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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

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.
Italian Coins

The Italian Grade Results.

So here we discuss the Italian coins – 6 coins that come in 2 sets of three: 3 coins to fill out the 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Birth Year Set and 3 coins to fill some of the remaining gaps in the 500L set she wanted. Though the 1986 500L actually fits in with both groups even though it was acquired primarily for the 500 Lire set / as part of that effort. Here are the grades: On the 1986 set front… With the 5 Lire and the 10 Lire, with MS66 and MS65 grades respectively,
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Italian Coins

Picking up more competition

In some new, interesting developments, it looks like the 50 Lire category picked up 2 new sets in a day and I'm bumped to #3 for now. I think this happened just yesterday. I kinda had a feeling this would happen and that that would be a 1-year win when I made the set but had no plans to heavily develop it thus year - opting instead to focus on the 500 Lire set. I'm not ruling out building that 50 L set some more and giving the newcomers a bit of a fight. But the 500 Lire has always bee
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

A fun update

Work has had me crazy this week but I wanted to steal a few minutes and share something fun. My Venezuela submission took a few more days than I normally see as typical to go from just "Received" to being able to see the list of the coins. When the coins did come up I saw some variety information that I hadn't had had been entered in. Notably, one of the coins I sent in was the non-magnetic, non-steel, zinc-aluminum version (2001-2004) and not the steel version (2000-2002). I had
Random Nonsense

New Pictures are finally up for Zimbabwe and the 500L set.

I finally took some time and got new pictures taken and uploaded for the Zimbabwe and 500L sets that are at least consistent across the board even if I don't necessarily think these are in every case the best images I've gotten of each coin: Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Set Details | NGC Registry | NGC (ngccoin.com) Now that I have nice photos of the Zimbabwe bird in the yellow of the $2 coins I decided to use that to fill the gap in my banner image. I'
Revenant

Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Making Progress and Hoping for Good News Soon.

I actually managed to get my box to the Post Office on 8/12 and, since I decided to chance it on a Priority Mail Flat Rate box and not pay for Registered Mail for such a low-value submission this time, NGC received the box on 8/15. The submission is still not showing in the system yet, but, based on currently advertised turnaround times, I'm hoping I'll have grades by around 09/09 or 09/16 (3 or 4 weeks from now to be generous on my expectations vs 13 business days).  We'll see. In any
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

But those die cracks...

I took a little time to try to get a few shots of one of these Venezuelan coin that I think is showing die cracks / die wear issues and see what everyone thinks, both using the Nikon with the Micro lens and the new Coin Microscope. Looking at this (50 Bolivar) in person, and looking at it in the photo with the macro lens and this lighting, that line along the back of the neck definitely looks raised above the design and not cut into it and so I'm thinking more and more that this is a die cr
Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

"Would you like to know more?"

Borrowing the title from that line in "Starship Troopers." Anyone else remember that movie? I hear it's 25 years old now? Anyway... I feel like I teased this concept months and months ago - probably close to a year ago now - but I never really delivered on it: I feel like I very much survive on a kind of "one step at a time" incrementalism some days. I got the coins back, I got them in the set. I uploaded new descriptions a while after that. Got new pictures posted a couple
Family

Children can be adorable when it comes to presents

My wife ordered my birthday present about a week ago. She was trying to keep it quiet but then Ben saw her and wanted to "help" and gave it away in a big way. I think she ordered something for my Zimbabwe note set but I don't know for sure so this has me trying to limit / hold off on major purchases for the next couple of weeks until she gives it to me. Ben has been very funny throughout this. First he insisted that he needed to get me a small present too that he had to pick out and then he
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Italian Coins

The 1986 Italian Mint Set is going up...

Thursday of last week, when everything was going down with Sam, that MS68 1986 100L arrived in the mail and over the weekend I won an auction for an MS67 1986 20 Lire. That, with the MS68 1986 50L I got last year, gives me (or will soon give me) 3 of the 7 coins for an Italian 1986 Mint Set, so I've gone ahead and made a custom set for that and popped in what I have so far. 1986 Italian Circulation Strike Set - Custom Set (collectors-society.com) The MS67 20 Lire is the highest graded
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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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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Italian Coins

It is possible they did me a favor on this one.

Earlier in the week I'd been watching a 1983 Italian 500L graded Ms65 by NGC. The staring bid was $10 + $5 shipping and it had no bids. When it was about 12 hours out from ending I bid $20 hoping to win it for roughly the cost of grading and keep it until and unless something better came along - maybe one I graded myself. Then, about 15 minutes before bidding ended, someone bid $15, then $16, then $17, then $20, then something over $20... I don't know if this was a shill or someone tha
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Family

It comes to a head: The 2nd revision

To borrow phrasing from my wife, Somethings have been odd with Samuel for a while. After getting a fast MRI (which had been delayed by him getting sick the day before the scan) the doctor wasn’t convinced by those results but was concerned by our observations of his behavior and wanted a CT. After getting a CT this morning, they told us to turn back around and come to the ER. We suspect a clog / slow failure – all four ventricle spaces have enlarged; some have nearly doubled. But they’re just go
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Family

The 500L lots and wanting to look at the gold

The other day over the weekend I decided to finally pull those 500 Lire coins I'd ordered out and look at them to see if I'd gotten anything good / promising. I'd been wanting to look at these for a while knowing it would be kind of shot-in-the-dark and I might have something good or I might have gotten nothing. I thought I'd sit down and look while Shandy napped with Sam and Ben watched TV. But, somewhat to my surprise, Ben took notice and wanted to look at them with me and was asking if t
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Italian Coins

So... She actually wants input on this?

