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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

A little cuteness and positivity for the day...

Sam though quite recovered is serving out the last days of his quarantine because we have to go by 10 days from his positive test even though I'm pretty sure he'd been fighting it for a while at that point and he probably stopped being contagious days ago. As sometimes happens, he rediscovered some replica Morgans and Silver Eagles that another member here gave me for them, which he and his brother like to play with on occasion. At that point, for the next half hour or so at least a couple
Revenant

Revenant in Family

5
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

It is 100%, for sure FOR SURE, someone else is submitting these too…

So today saw another census update and another big increase in the Zcoin population. Last week we saw an increase from 33 to 41. Today we saw an increase to 57. At the start of the year I think it was only 29 total - including 12 NCLT S$10 coins. The MS population increased from 9, to 17, to, now, 33. Interestingly, looking again, I actually don’t think the update last week included my coins like I thought and I think this week's update does - especially based on the dates and the
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

I think Sam really has the worst luck...

Well, shortly after I made my last post we went to pick up Sam from daycare and we found out he'd been lethargic and sick all day and was running a fever again. He's been home since then but lethargic and increasingly unwilling to eat or drink. Today we too him back to the doctor and then later in the day had to give up and take him to the ER because he wasn't peeing anymore.  Turns out he as pneumonia... at two and a half... and his O2Sats are low and he'll probably be getting admitted again fo
Random Nonsense

I wonder...

So, the Zcoins still haven't been finalized... but the Census did go up by about 9 coins today, all mint state, and 8 of those line up with the 8 pre-hyperinflation coins in my submission… So I may have just gotten a sneak peek at some of my grades… and the grades are pretty consistent with what I would have expected from those coins… but no way to know for sure. But, while I can’t talk grades officially yet, I have little better or more interesting to do with my socially-isolated, work-fro
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

10
Family

So we wait...

Well, no grades yesterday. So that’s three weeks almost / 13 working days in “Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging” without getting grades back. When the submission arrived on 6/7/21 or 6/8/21 the listed turnaround was 49 working days and the coins have now been at NGC for 65 or 66 working days as of Monday. And I really don’t care if the turnaround now is 85 working days - it was 49 when mine arrived, it was 49 for over a month of the time they’ve been there, and it was only later raised to 61, and we
Revenant

Revenant in Family

15
Random Nonsense

Artsy Coin Photos

Well, I'd really thought that after my Z coins hit grading on Tuesday of last week I'd get grades this week almost for sure and I'd be getting to post about the results. Sadly, this was not the case - I'm still waiting. But hopefully they'll finish soon. But I won't see grades before Tuesday now with Labor Day coming up. Gosh... I'm really wanting to know the results and hoping to not be massively disappointed. This is dragging on and turning into a nail-biter! In the mean time, I thou
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

2
Random Nonsense

To the Moon!

On January 18th 2021 I got the blessing from Shandy to pick up a 1 kilo silver bar. The spot price had recently come down from about $27 / oz to $25 / oz and I was able to find a Perth bar from a good dealer for $875. Relatively shortly there after the "Reddit Raiders" temporarily spiked the price to $30 / oz and you couldn't get anything physical hardly unless you were paying $35 / oz or more. Those kilo bars started going for over $1050... I guess I should have sold then... I was pretty c
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

3
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

And now things get more clear...

So, I was still feeling salty about those $2 and $5 bi-metallics and decided to leave a bad review on them a while ago - I left good reviews on two raw notes I'd bought that both graded well. A few days later they reply to the 5-star reviews thanking me, but I see nothing on the 2-star... The 5 stars are showing on the website, but the 2 star isn't. Three days later I finally see a reply come through saying that they tried to reach out to me but got no response... the 2-star review sti
Family

Haunting my childhood with my Son

The move has brought us back closer to Shandy's Parents and to mine, but it has also brought me back to being close to an old game store i used to go to as a high schooler, some 16-17 years ago. Ben has been missing going to the game store by the old house - we were lucky in that it was only half a mile or so from home - so today I took him to the old card and game store I went to all those years ago. It wasn't like going to the other store used to be - in this case its still 10 miles and a
Revenant

Revenant in Family

0
Family

Taking my shiny right out of my hands, but getting away with it for being cute.

