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About this journal

This journal was originally to record my thoughts on collecting and building my Netherlands Wilhelm III Gold 10 Gulden Set and other projects like  my modern silver bullion NCLT sets. When it got started in the summer of 2007 I was single, in my early 20's, and working on my B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering. Starting in 2016, with my marriage and the birth of my first son, Benjamin, much of my writing has focused on raising my sons to have a love of collecting coins and exonumia and discussing how my collecting occurs in the context of my marriage and life overall.

Entries in this journal

Family

The first shunt revision

Well, when I was posting last time Sam was napping and we were getting ready to take him to Urgent Care hoping all the grabbing of his head and crankiness was an ear ache. It wasn't an ear ache. We had a shunt revision today and it looks like his shunt catheter, which we already knew had shifted, had nearly completely failed and it wasn't draining fluid and pressure effectively. He should hopefully be discharged tomorrow for a 1-2 week light recovery. We're told he "beat the odds"
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Revenant in Family

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European Pocket Change

Pieces of Italy

My wife and I are coming up on a pretty significant day for us and I've joked that it caps off a sequence of special Fridays. 12/25 - Christmas 1/1 - New Year's Day 1/8 - The NGC/PMG Awards announcement 1/15 - Our 5th Wedding Anniversary. One of the things my wife has talked very fondly of the entire time I've known her is her memories of the time they spent in Italy when she was young. I was finishing up putting her father's old coin bag in flips today (I'll have t
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Revenant in European Pocket Change

4
2020 Awards

Worst of the Best?

In late December / early January I picked this Zimbabwe coin up as a kind of extension or part of my Zimbabwe note set. I added it to a set in the registry and it became a #1 ranked set with 1 coin and a total score of 16 points. We're after the awards cut-off now and its still #1 and I think it's going to get a "Best in Category" this year, with a total score of 16 points. This has me wondering what the lowest scoring set to ever win a "Best in Category" is / was.  
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Revenant in 2020 Awards

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Family

Starting work on PawPaw's coins

Some of the 2x2s I ordered came in today and Ben wanted to play with them not really understanding what they were so I agreed to work with him with them when Sam was napping. We sat down with the bag of coins from PawPaw and the staplers and tried to put some in the 2x2s. He lost interest quickly. He still struggles with the stapler. He's young. He doesn't get it fully. I'm easily more interested in these than he is, but maybe that'll change with time. He's four. I still need to remember th
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Revenant in Family

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Family

"Ga" is for Goldfish, "P" is for "Poins"

Sam is obsessed with Goldfish, and shoving them in his mouth all day. He's started saying "Ga" for for Goldfish when he wants them. This means he's working on learning to say "gold," which is a lovely word if you like coins IMO. Meanwhile Ben has recently cropped up with "poins" and telling me he took my "poins." I had thought we'd gotten past this and he'd figured out "coins," but it has made a comeback recently. My wife doesn't want me correcting him too much because she thinks its adorab
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Revenant in Family

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Family

Survived that weekend...

Well, we got the negative Covid test from my Nephew late Friday, but by then my wife and Sam were already at the ER because Sam gave us the scare of our lives when he stopped talking and we were worried he might be having seizures or some other issue and might have shunt failure. Two nights at the hospital later, short on a lot of sleep, we came back home on Sunday after a day of observation saying, "we'll watch for now, move up some of his other tests and appointments and see if we see any more
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Revenant in Family

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Family

Got the award / plaque, now to the Post Office?

A couple of weeks ago now I received the award I'd referenced previously. In true 2020 fashion I got to receive a professional award in a Punisher tshirt and sweatpants. Because the organization wanted good pictures with the newsletter we had to re-do this in a suit and I got the whole family in on it. As the corresponding (and surviving) author, both plaques were sent to me and its my task to mail the other plaque(s) to the other author(s), or, in my case, to his family.
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Revenant in Family

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Registry

Well, it has finally happened. The 1932 set is now #2 - and its at least partially because of the rule change.

