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How was your 2018? Any significant additions?

29 posts in this topic

How was your 2018? Did you add any significant coins to your collection? Did you decrease or liquidate your collection? It's getting to be that time of your to reflect on your efforts and to come to terms going forward. 

I had had a lousy 2018 personally, but had a good year collecting some significant coins.

 

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We have been blessed this year, financially and otherwise, and I was able to add several pieces to the token collection. I also picked up a few pieces for my VF/XF type set. I traded some and gave some away. My biggest numismatic accomplishment this year, though,  was adding 22 books to the library.

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I spent too much high grade cloth and secret ink mix (paper money ) again and will reflect, add up the totals and then current worth, estimate a reasonable future value (like a what if..scenario) then for the first time in my life apply what Forum Member leeg advice (never knew or spoke to him/her before) was to me on dealing with a personal collector issue I have...for too many years I have let coins make me physically sacrifice and financially torment me to the point of being drawn in like a Lord of the Rings Evil Spell. Numismatics should not make you live so differently so you can afford certain coins. The going without normal necessaries to live and valuing money as a conduit for coins over the importance of life and it's meaning. A Rare Coin Addiction (not hoarding), must be brought into balance. I am not embarrassed to admit that in 2019 I will seek control of this. I actually feel better getting this out...there are great people here who understand how this can happen. Thank You Guys so Much...

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This year marks a return to coins for me, when I bought the final coin (1925-S) and completed my Lincoln set Sept of '17 I set numismatics aside and took a break.  Just this past Oct I decided to buy a couple of small dollar items and concentrate my efforts on my custom set and a few unfinished year sets that are important to me for a variety of reasons.  So in the closing months of '18 I have added 4 or 5 new coins to the collection and will continue into '19 with this same goal in mind to try and finish those year sets.  

On a side note; sadly the new NGC only registry rule means that my Lincoln set on the registry will forever look unfinished as I cannot add that last coin into it.

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I haven't posted this one here, yet, but it was a very important acquisition for me.  I picked it up back in June.  Searched for about a decade for this coin and was never sure that I would actually find a good example.  Even the halfway decent ones were selling for the next grade up.  I am blown away by the strike and originality of this piece.  It is the number one strike rarity in the entire series and surfaces are usually abraded, stripped and dull.  This coin is one in a million (or close to it).  I feel very fortunate, as I finally found the perfect 19 D.  It's had its ups and downs but all in all 2018 has been good.

 

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It is so easy to get caught up with everything that you are doing and completely forget to reflect upon all the amazing things that have occurred. Taking a minute to reflect, 2018 has been such an amazing year for me! I married the most amazing girl (who supports my coin addiction…with an occasional eye roll), added a puppy to our family, completed my coursework for my Ph.D., submitted several manuscripts, and co-authored a book chapter that will be published in 2019!

From a numismatic standpoint, I have also had an exceptional year. I completed my first NGC submission since January of 2014 which included a couple of top pops (although the census is very thin for world coins) and no major hits to my grading ego. I managed to add 25 books to my library, although I have no idea when I will ever have the free time to read them. I also somehow managed to juggle Christmas shopping and adding 29 coins to my collection. :whatthe:

I learned a few things along the way as well, most notably how to identify and attribute the Droz pattern halfpennies from the SOHO mint. I was fortunate enough to add two of these coins to my collection and they have quickly become some of my favorites. I also learned how to attribute the numerous varieties of the 1788 Barbados pennies and even purchased 4 different examples.

I stopped collecting coins roughly 4 years ago because of a lack of time and money. Rekindling that passion for numismatics has been very rewarding. The thrill of the hunt is great but taking the time to research the coin and discover the history behind it is what I truly enjoy. Being able to share that knowledge is by far the most rewarding part of numismatics. Rejoining the chat forum has only further added to that experience. I do not post much, but I read almost every post and I cannot express how much I enjoy reading about the acquisitions and/or research by fellow members. I would like to thank each of you for sharing your experiences and taking the time to respond to my numerous inquiries.

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This year for me was more about learning what I wanted to collect instead of just purchasing coins willy nilly.  I sold a lot of my modern coins (almost all of them in fact) and I have decided to mainly concentrate on graded Morgans, peace dollars and mercury dimes and Kennedy halves for American coinage.  And I have recently been turned on to the beauty of the early 20th century Italian coins, which fits in nicely with my heritage.

