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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

Random Nonsense

A Random Thought on the Awards Announcement...

So, two weeks later I find myself looking at the text of the awards announcement again - in part because I've also been swapping emails with NGC/PMG about mailing addresses and in part because I just really like what they said about my note set - and I notice the video they have and decide to watch it. So... a bit of context but... 2 weeks ago I was tasked at work with recording demo / how-to videos on how to use our software. These are supposed to go on YouTube as a Marketing tool (to sho
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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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
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'
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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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
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Revenant in Italian Coins

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Venezuelan Coins and Currency

Constructing a Set and Narrative and Learning More as I go.

So, after many delays prompted by sickness and other things - in the 2nd half of this week is was my “turn” to be sick - and putting these on hold to look at 500 Lire coins, I’m finally starting to look at the Venezuelan coins to maybe pick out some for a submission and building out a registry set. But the thing that normally makes all the difference for me in building these sets is building a narrative around the set. Building out these descriptions, the research and the writing often cons
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
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Revenant in Italian Coins

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Random Nonsense

My latest $20 tangent into “Oh, Neat!”

I opted not to go to the coin show this weekend. It wasn’t a week where I had Friday off and we have a crazy week coming up and I just mentally opted for a quieter weekend of getting chores done and hitting up a birthday party with the kids instead. But I thought I’d sit down and share a bit about my latest ~$20 tangent into the realm of, “well, that looks nifty!” One of the same dealers that I bought several raw Italian coins from also had some circa 1980 Chinese coins going as indivi
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Mikes saves the day... and USPS ruins it a little.

So... continuing from the last journal posted about this… When I opened the box from the seller, I had 3 of the 8-coin sets that included later-date steel coins from mostly 2002 and only 1 of the 7-coin sets that had 1997 dated coins, including that 1997 $2 coin. To make things one step worse, the $2 coin in that set had a bad, deep scratch/ ding. Reached out to the seller, who quickly said I could keep the extra 8-coin set and they'd look for and send me another 1997 d
Random Nonsense

Artsy Coin Photos

Well, I'd really thought that after my Z coins hit grading on Tuesday of last week I'd get grades this week almost for sure and I'd be getting to post about the results. Sadly, this was not the case - I'm still waiting. But hopefully they'll finish soon. But I won't see grades before Tuesday now with Labor Day coming up. Gosh... I'm really wanting to know the results and hoping to not be massively disappointed. This is dragging on and turning into a nail-biter! In the mean time, I thou
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Coin Displays

New Storage and Display Options

My father's day gifts this year hit the PMG and NGC sides of my activities, with Shandy and Ben giving me a new green note storage box and a new display case for graded coins. This follows up on a couple of previous posts in my journals. These note storage boxes come in 4 colors and I'd gotten 3 of them a while back - black, blue and red, but not a green. Why? The others were $20 each and you couldn't get a green for under $30-35. No clue why, as I said at the time on the PMG sid
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Revenant in Coin Displays

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Gold

I will get no end of grief over that joke…

A few entries ago I jokingly referred to my 10G set as my “golden babies.” I thought was being silly and a little tongue-in-cheek, but my wife has given me no end of ribbing about this, so I think I’m going to be continuing to catch grief about that for a while every time those coins come up in conversation. I think this cements the Zimbabwe set as my “pride and joy” and the 10G set as my “golden babies” whenever my wife feels the need to tease me. They do look good in the new holders
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Revenant in Gold

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Zimbabwean Coins and Currency

Zimbabwean Coins Set and Traveler’s Check Sets

I said in a recent post that I’d be looking to buy some Zimbabwe coins from a dealer in the US that I’ve used a lot and get those submitted. Then, to my surprise, when I went to order, I found that they’d upped their prices and upped their minimum order from $50 to $100. Yeah, they offer free shipping, but, sheesh. Let me have the option to pay the shipping for a smaller order. I wanted to order 2 sets of coins and some notes for about $55. I had not wanted to or planned to spend $100 and buy 3-
Coin budgets

The coin budget might get a boost afterall...

This might be a bit rambling but I will get to a point, I swear. My wife and I got that 2nd stimulus check a few weeks ago and we set about spending the majority of it on 1) redoing and improving our kids playroom to make it more comfortable and fun for the boys ($500 that has made life sooo much easier for Shandy) 2) allowing us to spend more than we normally would have on anniversary presents and 3) planning a weekend AirBnB get away to celebrate Ben’s Bday since he will once again not be
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Revenant in Coin budgets

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I think I'm over the cliche souvenirs

My wife's mother is offering to take her on a trip with her to New York City in a couple of weeks. This would mean she'd be taking the baby an leaving me at home with the 3 year old for three days. She was asking me if there was anything I'd like her to bring back and the answer was, honestly, no. I went to New York myself when I was 11 and I got a few things from that trip, one or two of which I still have to this day. Those mean more to me than anything that she'd bring back from a t
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Family

It's that time of year again...

