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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

When I’m Wiser and I’m Older.

Looking back, I made the first entry into this journal on June 14, 2007, when I was not quite 21 years old (clocking in at 32 now, with a receding hairline. Oh, how it does sting a bit).    This was 10 years before NGC would switch to the new (current) journal format and we’d gain the ability to give a unique name to our journals. I’ve given some thought over time to what I think I’d like to call this (other than just “Revenant” or “Revenant’s Journal”) and I think I’ve settled
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10

Mistakes Happen – because we’re all human

We’ve had a fair bit of discussion in the boards lately on phantom sets, ghost sets, inactive sets, and sets with coins that a person no longer owns or never owned or what have you. It’s all a bit cloak and dagger for me. But the discussion did remind me of something that happened to me about 5 years ago. I got a notification from NGC that someone else had tried to register a penny that I had registered in one of my sets. I immediately started getting indignant and bent out shape b
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4

NGC on Pawn Stars

I don’t know if many / any others here do but I like watching Pawn Stars – I know it isn’t real, but it’s usually at least mildly entertaining. I haven’t had cable in 10 years, so I watch it on Hulu when I have time and / or can get away with it with my toddler, who doesn’t seem to find it terribly interesting. As a result, I don’t know how old / dated the episodes I’m seeing are – I just play what’s there. So what I’m about to comment on may be very old news to others here.
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Well, no West Point Quarters for me today...

Maybe I shouldn't post this... feels like it might be stepping on a landmine... but... I'm not that smart. So... I had to go to the bank today to deposit some cash that a relative gave me to pay for something. I figured while I was in the bank anyway I'd just see if they had any of the new quarters. I thought it might be fun to search some rolls. I figured if I found anything I'd stick them in 2x2 mylar flips and sit on them for 10+ years. When I got back into coin collecting as an adu
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12

Thanks, NGC!

The “Best in Category” certificates from NGC arrived a few weeks ago (Thanks for that, NGC). That was great to get, also a relief. I lost track of how many times I had double checked the spelling on the address in my account after I’d updated it earlier in the year. I was paranoid that something would go to the wrong place because I forgot to update something or typed something in wrong. So it was great to have that confirmation that it really was right.    Sunday (4/14) I got
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9

What’s in the Easter Basket? Lot’s of money and lots of candy.

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

I’ve made references to a piggy bank in a previous journal but one thing I don’t know if I’ve discussed is what the piggy bank is. The piggy bank is a small dog that has been in my possession since I was around Ben’s age, plus or minus a bit - I was too young to remember. This is one of two piggy banks that I still have from this early period of my life. The other one is metal, but it no longer works as a piggy bank because I lost the door that goes on the bottom of it to keep the coin
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2

The New '32.

Sleep is a splendid and wonderful thing, when you can get it. I finally got to have some rest yesterday and, rather than taking a nap in the afternoon I decided to get some pictures taken, edited and sent over to Choya with the new set and coin descriptions. He indicated his approval, so the newly updated 1932 set is up. If you've seen the set before I don't think the new version is going to have many surprises for you. Other than the updates regarding Bob to the set description it
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Sometimes the unlikely happens - Sam is home

Things went well and fell into place yesterday and Sam was released this morning. He's finally home from the NICU after 59 days (16 days before his due date). 2-12-2019 to 4-12-2019 - Finally home from the hospital. Now the fun really starts. I may not be getting to play with coins and the camera this weekend... USPS was supposed to deliver a package yesterday for the Zimbabwe set. Apparently, even though the package has been in Houston since Wednesday, they're being a bunch a ins
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9

Living fast and hard as a penny… and other updates.

Sam has been doing well since having the shunt put in but he’s having trouble getting through all his feeds without help. He hasn’t had a brady in days though. We’re trying to see if we might be able to (finally) bring him home, even if it’s with an NG (nasogastric) tube to supplement his feeds. I went to the hospital yesterday to learn how to “install” the tube. I do not know who came up with the idea of using the word “install” to describe threading a tube into an infant’s nose, through his th
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3

What we forget and the power of the journals

A while ago I was looking back through some of my old journal entries, something which I’m sure many of the long-time journal author’s do, and I found the first entry that references my 10G set, just as it was getting started, which I made right around 10 years ago in May 2009. The thing that struck me in reading that post was how much of that information I’d forgotten in the intervening years. I remembered that the 1875 was the first coin purchased for the set. I had not remembered th
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9

Rest in Peace Bob Sr.

As they say, “when it rains it pours.” My step-father's father, Bob Wright passed away yesterday. I can’t say it came as a complete shock, but the timing was still surprising. I spent as much of the day as I could with my Step-father on Friday (3/28) while still making it back to my side of town to get my son from daycare – we live about 45 miles away from each other. The loss of Choya’s mother was the instigation for building the 1932 mint set and the other birthyear sets that we made
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10

Success!! (With the Micka Mouse Money)

After my son’s lukewarm response to the Chuck E Cheese 40-year tokens in the aftermath of his birthday party I left the tokens sitting out on my nightstand. Ben comes into our bedroom a lot in the mornings when he first wakes up and he likes getting things off my nightstand and playing with daddy’s stuff. Today he comes into our room and sees the tokens sitting there. He takes interest, picks one up, holds it out to me and says, “Daddy, I need it” - his way of telling me I need to get it ou
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My continuing efforts to indoctrinate my eldest son

Today we had Ben’s 3rd birthday party at Chuck E Cheese’s (which my son still calls “Micka Mouse” because I don’t think he yet fully understands that Mickey Mouse and Chuck E Cheese are different characters, but he understands that they’re both mice). He loves going there and he’ll often ask, “can I got to Micka Mouse?” So it seemed like a great place for his party. The party was originally supposed to be March 3rd. We’d planned to have it really early just in case my wife was put on bed rest at
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10

Plot twist! The MS62 1888 10G resurfaces!