Following up on my last post, just  for fun. I'd left the 2018 American Innovation coin on my dresser. I picked it up and was going to take it to join the other coins. Sam was in the room and it caught his eye and he demanded that I hand it over. He proceeded to walk around with it, wave it around and look at it. I think this is one of those times when you just have to say "what the heck," and let them have it. Worst case scenario is he manages to break something I couldn't break
Revenant

Revenant in Family

1
Family

Testing the capacity of an NGC Label and completing the move.

I've been talking and thinking about starting a set of the Innovation Dollars to show the boys as they get older and a seller on eBay gave me an offer for this after I watched it so I decided to bite. After shipping it cost me $20. At that price it just becomes fun impulse buy at a stressful time. I thought it was worth it to begin the journey of about 50 coins with this one. I think I will make a set of these, but in the near term I think my focus will be adding a few more presidents to that ol
Revenant

Revenant in Family

3
Family

The joys of the junk box... it goes beyond coin collecting.

I took Ben to that game store today while Shandy and the baby were napping to kill some time while we were waiting for the sellers to finally vacate the new house - it was the last day of the leaseback and they were clearly unprepared and determined to drag things out all day. We didn't get the keys until 8:30 PM after telling us 5PM and cussed me out and left the house dirty when I challenged him on it, but we won't dwell there. I don't want this to be about that. Anyway... There was a bin
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Family

Collecting cards is more complicated than I would have thought…

So… Ben has gotten in to Yugioh cards… He started watching it on Netflix after he’d been watching lots of Pokemon and Bakugan and other anime and Netflix suggested it. Thank you for that suggestion Netflix… So helpful. So we had a collection of Pokemon cards that was mostly a hand me down from me / my youth, a collection of bakugan, a now rather staggering collection of Beyblades, and now he wants to collect Yugioh Cards and play duel monsters… So, we’ve definitely got t
Revenant

Revenant in Family

1
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

The Zimbabwean $5 coins look more promising this time.

I got the new Zimbabwean $5 coins I ordered in a few days ago and... they look a lot more shiny and nice this time. They actually look shiny and nice this time - there are no dark spots or mint green areas of obvious environmental damage. Unfortunately - no pictures for now. They got packed away a few days ago along with all the other raw coins in 2x2s in the binder. We are now 8 days out from when we're supposed to get the keys to the new place and all non-essentials are rapidly getti
Random Nonsense

One day, I will have a full set... maybe.

Recent discussions on the forums had me looking at and thinking about getting some of the new American Innovation series dollars to show Ben and Sam as they get older. I'd initially dismissed the idea of doing this in 2018/2019 because I didn't really have the budget for it, and I was sure it turn into another series I'd never finish - like the presidential dollars. This got me looking at the presidential dollars on eBay. The last time I did this I picked up the 2009 and 2010 sets but
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

0
Registry

What works for the Physical Doesn't work for the Digital I guess

Well, after (finally) putting the time and the energy and cash / credit behind getting them all reholdered I had thought that a picture of the group of coins all in their matching slabs would make a good banner image for my 10G set in the new registry. While I do think the group of coins look good and I'm still happy I got them reholdered, and while I do think the images looked good, I have to admit that they fell a bit flat as banner images. I think they look great in pers
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

7
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Learning that you're a little right, a little wrong, and a little ignorant...

I'm starting to work on digging into the Zimbabwe coins more to try to build out a nice group of descriptions for that set once the coins clear grading. I am clearly not excited about those coins / getting them back graded or anything. Clearly. I am just front-running working on descriptions for coins I will not get back for a month and a half. Anyway... I finally found out what the KM numbers for all of them were. And found out I was wrong about several of them - some that I thought g
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

This threatens to raise my hopes...