So here's kind of a funny thing from the other day. I sent Shandy a message saying, "Hey, you care if I just go ahead and order these Italian sets?" and for me it's more, "do you care if I spend the money on this?" She's okay with it but she wants to know if she can look at the pictures first to see if she thinks it's a good one - generic pictures though so we aren't going to be able to make a quality judgement on individual coins like that, so just go ahead and we'll see. But aft
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Pick a price and stick to it!

Go into the auction already knowing what you'll pay. I realized that I tended to go nuts on auctions pretty early on and I've subsequently found 1 way to prevent over bidding. I look at the item and decide well in advance what I'm willing to pay. (Note: That's what I'm willing to pay, not what any price guide says it's worth though I may consult the book.) In the heat of the moment I'll sometimes go 1 or 2 dollars over, but not more than that. Yes, I'll moan and groan went it's something that
Revenant

Revenant

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

What's this then... Oh! I thought this was never coming!

So yesterday there's a knock at the door and I see it's the mail carrier, and he has a small package. As I'm walking up I'm wondering what this is and thinking I'm not really expecting anything. When he gives it to me it's the 2nd set of 2002-2004 Venezuela coins from Ukraine! I had completely forgotten about these things. I've been busy and I hadn't thought about them or thought to check the tracking in weeks. The last tracking update I'd seen had them in Kiev on April 6th. Then, whil
Venezuelan Coins and Currency

On to Venezuela?

The first of the packages of Venezuelan Coins from the Ukrainian dealer arrived. The box that came was the 2nd one shipped, containing the 2021 Digital Bolivar Coins. The first package is still showing it was last seen in Kiev. I guess we'll see on that one – but I’m mostly considering that one a lost cause after over a week with no updates. I’ll just be pleasantly surprised if I’m wrong. But at least I already had some of those from a prior order and dollarwise what I got this weekend was the b
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
Italian Coins

The 500 Lire Grade Results

So here is the 2nd post about 1 submission, splitting off the 500L coins to give them their due, befitting a group of 7 coins (decent sized group in their own right by my submission standards) and a group of coins that represent their own, very important project. And here are the results - Shandy and I picked the ones to send together when we had more than one of a certain date, but we didn't play “guess the grade” on these because we didn't have a big selection of graded coins in different
Revenant

Revenant in Italian Coins

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Signs of life and rays of hope.

I placed that order for the Venezuelan Coins from the Ukranian dealer about 2 weeks ago and hadn't heard a peep since.  At this point I'd mostly written if off, thinking it increasingly unlikely that anything would come of it and just wishing the dealer well. Today though, to my surprise, I got a shipment notice for 1 part of the order - the older 2002-2004 coins, but not the newer 2021 coins. I'm happy to see a sign of life from the dealer. I'm glad to see something indicating th
Gold

The new Challenger has stepped up... and I think he's serious!

A few months ago I posted about a new set appearing in the Netherlands 10G set that had a coveted MS64 example of the 1879/7. This left me with a lot of questions and now they've just given me a lot more information and a lot to think about. The member has added 5 more coins to the set, including all the rarer dates, including the 1885 and the 1886 I've long looked for... and they all have the same invoice number... numbered -001 to -005. They almost certainly submitted these themselve
Revenant

Revenant in Gold

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Family

The Zoo reminding him of some things and renewing interest.

Ben has been off for Spring break all week and Shandy took him back to the zoo.  While he was there, he asked for this "gold" "tiger" (Lion) coin, which she got for him, and she said Ben was showing some interest in the penny crushers again, but she hadn't brought pennies and quarters so they couldn't do that. The elongated cent albums kind of dropped out a couple of years ago when COVID hit and we stopped going anywhere, including the zoo, so we weren't getting any pennies. I guess we'll n
Revenant

Revenant in Family

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Registry

NGC was fast on the plaques this year and I've completed my pair

I checked the mail Saturday, expecting to find something else and found a package from NGC that I immediately realized had to be the new award plaque. It turns out it included the coin too. We were outside with the boys and I showed the package to Shandy and she initially, seeing NGC, thought it might be the Zimbabwe and Italian coins.. somehow.  I don't know why. She's seen the boxes from NGC before when coins come back and this padded envelope looked nothing like that, but, as she p
Revenant

Revenant in Registry

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

So here a couple of recent threads / posts converge...

A month back I posted about starting to collect modern Venezuelan Coins and l.quintero shed some light / shared some information I didn't know including the fact that last year Venezuela released 3 coins and not 1, but the 1 Bolivar was the only one I'd seen get any press. I've been finding it hard before and since to find anyone selling even the 1 Bolivar online - much less full sets of all three coins. The sellers offering the 1 coin have been demanding $6-9 each for them even when buying
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