Rarely does the opportunity to own a coin with a population of one and none higher realistically come my way. When it does, even though the coin goes beyond my established goals, I must seize upon that opportunity because it may never present itself again.

Last week I received an E-mail notice for a 1932 MS-66 Netherlands 10 Gulden gold coin up for auction on E-Bay. I immediately placed the coin on my watch list with the original intention of monitoring it for the closing price. I do this quite frequently to gauge the value of my coins since I already own an MS-65 example of that coin. Furthermore, at the time I placed the coin on my watch list, I noticed the current bid on the coin was rather high.

With a goal of MS-65 for ?Gary?s Golden Wilhelmina Guldens?, I never considered submitting a bid on the lot. However, when I discovered that the coin was a ?top pop? with a population of one, I began to entertain thoughts of bidding on it. Add to the fact that the current bid was holding steady I began to realize that owning this coin was within my grasp.

Towards the end of the auction, I set up a snip to place an automatic bid on the coin with my best offer. Since my bid was well above the current bid, I knew my chances of winning the lot were good. When all was said and done, I found myself the winning the lot with a bid much lower than my best offer. In fact, the final price was less than that of a 1913 MS-65 Netherlands 10 Gulden gold coin I won on Teletrade just three weeks ago!

This year has been phenomenal for upgrades. I made one upgrade to ?Gary?s Golden Wilhelmina Guldens? all last year and two months into this year have made three! A little less than two years ago I purchased the coin this coin replaces at a bargain price. With the price of gold these days, I should make a small profit on the old coin and maybe come close to the price of the new coin. The beauty of the upgrade is the old coin partially subsidizes the new coin.

It feels good to own a ?one of a kind coin? and by populating my registry set with the best coins possible my set becomes a numismatic legacy. This then is the genius of the registry; individual collectors preserving coins in sets as a legacy for future generations of collectors. In fact, should I ever decide to sell my set, I am inclined to sell it as a whole for that exact reason.

Please enjoy my photo collage of a ?one of a kind? and until next time, happy collecting!

Gary