 

For 2019 my goal is to continue the quest for graded morgans.  I have a complete set of raw peace dollars, and just need the 1916D for the raw mercs, although the 16D will be slabbed.  As are the 1921 and 1921D.  And have 28 of the Kennedy halves yet to go to complete that set.  The Kennedy halves are great when you don't have the extra $$ lying around for a slabbed coin but you need your USPS fix. 

 

And of course to keep collecting the Italian coins.  

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I haven't really done much this year. Keeping my Danscos caught up and my Jefferson registry is about all. My other hobbies kept me kind of busy this year. 

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My 2018 has been pretty good numismatically.  I've added many coins to my Avians: The Dinosaurs Among Us Custom Set.  Last year, I had 20 coins in the set and I now have 51, so I've definitely made progress there and I started a new Custom Set featuring coins with babies on them.  That said though, I wouldn't rate those as my most important events personally this year regarding collecting.  After a 12 year absence, I recently rediscovered my love of collecting currency and I've been indulging that lately.  I'm not grading it or anything, or going for Registry collecting with it.  I'm just using a nice Littleton Album and buying nice, circulated notes, basically picking up where I left off back then and I've found it to be extremely enjoyable and fulfilling.  I've mostly been pursuing US Small Size notes of all types (I've been having great luck with $5's for some reason), but I have some Canadian, German, Turkish and Japanese Occupation notes as well.  I didn't realize how much I missed pursuing currency until I picked it up again.....it's funny how that happens sometimes.  I'm also continuing to work on my little vestpocket venture and I've been trying some new things there as well, like adding more World coins.  And I'm working on my Doctoral dissertation as well, so I've definitely got some stuff going on!  All in all, it's been a pretty good year with some ups and downs.  I think going into 2019, I'm going to keep focusing on my currency and my vestpocket sales.  I may add some more coins as well, who knows?  But the less stuff I grade for myself, the more funds I have for my vestpocket venture, so that will figure in to where I go in 2019 as well. 

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From a collecting perspective I made some more progress on my various graded British sixpence sets this year and actualy completed my first set - Edward VII - it is oddly satisfying to see 100 in the % column! Although only 9 coins most of these were bought ungraded long ago so it was nice to get MS grades for them all and I managed to pick up high grade examples to replace my circulated ones for the remaining coins. These included the 1908 from 'rmw', a member here, who sold much of his impressive collection of British coins via Heritage earlier this year - thank you 'rmw'.

It is also starting to look like I may actually complete my Napoleon typeset at some point over the next few years, a mix of raw and already graded coins means that it now stands at 90%. I have a coin for one of the missing slots which I should really get around to sending to NGC although the remaining coins may prove difficult in anything above XF. I know I should save all my money for decent examples to populate these two slots and forgo everything else but there are a few top grade examples, with only one or two such coins known, in the January auctions for other sets I have plans to upgrade from raw so my resolve will be tested.

All my other sets are a very very long way from completion so it will be interesting to see where they are this time next year but I expect the focus will continue to be on small world silver - a surprising challenge and more akin to my future budget, but probably more of a lifetime endeavour as graded populations are extremely low (or even non-existent) and the appearance of raw coins at auction is not much better!

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I had a good year, acquired a coin off my "I'll never own one of those" list.  An 1803 Large date small fraction draped but cent. (Check your Redbooks.)

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I added a 3 proof Indians to my collection, a few Bust half dates and marriages I didn't have, and a few Walkers. I didn't really add much to my Morgan or Peace dollar collections this year. Been a pretty good year, although it seems I'm always working and have little time to do much else. 

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2018 was good to me - mostly on account of the fact that, unlike 2016 and 2017, I was actually gainfully employed for the entire calendar year. I hope that continues into 2019 and 2020.

As a result of this, and a little luck, this year also saw two major additions to my 10G set, which is one of my most important / pet projects right now. I just got the common-date 1877 and in February I got extremely lucky and scored the key-date of the entire series - the 1888. Only about 35,000 coins were minted total for this series in 1888, and only about 20 are graded by NGC, so scoring that coin was a huge win for me and for the set.

Other than those two major purchases, 2018 was mostly about buying ungraded Queen's Beast coins from the UK and buying generic silver rounds.

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On 12/23/2018 at 12:33 AM, Conder101 said:

I had a good year, acquired a coin off my "I'll never own one of those" list.  An 1803 Large date small fraction draped but cent. (Check your Redbooks.)

