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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

Gold

The 20 Lire and Soon the 20 Marks.

The 1882 20L coin arrived recently and I'm very happy to have it. It's a great addition to my growing set of smaller European gold coins from the late 19th and early 20th century - a group of coins I call my "golden nickels," because they're all about the size of a US nickel and because of what happened at around that same point in history with the "no cents" V nickels in 1883. It's a group of coins from the pre-Great War period that I think I'll always find endlessly fascinating. All
Revenant

Revenant in Gold

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

This was a little late for April fools, and it's a little early for 4/20.

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
Random Nonsense

Birthdays and Battles in the Registry Backwater

The family and I celebrate my birthday this week / this weekend, and, this year, unlike last year, neither kid is in the hospital, currently - and I'll take the win. However, we do now know that Sam's in-patient time is going to start on November the 13th. So there's that to "look forward" to. I now have my historical blurb sections on 4 of my 8 Austral coins written or at least mostly written - these things tend to go through revisions over time and I'm still very much working on them.
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Registry

Back on Top? For Now? Oh... There's Drama!

So, I recently have been seeing some chatter on Facebook and elsewhere that CAC, no longer content to just deface PCGS and NGC slabs with oval stickers, is now going to be grading coins completely on their own, and putting them in slabs that look shockingly similar to PCGS slabs... I wonder how PCGS feels about that.  Then I come on here the other day and see the 7/24 announcement that NGC is taking away the points bonus for CAC stickered coins effective the next day. As I look on the board
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Because the #1 set should be worth looking at...

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
Registry

I'm going to have to think on this one...

For the first time in about 2 years, I’ve received a grading credit from NGC, and I’m actually faced with thinking about how I wanted to use it. A couple of years ago I knew I wanted to reholder the 10G set and I immediately saw that credit as a chance to build a graded set of Zimbabwe coins for a registry set. Last year I knew before I even finished the Zimbabwe set that the next thing I wanted to do was Venezuela – and I even went out-of-pocket on most of that because I’d already use
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

USPS and FedEx both stink, but… Never mind that! I have coins! Time for Unboxing!

I have to lead into this with the fact that I’m just very displeased with both USPS and FedEx at the moment. First, I go to the mailbox this morning and see a slip of pink paper saying that there was a package requiring a signature – that I’m 90% sure is the coins Shandy ordered – that they “attempted delivery” on late last week. We were home all day that day. We have a Ring Doorbell that logs motion events and people ringing the door. They did not attempt to deliver that package. They
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

The Grades Posted!

My grades have finally posted! I checked early this morning and the submission listed as shipped! Yay! And the box is in the mail and so it will probably arrive at the house before we leave for a short vacation and won’t end up stuck in the Post Office until I get back – Double Yay! I also now feel especially smart for getting the last post out on Wednesday night because I don’t like to make too many posts on the same day or too clos together. I had a feeling these were about to drop.
Family

The coins arrived!

The box came with the Zimbabwe and Italian coins yesterday. With the kids in bed and the chores handled we sat down together to take them out of the box. She joked about me and my hoard and how pleased I was, but I was surprised by how quickly the 500 L coins were pulled away and how happy she was to get to handle them and look at those. I went at one point and got the other 500L coins, the previous submission of Zimbabwe coins and a couple of empty boxes I have. I gave
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Zimbabwe Round 2 Grade Results are in!

TL:DR – The coins did great and I’m thrilled and freaking out a bit about some of these! XD So “Thank you, NGC” on the hard work and the much faster than expected turnaround.   I need to give major props to NGC, who have pulled off a major turnaround, brought turnaround times down and delivered me grades on these months sooner than I was thinking. It was only about 5-6 weeks ago that I was saying I might not have grades for another 4 months from now. I’m hoping this also means tha
Gold

An Offer We Decided to Accept...

It is often the case that I have a few Gold coins with BIN listings in my Watch List on eBay. These are usually examples of the next type coins I want to add to my type-set of late-19th and early 20th century gold coins from different nations - what I call my Golden Nickels. This is a particular point of interest to me around this time of year when I'm hoping a Bonus or a good tax return will convince Shandy to let me buy one. One thing I'd been looking at for a long time was a MS64+ 20 Kro
Revenant

Revenant in Gold

6
European Pocket Change

Liberty in Flight

In early November I caught a post on reddit about the "Flying Nude" 20C Italian coins that were made until about 1924, that are more accurately called "Liberty in Flight." Also apparently called “Liberta Librata” (“Hovering Freedom”) according to Numista. The original post was joking about the fact that the type 1 SLQ wasn't the only "scandalous" coin from the era / “The US didn’t have a monopoly on ‘scandalous’ designs.’ I find this a little funny as a claim when you actually look at the c
Revenant

Revenant in European Pocket Change

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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
Family

As it happens... (cheap) plastic ages! Just like I do apparently.