I don't intend this as a whine or a complaint - just want that out in front - but, having seen this, I wanted to comment on it here, this being a journal and a record of my thoughts and a chronicling of my activities here. After 12 years of getting the "Best In Category" award in the 1932 mint set category, we've been bumped from the top spot in the rankings by a new set. For clarity - there has been a set that outscores us for years now (I think 5 or 6) but it has always been obscured / pr
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Revenant in Registry

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Family

So that was definitely for him.

Yesterday was the Bday. I finally found out what Ben's present for me was and it was swords... a set of 6 foam swords. Which he has had great fun running around with and playing with, including with his mother while I'm working. I'm so glad that those are mine. Clearly. They don't hurt when you get hit with them though so I guess that is a form of gift. A form of one... My in-laws gifted me an Uncirc 2020 SAE, which is nice - after some recent discussions here though and current silver pri
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Revenant in Family

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Family

Children can be adorable when it comes to presents

My wife ordered my birthday present about a week ago. She was trying to keep it quiet but then Ben saw her and wanted to "help" and gave it away in a big way. I think she ordered something for my Zimbabwe note set but I don't know for sure so this has me trying to limit / hold off on major purchases for the next couple of weeks until she gives it to me. Ben has been very funny throughout this. First he insisted that he needed to get me a small present too that he had to pick out and then he
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Revenant in Family

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Family

Not just marking time...

I posted on 1/12/2019 about winning the 2018 Journal award and mentioned that, pretty much at the same time as I found out about that, that I'd gotten a paper accepted for publication. I didn't really go into this at the time but it was a paper co-authored with my graduate advisor - who passed away on September 11, 2018. He's the person I decided to name Sam after. I didn't know it at the time but I posted that entry exactly 1 month before Sam's surprise early birth - the "first published" date
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Revenant in Family

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Family

It's that time of year again...

My birthday is coming up. I never would have thought we'd still be isolating and limiting our contact with people for 6 months and I'd be looking forward to a birthday in isolation but... here we are. This also means it's another one of those moments where my wife starts trying to figure out how she can give me a nice surprise without me knowing what it is or outright picking it myself. So I've been updating my Amazon wishlist for her and others in my family because I know they check it.
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Revenant in Family

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Coin budgets

This mostly proves me right about me and eBay...

A while back there was something going around that eBay, after this year I think, wouldn't allow coins, currency and bullion to be sold on the site. I remember saying or thinking at the time that, if they made that rule change, I'd probably be done with eBay just because that's literally all I shop for there and I just wouldn't see a point in looking or shopping there most of the time if that happened. Well, this week, as part of their 25th anniversary celebration, eBay sent me an emai
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Revenant in Coin budgets

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Random Nonsense

The Canadian Quarter…

I find myself trying to take a minute to focus on something positive as its looking like Laura is coming for us - as if the year of the ‘Rona wasn’t bad enough without a Cat 3 or 4 Hurricane to spice things up. I always hate the lead-up to a storm. The stress and worry tie your stomach up in knots. Anyway… In early November of last year, I went to Canada for a few days on a job. These trips are not usually all that fun - I usually plan them so I get in, do the job, and get back home without
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Family

Parents 20 years ago didn't have to deal with this nonsense...

Off-topic but... Some days it begins to feel like a game of "What has my 4 year old managed to get me charged for this time?" A couple of months ago he managed to get us signed up to Amazon Music for a month. Last month he managed to upgrade my Netflix account to "Premium" - so now we can have 3 screens going at once instead of 2 - and it costs me $3 more a month. I was just looking at one of the credit card bills, seeing a 5 dollar charge and thinking, "Oh no... What did he
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Revenant in Family

10
Gold

Maybe it is paranoia but I'm still not doing it.

I've pretty much made up my mind that, before the year is out, I want to get my 10G set reholdered in scratch-resistant holders to harmonize the look of the set. I'm considering having them review the ones in old fatty holders to see if they might be able to pick up a point - this would be especially nice with the MS64 1887. I'm not sure how the best way to do this would be because, even if the grade doesn't change, I'd still want it cracked out and reholdered - There's just little point to me i
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Revenant in Gold

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NCLT

Trying to work eBay Bucks almost cost me money.