Estimated population: 60 to 75. 

That's an impressive score. :golfclap:

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On December 23, 2018 at 1:33 AM, Conder101 said:

I had a good year, acquired a coin off my "I'll never own one of those" list.  An 1803 Large date small fraction draped but cent. (Check your Redbooks.)

Nice

 

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On 12/23/2018 at 9:19 AM, World Colonial said:

I bought about one dozen coins this year, all pillars from Peru or Bolivia.  Most significant were 1758 NGC XF-45 4R and 1770 NGC AU-53 4R.

I have followed your comments over the years about how difficult these issues are to find.  Congratulations!

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On ‎12‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 11:38 PM, jgenn said:

I have followed your comments over the years about how difficult these issues are to find.  Congratulations!

Thanks.  These were two of five for the type in XF or better which came up for sale to my knowledge in 2018.  This was equal (also five) to what I saw in the prior 16 years combined.

CRO also sold a 1170 PCGS XF-40 earlier this year and a second dealer website sold a raw AU as part of a type set maybe 10 years ago.  The 1758, only seen it included in the Patterson catalog, in any quality.  His two were probably XF or AU by today's standards going by the catalog description.

The other two were both 1772, easily the most common date for denomination from this mint with probably at least a few hundred out of the recorded mintage of slightly over 10,000.  One was the NGC XF-45 and the other was sold by a Spanish auction firm as EBC+ for 3800 Euros.  I'd consider it MS, it has excellent color and a good strike but with a striking defect.  The pillar side has numerous planchet flaws with parts of the metal missing leaving noticeable holes in the design.

Another coin I tried to buy but did not was the 1761 NGC MS-66 Peru real where I was one of the under bidders.  It is a nice coin but don't believe it's really an MS-66 though I only saw an image.  It has a distracting dark line on the pillar side (purportedly as struck) and I didn't want to get into a bidding war to win it.  I suspect it was won by a US dealer but haven't seen it listed yet.  For now, I'll have to settle for the PCGS XF-45 I currently own.

Since I wrote my prior posts, I finally obtained mintage data.  Recorded mintages for Peru 4R range from about 10,000 (1772) to about 41,000 (1760).  This excludes the 1752 (81) and 1753-1755 which don't have detail by denomination.  This might make these coins somewhat more common than I believe and claimed in prior posts, but not materially in any decent quality and especially in "high" quality.

As a point of reference, the 1878-S seated half has a recorded mintage near 12,000.  Heritage provides conflicting estimates of 48 and 60 in two lots.  PCGS Coin Facts estimates 50 with 15 MS.  Last I checked, combined NGC and PCGS population was just over 40 with about a dozen MS-60+ to my recollection.

Due to the proportionately larger mintages, some or maybe many of these Peru 4R dates might be more available absolutely, but not remotely across the quality distribution.  It's possible the entire series has fewer in equivalent quality as the 1878-S.  Outside of the ANS which includes the Norweb collection, PCGS lists a single 1761 MS-62 (possibly the Patterson specimen) and NGC a single 1767 AU-55.  Gilboy illustrates a few more but I suspect it's the same coins.  Images for the 1755 and 1761 look identical to the Patterson catalog and the Norweb example.  I also checked all major Stacks auctions 1990 and prior on the NNP and didn't hardly find anything for any minor denomination.  The 1767 is listed twice in close proximity but don't know if it is the NGC coin.  I wasn't aware of Calico prior to about 2008 but their archives don't include anything either.

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Hello all! I hope this new year brings all the best to you all! Happy New Year! What do you think of this lil lady? I'm not posting pics do your homework! I did 32 known this grade in NGC census via app still MS64 even in old slab 160+ year old coin! I trust em to protect them, and they did so in grand fashion! Thank you Greatly NGC as so few survived to enjoy you helped the world! Capone1929

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Just now, Capone1929 said:

Hello all! I hope this new year brings all the best to you all! Happy New Year! What do you think of this lil lady? I'm not posting pics do your homework! I did 32 known this grade in NGC census via app still MS64 even in old slab 160+ year old coin! I trust em to protect them, and they did so in grand fashion! Thank you Greatly NGC as so few survived to enjoy you helped the world! Capone1929

Coin referring to this beauty NGC Saved NGC MS64 #1924648-003 sweet!

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Thanks to one of the great members here, my Bust Half collection took a big step forward. This is one of several he helped me with.

 

 

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