Well, today was my much-anticipated day off because of my 9/80 schedule. The dealer shipped out the coin very promptly and I went to bed last night knowing that it was in town and due to be delivered on a day when I could be home to wait and sign for it – very useful with the seller requires a signature for delivery. I can’t say I blame him for it but I hate making trips to the post office for packages and this new post office we have has already lost one package for me in the 2 months since we moved here.

I had plenty of things to keep me busy and distracted while I waited. I needed to get laundry done, hang some pictures to work on making the house more “homey” and set-up a new printer. I don’t care how easy a printer company tries to make it – and they did a good job of that in this case – you will be busy for a while when you have to physically set the thing up out of the box and install it on 4 computers and a smartphone. But I think I scored some points with my wife for getting it set-up on her laptop, which is important too.

The coin arrived with a ring of the doorbell around 11:30 so I had it before lunch and it looks gorgeous.

I pleasantly surprised myself by not immediately dropping all of my housework to run to the computer and add it to my sets. I did take a minute to look at it and admire it before setting it back down and getting busy again. There will be plenty of time for that later. I’m going to have a lot of alone time this weekend while the wife is busy hauling the kid off to things and I get president’s day off, which she doesn’t. I find myself writing this now while I wait on some laundry to finish.

It’s really nice to get this coin at this point in my progress with the set. This coin is a major tipping point. Not only is it the lowest mintage year and the rarest coin with the possible exception of the 1877/9 but adding this coin to the set brings the set to over 50% complete. Officially, per the registry, the set is 45% complete, but my PCGS MS67 1875 would make it 54%.

I’m excited by NGC’s decision to make a membership tier available for ~$25 that allows for submissions. I’m hoping that will give me a workable means of getting that 1875 crossed at some point and that will let it join the rest of the set.

Gherrmann44 recently referenced that it took him 7 years to finish his Wilhelmina set and that made me think a bit. I think I bought the first coin for this set about 8 or 9 years ago. I'd have to go back and check. I just know it seems, feels and effectively was ages ago. I started it in my early 20s and chronically single and now find myself in my early 30s, married, with a son... and it's now half finished.

To be sure, it's not like I've been avidly hunting for an 11 coin set for nearly a decade. I've been away from it for years at a time while I've had other collecting priorities and just other priorities in life in general. The last coin for the set was purchased 20 months ago. I got laid off 3 months after that and spent the next 12 months jobless, generally happy to just not have to sell any of them, though I think this set would be one of the last things I sold if I had to.

It has been and will be a long road to finish this. But I have big plans and big dreams for this set - most of which I'm sure will make my wife of 2 years roll her eyes. But, hey, this project is older than the marriage and she knew I was a freak about this stuff before she said "I do."