I looked today and my 13 coin Zimbabwe submission is now fully entered in the system and "scheduled for grading."  This has me hopeful that I could maybe see grades by the end of this month - maybe 2-3 weeks sooner than I'd been expecting based on the turnaround times listed at about 49 days... but I'm basing this on how quickly other things - not world moderns - have gone from scheduled to in grading. So that hope may be dangerous. I could just in in for 3-4 weeks of them sitting as "Schedu
Gold

Someone's bitter pill - the things that shouldn't have been graded.

I have a saved search still on eBay for "ngc Netherlands 10G," so I get notified when one pops up without having to search myself all the time. I continue to hope an 1885 or 1886 will pop up one day to help me complete that set. But... 90% of the time I get an email and it's an 1875... or an 1877. I just got an email for my 10G search and it's an AU55 in a new holder, and I just can't help but shake my head and think, someone was REALLY disappointed when that posted the grade results.
Revenant

Revenant in Gold

3
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

A cute, dopey, derpy set full of TOP POP coins?

My submission of Zimbabwe coins, as of yesterday, is officially “received” at NGC, but it’s that weird new kind of “received” where you cannot click on the invoice number and can’t see any of the line items. They just took them out of the box and put the invoice number in to say, “See! We got it! Now go away and stop bugging us about your box!” Joking! Said with love, folks! Anyway… I have been thinking about my MS65 10C coin, and the fact that it’s a TOP POP - that I got for $21 after it
Coin Displays

New Storage and Display Options

My father's day gifts this year hit the PMG and NGC sides of my activities, with Shandy and Ben giving me a new green note storage box and a new display case for graded coins. This follows up on a couple of previous posts in my journals. These note storage boxes come in 4 colors and I'd gotten 3 of them a while back - black, blue and red, but not a green. Why? The others were $20 each and you couldn't get a green for under $30-35. No clue why, as I said at the time on the PMG sid
Revenant

Revenant in Coin Displays

2
Random Nonsense

So.... WHY are they slammed?

It seems like one of our favorite things to do lately is complain about turnaround times at NGC. The popular narrative amongst the unhappy is that this is clearly NGC slipping but NGC says the problem is they're just slammed. They aren't blaming the problems on logistics - like not being able to get enough slab parts or inserts. They're just getting 800+ packages a day and that working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day isn't keeping up. That suggests that they're dealing with double or more the
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

14
Gold

I will get no end of grief over that joke…

A few entries ago I jokingly referred to my 10G set as my “golden babies.” I thought was being silly and a little tongue-in-cheek, but my wife has given me no end of ribbing about this, so I think I’m going to be continuing to catch grief about that for a while every time those coins come up in conversation. I think this cements the Zimbabwe set as my “pride and joy” and the 10G set as my “golden babies” whenever my wife feels the need to tease me. They do look good in the new holders
Revenant

Revenant in Gold

2
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

The Z Coins away, the 10Gs back home.

I finally took a minute, filled out the rest of the paperwork and printed the shipping label and the Z coins are scheduled for pick-up. Doing a bit of a deeper dive on this than I have in previous entries, I am sending in 13 coins: KM-1b: 1 cent KM-2: 5 Cent KM-8: 10 Cent KM-9: 20 Cent KM-10: 50 Cent KM-11: $1 KM-14: $10 KM-15: $25 KM-16: 1 Cent Bond Coin KM-17: 5 Cent Bond Coin KM-18: 10 Cent Bond Coin KM-19: 25 Cent Bond Coin
Coin Grading and Results

Grade results and closing on the house - Turning into a solid week!

So, if it seems like I am more quiet lately know that it is only because Fenntucky Mike and like 5 other people on the PMG side have gotten to witness a lot of manic babbling about near-worthless hyperinflation novelties - feel free to check that out to be as bored as my dear wife.   So, I got grade results back yesterday evening. No stand-out wins and some minor disappointments. On the CWTs I had expected like 55-58 but part of me had hoped for a 61-62. I got an XF45 and a AU 55 BN. T
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