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About this journal

A journal mostly about my collection of Zimbabwe banknotes - the only banknotes I collect for the time being that are interesting enough for me to think people might want to read about it. But there will be periodic discussions of US Small Size Federal Reserve Notes and Silver Certificates and you may start seeing more about Venezuelan Bolivares.

I have a very strong interest in Hyperinflation notes so I'll probably continue to expand into new series of Hyperinflation notes now that my Zimbabwe collection is going to increasingly be at a more mature and static state going forward.

Entries in this journal

Zimbabwe Gas Coupons

So… Hard, indefinite, pause on those gas coupons…

So, in asking a question about grouping invoices I found out that the gas coupons would need to go in under “economy special,” and not “modern,” like I’d been thinking and hoping. That ups the cost of grading these from $20 each to $40 each. And… I don’t think it’s worth that for now. It is / was just so much easier for me to justify $20/note for fun and the enjoyment of popping those into that signature set but it is so much harder to justify $40/note. I thought about it. I just can’t talk mys
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

Choosing a treatment for the Traveller's Checks in "Gradually, Then Suddenly."

I had told myself that I wasn’t going to work on descriptions for the new checks until they got here, but it has been a week since I got the good news on the grades and I’m getting twitchy waiting for them to get here. Maybe with tomorrow’s mail! I really want to see these in their new PMG holders in person! So I’m working on the descriptions! The P-40, P-45, and P-46b all have descriptions up now that are consistent with the approach I’ve used in the 2nd dollar set but how to deal with th
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

Grades on the Checks!

My grades came back for the 12 Traveler’s Cheques (2 sets of 6) and the 3 Hole-filling 2nd Dollar Bearer Cheques… and I am thrilled!!!! They did significantly better than I’d been allowing myself to hope for. I’d been thinking I’d be extremely happy if Fenntucky Mike was right, and they all came back with grades in the 61-63 range. I was mentally bracing to get a bunch in the AU50-55 range. Instead, I got the following. I’m not a note grader. I don’t at all know how to grade these and
Fantasy Notes

Silver and Gold Foil Fantasies

I mentioned a few months back that I got some of the gold foil replicas of the 100 Trillion note. I’d been thinking at that time that getting some of the silver foils could be fun but that got set aside for a while and I kinda forgot about it. I was on reddit recently and a guy told me that I’d inspired him to get two of the 100 Trillion notes, but, when he told me that he only spent a few dollars on it I told him what he’d probably really bought was a couple of the silver foil replicas - w
Revenant

Revenant in Fantasy Notes

6
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

Scheduled for Grading!

My notes are now Scheduled for Grading. I is excite.  That is all.   I love the "Emergency Issue" note on the label for many / most of these issues. They're such a bizarre product a bizarre moment in the history of a nation. I'm going to break these out into a special set of emergency issues (P-13 to P-32, or what I have of those) and the gas coupons (when and if I can get them graded), because I really want to put a spotlight on these things, apart from the larger whole
Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos

The Venezuela Set is looking solid now!

My P-110 arrived last week and today brought my new P-109 and a new, higher grade P-102 (that is not a star note like the last one). With these, I have mostly rolled out / executed my plan for my Venezuela signature set. I still need to scan the two new notes. I still need P-104 and the new 2021 notes. I have a description written up for P-104 that will go up as soon as I have the notes. But that description focuses on the person and the animals / locals on the not and not on the hist
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

Wow. PMG is on it!

My submission of checks arrived at PMG last week and I was expecting, based on their response late last week, that the notes probably wouldn't be in the system until the end of this week or early next week. I was shocked when I checked, mostly for a laugh, and saw that they were showing as "Received." This has me freaking out a bit. I'm realizing I might get an answer on these a lot faster than I'd thought. So, where I'd been chill about this and thinking I'd find out eventually and t
Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos

... And in today's mail - here is where I become a crazy person.

So today the mail carrier delivered my new Soberanos notes. A new crop of 67 EPQs that will help fill out most of the 2018 notes and start me into 2019 - I think I'll probably move to get the remaining 3 2018/2019 notes soon and then I'll just have the 2021 series. So here is where I'm going to sound like a crazy person.... the seller sent a P-107a. The listing title only said P-107 - it did not list a sub-type. HOWEVER, the picture for the listing showed a P-107b. So... As it happens,
Zimbabwe Gas Coupons

Wow. That's bigger than I imagined it would be...

