And, coincidentally, as I was looking at all of this and figuring all this out, a seller I've bought several of these Rhodesian coins from listed a 1956 in MS65RB. For reference, there are no coins at MS66 or above presently, there's a single MS65RD graded by NGC and only about 3 MS65RBs. So, this was one of the better NGC-graded examples.
So I immediately wanted that coin, and I have some hobby money saved up and I was ready to bid aggressively to get it, since it was an auction. Because, I'm not sure how long I might have to wait to see another one this good - maybe not long, maybe quite a while.
Turns out I didn't need to worry - no one else bid and no one fought me for it. But the set is now complete. 
I won the coin last weekend, and it arrived on Wednesday. I took some time last night to get pictures taken and edited to go with the pictures I took of the others last week. And so, here it is. I just need to get that last description finished.

And so the next post will probably focus on what I've been working on now that this is done.

So I'm probably going to come off like a bit of a "super judger" (as my wife puts it) while also preaching to the choir a bit, but I wanted to post about the work I've been doing on my Half Cent set recently.
I said recently that my wife gave me a 1955 Rhodesian Half Cent, following up on the 1957 and 1958 she'd given me at Christmas, buying things I'd put on my watch list. 
Putting this coin in my set put it in the #1 spot in the category. And so, it was a #1 ranked set for me - with none of my own photos, just NGC photos, no set banner image, no set description and no coin descriptions.
This happened in large part because I hadn't been focusing on this - I'd been focusing on buying and working on coins for another set that I'm also researching at the moment and I'm going to build it out as a phase 3 to what I've done with Zimbabwe and Venezuela. But then this new set snuck up on me, going from 20% complete and rank 5 to 80% complete and rank 1, driven completely by my wife, who knew I liked them and had heard me talking about them.
But once it was #1, I really felt a need to table some of the other stuff for a while, get pictures of these, and build out a presentation for the set. Because - I really think, if you made a #1 ranked set, you should make it worth looking at and fun to look at if you're at all able too - no shade intended at those that can't get a good photo of a coin, perhaps just because they don't have the equipment. But it is just so much nicer to click on a #1 ranked, 100% complete set and see gorgeous, lustrous, detailed, close-up photos. And I love that NGC made it easy to pop-in their verification photos... but that's photos are just not as good as what many of us can produce and they often do not do a good job of showing off the coin. Those photos are produced in a quick, generic, assembly line kind of way and you're not going to get the best images of a particular coin unless you're taking your time with each coin - something NGC just can't afford to do unless you're paying them an extra fee for their high-end photos.
And so, that's what I've done and built and at this point the set presentation is more or less finished and built. I have at least 1 more coin description to get to, as I'm about to get to.
Getting the 1955 meant I only had one more coin - the 1956 - left to get to complete the set. So getting that coin moved up my priority list in a big way after the 14th of last month.
As I started looking into building a presentation for the set, one of the things I like to look at and reference is the mintage for each year.
And that brought something to my attention - the 1956, the only coin I hadn't acquired, the only coin I hadn't even really seen for sale, is also the lowest mintage year with only 480,000 made that year. The next lowest had 720,000 made - 50% more - and all the other years were in the 1-2.5 million range. 
And, coincidentally, as I was looking at all of this and figuring all this out, a seller I've bought several of these Rhodesian coins from listed a 1956 in MS65RB. For reference, there are no coins at MS66 or above presently, there's a single MS65RD graded by NGC and only about 3 MS65RBs. So, this was one of the better NGC-graded examples.
So I immediately wanted that coin, and I have some hobby money saved up and I was ready to bid aggressively to get it, since it was an auction. Because, I'm not sure how long I might have to wait to see another one this good - maybe not long, maybe quite a while.
Turns out I didn't need to worry - no one else bid and no one fought me for it. But the set is now complete. 
I won the coin last weekend, and it arrived on Wednesday. I took some time last night to get pictures taken and edited to go with the pictures I took of the others last week. And so, here it is. I just need to get that last description finished.

And so the next post will probably focus on what I've been working on now that this is done.