My birthday is coming up. I never would have thought we'd still be isolating and limiting our contact with people for 6 months and I'd be looking forward to a birthday in isolation but... here we are. This also means it's another one of those moments where my wife starts trying to figure out how she can give me a nice surprise without me knowing what it is or outright picking it myself. So I've been updating my Amazon wishlist for her and others in my family because I know they check it.
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Revenant in Family

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Family

I have a coin for that...

My wife somewhat randomly brought up about a week ago that she and I are both "Tigers" - We were both born in the year of the Tiger for the Chinese Zodiac - 1986 specifically. She teaches English to Chinese kids and what brought this up was some parents had been asking other teachers if their young child was a "pig," meaning born in 2019, which was the year of the pig, which Samuel is, as it happens. So this got her curious and she looked up what we were and what Ben and Sam were and what t
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Revenant in Family

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Family

What I would be doing if I still didn’t have kids…

There are days when I really wish this was still the summer of 2006 and I could spend an entire week searching rolls of pennies looking for things to put in my Whitman folders or looking through rolls of dimes and quarters looking to see if there might be any old silver ones in there like I see other people talking about on Facebook and Reddit. There are times lately when I wish I had the chance to try to beat the personal record I set for myself when I made a 19.5 inch tall column of pennies th
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Revenant in Family

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Random Nonsense

Oh no… I’m becoming what I collect. Not Fair! I miss my hair…

Around the start of our self-isolation my hair had been getting really long and my wife convinced me to just let her and Ben use the trimmer on me and make it short - finally lean into the hair loss that has been eating into my temples for 10 years. At the time I’d shaved my beard. Recently they did another pass to keep it short and I saw a picture of myself… Then I looked at the coins I collect, and I thought a little… Then I went to Google and Bing for photos…
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Revenant in Random Nonsense

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Family

A Proof 2016 SAE for Ben - Aiming for fairness.

I just picked up a 2016 Proof SAE for Ben’s birth year. My mother-in-law gave me a 2019 proof that she bought when she visited the mint at the end of last year. That gave me one for Sam’s birth year and I got a 1986 - for our birth year - years ago. Ben smashing the capsule for the 1986 the other week - forcing me to go shopping for replacement capsules - was what got this back on my mind, but it had been on my collecting agenda since I was given the 2019. Cash was a bit tighter back then a
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Revenant in Family

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Pictures are for Parents

My wife pointed out to me the other day, likely very correctly, that pictures of children are for parents - not for the children. I suspect their simple existence is often enough for the child to know that the parent cared enough to have them taken. Nevertheless, these are some that I wanted, and they're very much for me. Yeah... you give a kid something and take away the pacifier and its going in the mouth. On another front, it would appear that the time has come to start
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The Diamond Jubilee Penny

A few months ago I gave a technical presentation for the local section of my professional organization. Speakers for these events usually get little gift bags as a “thank you.” Such is the state of my life with kids and everything that I never got around to looking in the bag until just recently (a sad waste of candy, to be sure). One of the things in the bag was particularly interesting to me as a coin collector. The local section was founded in 1942. I don’t know what possessed them
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My son is Houdini. I can't sell this couch now I think.

A couple of months ago I took a buffalo silver round out just to play around with. It goes missing in the living room shortly thereafter, never to be seen again, months later. The other day Ben wants to have "big big monies," so I get out a fake "copy" silver eagle and give him that to play with. I figure, "Whatever, it's not even silver." Shortly thereafter he looses it in / around the couch and I can't find it. He's all bummed about it so, whatever, I give him another one. He looses it ag
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Odd purchase

Recently (I think it was Thanksgiving), I was at my mother's house for a holiday and my mother came in and showed me a "coin." It was trying to be a 1795 silver dollar but it was a bad fake. It's the kind of thing that you take one look at and you know it isn't real. Didn't feel right and you know pretty much immediately that it isn't silver and the weight is off. I got to thinking about this again today after looking at yet another post wondering if a similar looking 1795 silver dollar was real
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This time I totally bought the label

I know the first rule of collecting in registry-ville is “buy the coin, not the label,” but the coin I got in the mail at the end of this week was all about the label. A 2019, 1/4th oz American Gold Eagle, Early Release, Blue label, graded MS70. In 2007, I bought a MS70 1/4th oz AGE for my 21st birthday. It was my first ever gold purchase, 2 years before I started the 10G set. When Ben was born, I bought a 1/4th oz 2016 AGE in MS70 to celebrate and one day give it to hi
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A nice "birthday present" from PMG.

I got a nice "birthday present" from PMG today: They featured one of my Zimbabwe note sets! https://www.pmgnotes.com/news/article/7791/PMG-Registry-News/ Granted, it's not actually my birthday, but it's close, and I don't think my birthday had anything to do with the timing of this, but it's fun none-the-less. My actual birthday present also arrived in the mail today, ordered just a few days before I found out this article was coming out - it's a group of new notes for my 2nd doll
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