About a week ago I placed an order for a couple of 20 L gas ration coupons. Part of the fun thing about having a reasonable price and free shipping was it gave me a chance to place a smaller order and make sure the seller was going to send ones that were in good condition. They came in the mail today and... it's... big.   Whenever I've seen these I've only ever seen (what I assume are) scans of them. So they're surrounded in white and there was no size reference. And, without real
Zimbabwe Bearer Checks

Ooof!! Glad I didn't have my heart set on that.

I'd been quietly watching a P-23d on eBay the last few days. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to bid on it - I just have other priorities right now with trying to fill other holes and send other things in for that set and trying to buy some Venezuela issues I need... another P-23 variety isn't a high priority and it would have needed to go for a good price for me to go for it... After shipping it pulled about $120!! Wow... Around early to mid 2019 the sale prices on these notes we
Hyperinflation Notes and Sets

Well, see, it's kind of like "Rose Red."

Anyone remember that (now, somewhat) old movie "Rose Red?" Remember that line, "It's finished, when YOU say it's finished"? I feel like that's the case with any major collecting project / journey. It's over when you decide you're done - but, it can keep going as arbitrarily long as you want it to! And I'm realizing that's going to be the case with the Zimbabwean set... and I'm just not sure I'm done yet. 🤣 I posted some months back about horrifying my wife with the comment th
Hyperinflation Notes and Sets

More Bolivares and More Turtles

Yesterday I was excitedly working on making new set and note descriptions - planning out the future presentation of the Venezuelan signature set. I thought I’d hit the “download” button and not the “open” button when I got my file from dropbox and I made a mistake in saving the file, which led to a fair bit of work and tinkering being lost. This morning I got a very frustrating call from my UK Sales manager that I didn’t like. It basically put me in a very non-productive, unmotivated mood a
Hyperinflation Notes and Sets

The two hyperinflation signature sets.

The Box with the Traveller's Checks is now sealed up and the postage is on it and it is now ready to go to PMG! This got me in the mood / excited to do a bit of tweaking: I added a note and link in the description for "Gradually, Then Suddenly" to my coin set on the NGC side. That set still only has a dime in it but I'm actively working on changing that now with a planned submission. I have coins! I just have to pick the coins to go in to NGC. I also went back and changed "ZIMUNL"
Zimbabwe Notes

Further evidence of the downside risk in collecting condition rarities

Mike and I have made quite a joke in the past of the people buying 70 EPQ Zimbabwe notes on eBay for hundreds of dollars but I got another example recently. Last year my wife gifted me a 68 EPQ 20 Trillion note that was a great step up from the 65 EPQ I'd had before. I think she paid about $110 for it after shipping and taxes. I was looking on eBay recently and the same note in the same grade is now available for about $50-55, in part because the same seller got more of them in that grade.
Revenant

Revenant in Zimbabwe Notes

24
Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos

1 Million Bolivares...

My first love of hyperinflation is a bit quiet and dull lately but Venezuela is not disappointing. They've announced new 200,000, 500,000, and 1 Million Bolivar notes to be released soon. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hyperinflation-pushes-venezuela-to-print-1000000-bolivar-bills/ar-BB1ei8Dj The 1 Million Bolivar note will be the highest denomination Venezuela has ever issued - they always re-denominated the currency before they got to that number before - but it's only going
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

The new checks are in...

The seller was on the ball about getting these mailed out and they look pretty good for things that were supposed to be used once and thrown away nearly 20 years ago: I'm on the fence at the moment about whether I want to 1) Submit the P-15s or not since I have one of these graded already and 2) Do I want to submit both of each or pick one and go with it / hope for the best.  There's a part of me that says "Gradually, Then Suddenly," only needs one each of these and that I could use so
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

Ordering some Cheques for future grading

So I've had my mental health break - I don't think I bought a single piece of Zimbabwean currency or pseudo currency in the three month period of December, January and February. I don't think I've gone anywhere near that long (or even 1 month) since Jan 2019. But I'm feeling a bit recharged and refreshed now having spent some time messing with other things. I think getting the plaque in the mail has helped stoke the fire and get me motivated to move forward with buying some things, using th
Registry Awards

Surprise in the mail today!