Around the time I ordered that Lunar Monkey coin for Ben's birthyear I saw that a seller had listed 5 2019 Lunar 2 Pig coins that had the Early Release label. That was pretty much exactly what I wanted for Sam's year as an equivalent piece. One of the five sold almost immediately but there were four left and I felt pretty safe with that and I decided to wait and see if I could hold out for a 5% eBay bucks deal - always nice if you can pick up some cashback on things, right? About a week lat
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Revenant in NCLT

9
Family

Happy Father's Day

I know quite a few of us that frequent this place are also fathers. Shandy let me sleep in this morning and, when I got up, she had the boys in Star Wars shirts saying "I am your Son" and one for me that says "I am your Father." I mentioned elsewhere that I had an ebay auction ending late last night. I followed my practice of putting in my best number and going to bed. It so happened that, when I put in my best bid, i was winning it but my bid was maxed out and if anyone else had bid
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Revenant in Family

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Family

I have a coin for that...

My wife somewhat randomly brought up about a week ago that she and I are both "Tigers" - We were both born in the year of the Tiger for the Chinese Zodiac - 1986 specifically. She teaches English to Chinese kids and what brought this up was some parents had been asking other teachers if their young child was a "pig," meaning born in 2019, which was the year of the pig, which Samuel is, as it happens. So this got her curious and she looked up what we were and what Ben and Sam were and what t
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Revenant in Family

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Family

“I need it for my collection”

For about the last week or so Ben keeps saying that he needs things for his “collection.” He has a robot “collection.” His Legos are a “collection” now. His toys are a “collection.” He needs all my old dice for his “collection.” I’m not sure where this came from, but I really don’t think it was from me. I don’t think I use the word “collection” around him very often. I’m thinking he must have gotten this from one of his little shows he watches on Netflix – maybe even power rangers sinc
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Revenant in Family

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Coin Photography

Test of Concept With the Ring Light:

I got a little time today where Shandy had both the kids occupied and I decided to get that ring light out and go for it to get some proof of concept shots. I decided to snap some quick shots of something I’ve taken pictures of recently so I can compare the shots I get this way to some recently taken shots done the way I’ve been doing them lately (camera on the floor with an LED on a speedlight). So, I grabbed my 1880 10G. Old photos taken the old way: New Photos taken with the R
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Revenant in Coin Photography

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Coin Photography

Well, I could definitely see this causing some marital strife if not handled well, but then, I try to be clever.

A few months ago, my wife got this ring light to use when she’s doing her web-based English lessons with Chinese students (13 time zones away). Up to this point she’d been using the modeling lights on some old cheap strobes I had to do her lighting. I went head and got this ring light for her because 1) using the strobes just for the modeling lights is inefficient (they’re power hogs) and 2) the strobes generate a lot of waste heat, which heats up the room and can make her uncomfortable when tea
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Revenant in Coin Photography

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Family

What I would be doing if I still didn’t have kids…

There are days when I really wish this was still the summer of 2006 and I could spend an entire week searching rolls of pennies looking for things to put in my Whitman folders or looking through rolls of dimes and quarters looking to see if there might be any old silver ones in there like I see other people talking about on Facebook and Reddit. There are times lately when I wish I had the chance to try to beat the personal record I set for myself when I made a 19.5 inch tall column of pennies th
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Revenant in Family

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Registry

The Psychology of Completion

I’m narrowing in on getting to call several on-going projects complete. My 10G set is about 80% complete if you don’t count the 1879/7 variety. My Queen’s Beast sets are getting into about that same 80% range and several of the parts / sub-series of my Zimbabwe hyperinflation set are getting to be about 85-92% complete by pick number. Most of these sets are missing only 1-3 issues before they’re 100% complete registry sets. One thing I’ve been noticing lately is that, as I narrow in on the
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Revenant in Registry

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Family

The Queen's Beasts continue... Ben making out like a bandit

I haven't been posting to this journal as much lately because my focus has been on my Zimbabwe note set the last 2-3 weeks and so I've been posting over on the PMG side - go look if you actually want to see me ramble about that hyperinflation set some more. I think I mentioned this before but I recently convinced my wife to let me violate the normal limits on my budget and use part of that Stimulus check to buy some of the coins I needed for my queen's beast sets - the last 2 Yales I needed
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Revenant in Family

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