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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 is it something more?

The issue of emotional ownership of the set... When I first started to try and build a certified set of silver eagles about a year ago, I noticed that there were several dealers that would sell the entire series as a set. This option was actually in some cases cheaper than buying the coins 1 by 1. At the time I could have not bought any of them, saved up the cash and bought them as a set. In the final analysis, it would have saved me about $200, but I'm glad I didn't do it. It occured to me
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Today: Quality Control; Tomorrow: Victory!

Grades soon, yes? My first submission (2 invoices, 61 coins) just went to quality control today. Maybe I could have finalized grades available tomorrow? Maybe? Little hope? Nah... I just hope it doesn't spend 5 weeks in QC like a coin that a dealer submitted for me. It kinda surprised me when BOTH hit QC today. They were on different tiers and one invoice had gone to "scheduled for grading" 2 or 3 days ahead of the other. This week also saw some really impressive delivery times for USPS. May
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What a week....

From Friday to Friday, oh what "fun" has been had. 1 week ago on the 15th the Postal Service finally delivered a package they had had for exactly 4 weeks. For a shipment from Austin to Houston that's just terrible, but it arrived. Both invoices in my first submission to NGC have switched to "scheduled for grading" on different days this week. I'm checking daily in vain hope. I must admit that I'm really excited by this and I'm really hoping for at least a few good grades. A childhood frien
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Started down the crazy road

I have started sending in submissions, and other updates I just sent in my first submission. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed but I'm not going to bother with speculation on the grades I'll get. There are 2 invoices on the submission. 1 is a 56 coin modern submission and the other is using the 5 coin freebie coupon for some older material (mostly 19th century). I say "started down the crazy road" because of all the twists and turns and ups and downs to grading, especially went it comes to
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USPS Is Giving Me Nightmares....

Sorry for the double post today.... Well, I order a very big coin for a very big set and the seller sends in out the very next day, express mail. The package should have arrived yesterday. When it didn't, and it didn't arrive today, we started asking questions of the local post office. It turns out that they had in fact tried to deliver the package on Thursday..... just at the wrong house.... on a different street. A $3000 insured package and they take it to the wrong house... there are days
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Set Complete (For Now)

I filled the last hole in and "completed" my 21st Century Type Set. I put the quotes around completed because I have all the coins that are currently part of the set (as NGC defines it) but I know there will be more coins added on later that I'll have to get as they come out. 2009 could bring 2 or 3 slots because of the new pennies, the change in the Sacagawea and the moving of the mottos in the Pres bucks. There might be a 4th new one in '09 is the territorial quarters get their own slot. In
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Those Lean Years ... and again?

The Great Depression resulted in a great disruption in the mintage of several American denominations As we head further into what several predict will be hard times, there are many who look back to the Great Depression for a point of comparison. Something that I don't think all coin collectors think about though, is the impact that this event had on our grand hobby. The penny is the big winner. It was produced, usually by 2 mints, every year through the early 1930s. This is most likely becau
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A Type of Peace

Coming to terms with the Peace dollar? I?ve read the posts by more than one person on more than one occasion talking about how much they love the peace dollar. When asked, my step-father (fellow collector) will tell you that he prefers the Peace dollar to the Morgan. Sometimes I almost feel like I?m the only one who prefers the Morgan (though, based on the number of registry sets, I can't be). There are several historical reasons why I tend to dislike the idea of the Peace dollar. I look at
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My First Coin Show Experience

A few hours in a room with a few dozen people and tons of coins. It might seem funny, but I finally went to my first coinshow today, 2 years after getting into collecting. It has just always been my luck that when I'm at school, there's a show back home, when I'm at home, there's a local show near school. Well today my step-father and I got up early and made the trip (2 hours each way) to a small local show. I think there were about a dozen or so dealers. We were mostly after some nice mint
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Found Myself a Merc!

I finally found the right coin for my type set. I think it was around October or November of '07 that I decided that I wanted to get myself a nice Merc dime. Now I normally pic a grade that is nice but within my budget. This normally means that I aim for the grade that's in the $40-60 range when I'm wanting a nice coin for my type set. That usually gets me a solid coin that doesn't break the bank. It's not going to win me any registry awards for #1 sets, but it normally places me towards the m
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The Difference A Year Makes

7/17/2007 to 7/17/2008 Well, 1 year ago I started tracking how my registry was changing and growing using several different meter sticks (# of sets, # of coins, # of points, rank) as well as the total number of ranked society members (as a point of reference). 1 year ago (plus or minus a few hours), I had 14 coins in 7 sets. This earned me 1374 points and a rank of 2557 out of 3220 ranked members. Today, I have 154 coins in 35 sets. 36 coins and 13 sets are part of my project with my step-
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A Family of Numismatically Quirky Mint Sets

I just keep getting wierd years. As some of may more may not know (depending on how closely my "Bio," sets, and forum posts are followed), I'm helping my step-father build mint sets for all the years in which immediate family members were born in. The things that has made this job really interesting are the years I keep getting given. 1920, 1924, 1932, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1965, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 2007. 1924, first of a 3 year interruption in the mintage of half d
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I love the people in this community...

