There may be weeks or months between a suitable hole filler- and other times your hunting yields several at a time.

Part of the fun and challenge of collecting a series in which you limit yourself to a grade window or appearance type ( toning, color, whiteness, frost, cameo etc) is that one must often hunt for weeks just to find a single filler for a slot in a set. I will often come across coins I could "settle" for--a grade above or below my parameter or a certain rub, carbon spot, dark/blackish tone, heavy die polish lines--whatever triggers my "anti" eye-appeal reflex.

So weeks or even months may pass without any additions and then there are the bountiful times. I might catch an auction house selling a consignment with a seller/collector who shared my tastes. Then the struggle is, " should I buy or bid on all of the one's I need that are available, or should I just get 1 or 2 and continue with the ritual of the hunt?"

Well I have hit the slot-filling-jackpot in the past few weeks. A recent/current on-line auction has 5 separate coins for one of my sets. I decided to take a sort of "middle ground.' I bid strong bids on 2 of the items and the other 3 I placed the current High Bid but would be surprised if they held up until auction end.

Also, I recently added another MS64 BN to my Indian Cent short set-the first since August. Well it turns out that just 2 days after I wrote my most recent journal about the purchase, I found another for the set--none since Aug and then 2 in 3 days. Sometimes when we hunt, it pays off in bunches.

1897 Indian Head Cent BN