So I'm outside in the driveway cleaning out trash from my wife's car (it got a bit trashed when we resorted to camping out in it for warmth the week of President's day) and the mail carrier drives up and drops off this yellow padded envelope - which is a complete head scratcher to me because I wasn't really expecting anything. I open it up and it's the PMG "Best Presented" Plaque - just the PMG one; I'm guessing the NGC Journal one is coming soon and on its own. I'm really shocked at h
Revenant

Revenant in Registry Awards

2
Note Storage

I guess there's something about GREEN.

So those boxes my wife got me come in 4 colors - black, blue, red and green. She got me black and blue. I ordered myself a red which is coming soon. However - it would seem that getting green just isn't so easy! Almost every seller I found is sold out of Green. The only seller I found with them was 1] changing more than anyone else was for the boxes (about $30 where most were charging $20-25 after shipping) and 2] charging a premium for Green (Red was about $29, blue was about $30 and
Revenant

Revenant in Note Storage

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Note Storage

Getting Better Organized Now Maybe

My collection of graded notes exploded in the last couple of years as I've worked on building the Zimbabwe collection. My storage and organization has lagged far behind with the notes just in large plastic sleeve that hold up to 8-10 notes and having those stacked up. It actually made things a bit of a nightmare for me when trying to look through and enjoy the notes because they were just hard to manage like this. My wife and I exchanged Valentine's presents early this weekend and she
Revenant

Revenant in Note Storage

2
Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks

Okay.... So I may be walking back some of those ideas...

So, I knew going into this and in making my other post that the old Travellers checks are pretty out there and common and available... As long as you don't insist on them being uncanceled / unused... (Geeeze! That is a heck of a lot of money!) But I'm finding that the Cargill Checks (P 13-14 and P 24-27), may just only be available much more rarely and at prices I am just 100% not willing to pay for them, short of me winning the Mega Millions. However, the more
Registry Awards

Time to buy some raw notes and do some grading.

So the 2020 PMG Registry awards are in the books and PMG has paid my work / writing another very high compliment: The $500 grading credit that this comes with is going to open up a great opportunity for me get get some notes in my set that I don't often see come up for sale already graded by NGC and get this set more or less "complete." I don't have the financial resources or the facilities to bulk grade notes or to sell a lot of notes that I don't need. I'm also not all that grea
Revenant

Revenant in Registry Awards

7
Zimbabwe Notes

How much more could you want?!?

I was talking to my wife tonight about the fact that, having built a nearly complete pick set from P-1 to P-104, I'm probably going to take a break soon and slow down a lot - move on to other projects for a while. She looks at me and says, "yeah, but how much more could you want at this point?!?" "Well I could work on building out a set of 2003 traveler's checks, get more into replacement notes, specimen notes, fantasy notes... I could branch out into the fuel ration coupons..." S
Revenant

Revenant in Zimbabwe Notes

2
Fantasy Notes

My Fancy Fantasy Gag Gifts Arrived.

I got my gold-foil Zimbabwe 100 Trillion notes in the mail today. I popped them in some top-loaders and they're ready to go in some stockings. My wife likes them, thinks they're neat and thinks they'll be fun to give as gag gifts too. They're stiffer than I had been expecting. The top loaders might not have been necessary but I like having the "notes" in them for presentation and handling. I'll be keeping one for myself / my collection. Ben immediately claimed one for himself. Sam took
Revenant

Revenant in Fantasy Notes

3
Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos

I think I know where you bought those...

A couple of weeks ago I was watching several 67 EPQ graded notes listed by Noteshobby for the Venezuela Bolivares Soberanos set. I was thinking I might try to buy them in December if they were still available. It would have been a good way to make quick progress on that set for a good price. Then one day they all sold along with several Zimbabwe notes I was watching. Yesterday, a new set of Soberano notes showed up with those notes in 67 EPQ and the same person just made several new Zi
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