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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

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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Funko Pops: The Plastic Scourge

I was looking around at pop-culture news on the internet recently as I sometimes like to do, as nerds like me sometimes like to do, and I found an article saying that there’s going to be a Funko Pops movie - it’s going to try to piggy-back on the success of the Lego movies. This has me in the mood to rant a bit. So this is me being my best “super-judger,” as my wife would put it – anyone reading this is forewarned now. It has been interesting to me that Lego sets have become collectable in
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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Moving along...

I thought it was worth an update to say, I got the email from NGC this week saying that they acknowledge the receipt of my 29 coin submission (22 Zimbabwe Coins, 7 Italian Coins). So the timeline so far is: 1/14 - Package Mailed 1/26 - Package Delivered 2/22 - Receipt Acknowledged and Submission entered as received by NGC 2/23 - Payment Acknowledged Looking at it, since I sent this box in, World Moderns have increased from the 71 business days they were at in Januar
Family

A Fresh New Hell

Well, it had been my intent to make a post this week about some progress working on the Venezuelan competitive set - taking some pictures and buying some coins, getting some in the mail, but Monday night Sam had a seizure that would not stop. Which forced us to call an ambulance. He's been in the hospital, intubated and under heavy sedation for going on 30 hours now. We're waiting to have some final test results soon but maybe they can bring him back up and take out the tube - EEG has been
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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Covid continues to mess up... EVERYTHING

I mailed out that submission to NGC on Jan 14th. It got to the Sarasota distribution center around midnight on Jan 20th, processed through there in about half and hour and was marked as in route to the destination facility. And then... Nothing. Today is the 26th. It has not been scanned in 6 days and about 10 hours. Starting Monday I started sending emails and trying to shake things out because if it isn't at NGC by COB on Monday the 31st the new pricing comes into effect and the cost
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
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
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Why our spouses usually shouldn’t buy our collectables…

Tomorrow is my 3rd Anniversary with my wife. We decided to exchange gifts yesterday because I wanted to give her an opportunity to use her gift. She’d been secretive about my present. Lately she’s been getting me mostly practical gifts but we’re practical people. As I’ve transitioned into my 30s and fatherhood, I find I have less and less desire for random stuff in my life. My coin collection is one of the few things in my life these days that falls into a special category of “it’s mostly u
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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

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
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

14

Crackin’ Slabs… What am I missing?

It is Day 13 of our Coronavirus Self-solation. Frequent walks help make it not so bad with the stir craziness now. We’re taking the cars for short drives and driving out to the woods to walk around so that the cars don’t sit idle for too long. I thought it was a good day to have a bit of fun. A few years ago I ended up with two graded 1883-O Morgans in my collection. One is an NGC MS63 that I bought. One is a PCGS graded AU58 that another member here gave me when I bought a coin
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The Anniversary Purchase

My wife was having a hard time deciding what to get me for our anniversary (1/15) so I suggested we could go back to that coin shop she was in about a month ago, look around together and see if we saw anything. As I told her when we were driving there, I wasn’t necessarily committed to getting anything. It would just depend on if anything stuck out at me that was reasonably close to the appropriate price range we set for the occasion but I was going to be looking for something different tha
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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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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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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

13
Coin Displays

Thoughts on the 20 Lire and the display front.

So, counting the post yesterday on the PMG side this'll be three posts in three days but I guess things are finally starting to settle and I'm starting to de-stress and I feel like talking / writing again. The good news on the tax return front, other developments in the political sphere that I've referenced before, and the recent dip in gold prices have me optimistic that, in the near future, I'll get to knock a coin off my wish list, and I think its going to be an Italian 20 Lire. The
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Revenant in Coin Displays

13
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Well, Xan gave me my answer... or part of it anyway. lol

Xan Chamberlain must have gotten a box in the mail yesterday. This set popped up last night with just one coin and now the other 7 coins from that submission that got added to the census about 2 weeks ago have been added. It also looks like he has a $2 coin that popped up in the census the following week when my coins were added.But I'm not seeing in his set (yet, anyway) a 1999 10C in MS64 or an older-type $1 coin that popped up in the census the same week as my coins and that $2 coi
2020 Awards

Well! Shut me up! Except... not really! XD

Mike has earned some kind of "I told you so," as he made references back in, I think, October, about the Zimbabwean coin set winning "Best Presented" this year and I was like, "Nope. Nah. Not gonna happen." I am, once again, very honored by the award and the recognition. 😃 I'm thrilled for Coinbuf, Lem E, deposito, jgenn and coin928 for their wins, many on sets that have been long labored and personal projects. It's a humbling thing sometimes to be listed next to such endeavors. But so
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Revenant in 2020 Awards

13

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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“PIF by Borrower”

For months now I’ve been crossing my fingers hoping that I’d get a nice bonus and we’d be able to pay off my student loans and maybe finish paying for the cruise we’re wanting to take in October. I’m still waiting to find out about if I’ll get a bonus this year, but we just got a big surprise on our Taxes. Because we can claim an extra dependent this year and a couple of other things this year, instead of owing money we’re going to get some back and this is going to let us pay off my loans,
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12
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

12
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

12

Woohoo! Thank you!

So, first off, thank you to NGC for the journal award! When the announcement of what would be given out this year made no mention of the journal awards, I was thinking that meant there would be no journal awards this year - and I don't think I was alone in that assumption. Participation in the journals has dropped aggressively since 2017 and, given that, it certainly could have been an understandable move. I suppose it’s possible that it was their intent to do away with it, but then we pu
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12

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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Coin Photography as Macro Photography

I wanted to share a bit of new vs old photo results. Both the coin images are of the obverse of the 1876. I set up my equipment the same way I usually do for macro photography of miniatures and other really small objects. I have a 105 mm f/2.8 VR Macro lens for my D600 and I added the 2x teleconverter so I could shoot really close in to the coin - having the coin fill most of the frame for really high resolution images - while still staying far enough back that I didn't get in the way of my
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