Some of you may remember from my post about getting my MS65 1888 in early 2018 that, at the time I won that coin, I’d only seen one other coin of that date come up for sale that had been graded by NGC. That wasn’t too surprising given that, at the time, only 20 had been graded by NGC and, even now, only 22 have been encapsulated by NGC. I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to check this before but PCGS has graded a total of 33. So, assuming there hasn’t been any that were cracked out and/or re-
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8

Maybe I was wrong about the pricing on the 20 Trillion note…

In fairness to a seller that I have and now continue to do business with I think I need to take back my earlier assessment that they overcharged my wife when she bought that ungraded Zimbabwean 20 Trillion Note for $60.    I guess the thing that should have been my first clue was that they’ve always offered returns and gave us a perfect, no-fuss return on the note and I’ve always been able to get very reasonable prices from them on so many other things, including most of my oth
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4

We’ll call that an effective ad / offer

About a week ago I got an email from NGC with a coupon code and offer for $10 off any tier of paid membership, which would have made the lowest ($25) level just $15 for a year. I’ve been debating becoming a paid member again for a while as some may be aware from past entries, but this lowered the threshold for doing so enough to get me to go ahead and do it. Honestly, as much time as I spend on here lately, I think it makes sense to support the site / company a little directly, even thoug
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2

Well, doesn’t that just look… odd?

I’ve been really focusing on my Zimbabwe note set recently but I’ve been having a nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me that I should try to set a part of my budget aside soon and pick up the Falcons I need for my Queen’s beast set. I think the biggest problem I’m having with listening to that little voice right now is that the Zimbabwe notes / set / collection has me feeling pumped and excited and interested right now and that Falcon just... doesn’t. If it weren’t for the fact th
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So that was a privy mark…

There’s only 10 dates / years of issue for the Netherlands 10G coin during the 41-year reign of Willem III. All of these years occurred in a 15-year period from 1875 to 1889. Because of this, he only had one official portrait during this time and all the coins have the same obverse. Because even the date is on the reverse there is absolutely no way to discriminate one issue in the series from any of the others by just looking at the design of the obverse. By contrast, his daughter, ruled for 58
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9

“Samuel Likes Money”

Well, this was drafted and supposed to be queued up before everything went crazy on Tuesday so it may make less sense chronologically than it previously would have but here it is anyway I think it's a sweet and funny story. So, I have this “Heads or Tails” round that I got over 10 years ago as a joke. It has a nude woman on both sides so the “Head” and “Tails” should be self-explanatory from there. It’s the kind of thing that seems hysterical when you’re 22. Of course, my toddler finds
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And so it begins... Updated 2/22

I was gone all night at a professional function. I finally got home around 9:00, my son was already in bed. My mother-in-law stayed with them all evening while I was gone so Shandy wouldn't be alone, just in case. Maybe 5 minutes after my mother-in-law left, less than half an hour after I got home Shandy started bleeding. We went to the hospital. She was having contractions she couldn't feel and there was no way to stop the bleeding with the contractions and so she's in the OR now and I'm w
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28

1886A 20 Franc in MS64 and Resolution on the Anniversary Notes

I got my new 20 Franc coin in the mail just the other day. I’ve been watching a bunch of these late 19th century French 20 Franc coins on eBay through November, December and January. I’ve mostly been looking at examples in MS63 and MS64. The MS63s were more in the price range I was hoping for, but I was really hoping to get an MS64 – I like to stay in the MS64+ range with these purchases. Most of the sellers have been wanting $440-500 for an MS64, depending on the date. After having a rel
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5

My Son's Monies

About a year ago, in late 2017, we were going through a move and packing things up. I left the door to the closet open and my son saw the safe. I usually tried to keep the closet closed to hide the safe because he’d developed an odd fascination with it and pressing the buttons to make it beep. He also liked having us open and close it a lot – it’s all great fun apparently. Once he saw it, and remembered that it was there, he wanted to play with it and it’s often not very fun to argue with a todd
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14

So… Why the Rooster?

Ever since I purchased my 1913 20 Franc French Rooster last year, I’ve been wondering why the French government would have made a coin that so prominently featured this bird. My curiosity was peaked further when I saw the older Winged Freedom design and saw that it also had a rooster on it, although, in that case, the rooster was much smaller and was not a dominant design feature. As it turns out, the answer is pretty easy to find online, but It’s just taken me a year to invest the effort i
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Ben's First Pressed Penny and My Wife Trolling Me

We went to the Houston Zoo as a family yesterday with my son, wife, and her parents. The zoo here is full of those old penny press machines. I'm sure most of us in the US will be familiar with them but I don't know if they're common outside the United States. For those unfamiliar with the concept: You feed the machine $0.51 (2 quarters and 1 penny) and turn a press-wheel. The quarters go to pay the machine / the company that owns it. The penny... gets smashed. The machine presses / rolls th
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