...they know how to treat people well. Recently I arranged to buy an 1883-O Morgan dollar from another forum user. It wasn't a big deal really. The coin was a MS63, so not expensive. I paid the seller and spent the next week waiting on the coin. After a week I decided to ask if the seller had any info on where the coin was (like a tracking number) because I was afraid that the coin had been lost in the mail. Long story short, through a sequence of events that was kinda funny, the coin had sp
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Victory at last!

I have it! Last week VUMC409 noticed that I was going to try and build a set of Australian Lunar dollars in MS69. Since he wanted to sell several 69s that he had after upgrading to 70s he offered the coins to me. Being the great guy that he is, he gave me a really great offer for buying all 6 of the coins that he had. What he didn't know was just how good the timing of this was for me. I had actually been thinking about buying 2 coins for that set (1 of which was among what he was offering)
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Never Satisfied

Maybe it's the perfectionist in me.... After just over a year on the registry I've come to one inescapable conclusion about myself: What I do is never good enough. The pictures I take of my coins are never quite as good as they could be, the descriptions on my sets and coins are so lame but I never change them because all alternatives seem equally bad, the text of my bio could be much better written (but at what point does it become too long and at what point am I sharing too much informati
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USPS Delivered

It arrived at the right place The coin I spoke of last time arrived today, in about 3 different layers of protective packaging. It's a NGC MS63 1932 Gold Eagle. It's a real beauty too. Sorry the image is so small, I had to really size it down to get under the size restrictions.
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Major Acquisitions and keeping my fingers crossed....

Hopefully USPS will be on the ball this week... Well, my step-father and I just ordered a major coin today for what I've dubbed the "Wright Family Collection." I'm not going to let any of you know what this coin is (yet) but It's going to be nice I can promise you that. I just worry about 1 potential problem with this purchase. Where all the other coins we've bought have been shipped to my permanent address, this one is going to be shipped to his. He lives on Harvey Blvd. There are 3 street
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Back at it with the Presidential Dollars

"The worm has turned and is now packing a uzzie." Back in December I bought some Madison dollars and brought my Presidential dollars set up to date, complete for 2007. I was fairly proud of what I'd done. The set had 7 MS65FD coins with MS66FD for the Jefferson "D" coin. The set was ranked 80th but with all the ties and such I was really around the 100th position, not bad for a category with 451 sets. Well, after that I started trying harder to finish my SAE set and finish my 21st Century no
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Steelies Stealing My Thunder No Longer!

I apologise for how long I expect this will be... I love the lincoln cents. I hope to have a very nice set of them one of these days. I have what some have pointed out as being some rather tough grade standards for the set but that just means the set will take longer to build and be better in the end. Almost ever since I got my first certified cent and started down the path of building this set I've wanted a nice certified 1943 steel cent, only MS66s or MS67s would do and in truth it was the
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Light Weight :)

Neverman doesn't know the half of it. I have always loved some of the topics that Neverman has picked for his journal entries but when he talked about spending 2 dollars to get 4 rolls of pennies to search through I laughed my rear end off... but in a good way. Last year, just about everytime I was on vacation I would spend time (sometimes entire weeks) going to the bank, getting one of those $25 boxes of pennies (50 rolls) and spend the next 4/5 hours searching through pennies. I would then
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Trapped in the incomplete

Nothing can get finished... Lately I'm feeling kinda trapped by my collecting projects. I have started large sets that I want to build and while they're great for long-term goals, it doesn't give much gratification to fill one more hole in a sea of holes in a set. I'm currently pursuing the following: Lincoln Cents [MS66-68RD](250+ coins) Statehood Quarters [MS67-68] (~180 coins) Presidential Business Strikes [MS65-66FD] (80 coins, 8 more years) Presidential Proofs [MS69UC] (40 coins,
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Another kudos to NGC?

What about the other person? One thing I think we tend to forget in thanking the NGC staff for handling our transfers and conflicts so quickly is the person who has the coin registered already. Yes the staff at NGC do act very quickly to get the transfers made and we should thank them, but before they can do anything the other person claiming the coin gets an e-mail to respond. In an ideal situation this person responds quickly which enables NGC to act quickly to get the coin moved. If the p
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100%

The joy of completion... As of today I have received all the coins and my Silver American Eagle set is complete! Finally I have a complete registry set! A coin for my 21st Century type set is also on the way which will bring that set and that goal 1 coin from being complete until '09. I'm also waiting on a few new coins to help move my project with my stepfather forward. This week has been very productive for my coin collecting.
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Presidentials in the Pit.

They aren't worth their plastic. An indication of lack of popularity? Like several others out there, about a year ago I decided to start collecting the Presidential Dollars in MS65FD for the business strikes and PF69UC for the proof strikes. I like the set on historical grounds and I wanted to get them, and get them in a form were I could look at them without having to worry about anything messing them up. I want these looking nice when my nieces nephews and children grow up and start learning
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Picking a focus for going forward.

Did you think I was gone? First journal in over a month. Well, I've been staying busy lately with school and work and the next two weeks should be "interesting." (Finals are fun) Even so, I'm still alive and I'm still here. (amazing isn't it?) I've been giving some thought to where I want to go with my collecting. Sure, I'm going to continue my Prez dollars sets and my type sets. Yes my Lincoln cents continue to figure prominantly into my long term goals. But when I think back to when I was
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