So I have a bunch of these old collectable miniatures that I used to play with in Junior High and High School. My sons get to slowly play with (and destroy) some of dad's ol "Robot toys" but I hold back some old special ones that were my favorites. A guy in a Facebook group was looking to buy some that I had some spares of - even unopened from back in the day - So I offered to sell and maybe get a few bucks towards a coin or note purchase. I have an open one too and he asked if i
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Family

Well, that happened.

A number of months ago, when surprised, I just said, "Well, that happened," and Ben latched onto it and started using the phrase. Sometimes he would look to me when something happened and say, "Was that a thing that happened?" "Yup." We live in Houston as most of you who read this know and apparently, from my coworkers, news of our misery the week of President's day has been a topic even in the UK and Europe. Our water was in and out from Monday to about Thursday the 18th - but even wh
Revenant

Revenant in Family

6

Sam turns 1 – The kid has definite potential

Sam is now 1 year old! He’s still not crawling or walking, but he’s sitting up on his own. He managed that skill at 11 months, which is very good for a 29-week preemie that had a grade 4 IVH which was then complicated by hydrocephalus. His PT, neurologist, neurosurgeon, ophthalmologist, and pediatrician are quite happy with him. Side note – an infant should not have so many doctors, but I digress. PT thinks he’ll soon be army crawling. The main hold up for that and sitting up on
Revenant

Revenant

6

The challenge of finishing the 10G Set…

I’ve known for a while that finishing the 10G set might require buying some raw coins and submitting them to NGC for grading myself. The grading credit that NGC just gave me for winning the journal awards seemingly makes this a good time / year to go for it – buy a raw 1880, 1885, and 1886 dated coin and send them in. The set would finally be complete at that point except for the 1879/7 but I’ve never felt especially committed to that variety anyway. Even the way NGC defines the set, includ
Revenant

Revenant

6

Update on the personal front

Well, after 18 long months of him hitting 20% of his sales target, my former boss, the regional sales manager for North America, was canned about a month ago. In the month that has followed some things have come to light that have left me looking very good. This culminated on Friday in me being informed that I'm finally getting the raise I'd been hoping for in March, and it's actually better than what I'd been hoping for - it's more than a 20% increase over my current rate. I suspect, in some wa
Revenant

Revenant

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The Key Date!

I finally found an 1888 for a price I could afford and which I was comfortable paying. I have eBay send me emails whenever things pop up that could potentially be a match for this set. The search is deliberately broad so most of the items that pop up aren't of interest but it helps make sure I know it when something good pops up. Last week an 1888 came up for sale in MS65 graded by NGC. The seller had great feedback and is an NGC and PCGS member/submitter. Everything looked great.
Revenant

Revenant

5

So… when are you buying that other gold coin?

This was my wife’s question to me shortly after we went to the coin shop on our anniversary. When I got a big raise in October my wife agreed to buying the $10 gold Eagle for Sam’s birthyear but said she considered that more a purchase for Sam and that I should get something that was more “for me.” The answer to her question was basically, “when these other bills are paid off and I feel comfortable enough with the finances to drop $450-500 on something unnecessary.” I got the coin
Revenant

Revenant

5

The Queen’s Beast Sets – I might actually finish these.

Over the weekend I got a package with 4 of the Yale coins. Back in December I finished picking up the rest of the Falcons that I needed. So that gives me all of the coins I need for the first 6 issues and 2/3rd of the total I need for the 7th issue – so I’m almost 70% of the way there now and I’m only about 1-ish issue behind. After thoroughly failing to keep up with the statehood quarters and the presidential dollars as they were coming out I’d like to actually be able to say that I
Revenant

Revenant

5

Do we give USPS the benefit of the doubt? I think... No.

So a package ships out from Queens, NY late on a Friday night on 12/13. Tracking says it's due to arrive on 12/16... Every day, it updates to say, at midnight that day, that the package is "In Transit to the Destination." It doesn't say where it is. This makes it rather useless as "tracking" information... It's been 5 days of basically getting updates saying "it's coming. We promise." No measure of progress. Part of me wants to give them the benefit of the doubt - it is mid-Decemb
Revenant

Revenant

5

Elongated Cent Albums

We've been to the zoo a couple more times and gotten Ben a couple of new pennies. This almost immediately brought forward the idea of how do we help him not lose them and keep track of all of them? So I decided to see what I could get on Amazon. I was able to find some "Penny Passport" books for a good price. A seller was offering 1 for about $7.80 and a set of 3 for $15 so I just bought a group of three. I figured, one for him, one for me, and one for Sam and we'll all do it together over time.
Revenant

Revenant

5

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
Revenant

Revenant

5

Looks like I'm going to be looking to buy some MS70 gold soon.

My wife and I found out a couple of weeks ago that we're expecting our second child in the middle of next year. Most people don't know yet but we'll get around to that when we're further along in the process and we know a little more. We won't have the first doctor's appointment for another 3 weeks. When my son was born I picked up a quarter oz gold American Eagle in MS70 for his birth year. I'll be looking to do that again with the new baby.  I'm also hoping I might be able to talk my wife
Revenant

Revenant

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