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slightly closer to being acceptable to Mike's lofty standards.

68 or bust for moderns.  I've been concentrating on a new set lately, , and I've been holding strong on the 68 minimum I've set. Meaning, I only buy the note if I see one graded 68. No upgrading for this set.  We'll see how well I hold up when pickings get slim, I'll probably break.   

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The same seller with the above has a VEN104a in 67EPQ now, finally... If I'd realized this last night I might have grabbed this for combined shipping... as it is, now, I'm just going to sigh, roll my eyes, and be a bit annoyed. 

Meh, it wasn't a 68 anyway.  

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I am still waiting to see if pre-graded Digital Bolivars will start showing up on eBay. If I can get them pre-graded in good grades for good prices I'll probably expand the set to include those and update the name from just "Strength and Sovereignty," but I don't really want to go through the hassle of grading these myself. I think the uniformity and sameness of these is hurting collector interest though and that might hurt dealer interest. I'm noticing that P-110 through P-113 don't seem to have done well, but P-114 did because it has a new back and, of course, it is the 1 Mil.

You can only have so many notes with essentially the same design, I would have thought that the added zero's would have kept people interested but.. I've been noticing about a six month lag lately from when a note is released and NH has some graded examples available. It's got to be close to that timeline for the DB.

On 3/19/2022 at 3:37 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

68 or bust for moderns.  I've been concentrating on a new set lately, , and I've been holding strong on the 68 minimum I've set. Meaning, I only buy the note if I see one graded 68. No upgrading for this set.  We'll see how well I hold up when pickings get slim, I'll probably break.   

You can only have so many notes with essentially the same design, I would have thought that the added zero's would have kept people interested but.. I've been noticing about a six month lag lately from when a note is released and NH has some graded examples available. It's got to be close to that timeline for the DB.

I mean, back when I started the 68s just weren't there at affordable priced. And then for a while I was picking up 67s and 66s for cheap from BNW. And it won me an award. So no regrets! Lol. But I will keep bumping them up where it makes sense - but I'm not paying $60 to upgrade a 67 to a 68.

Yeah. The switch to the Digital Bolivar (no new added zeros) with no new design I think is not going to be kind to this series from a collector standpoint... but... I'm  in it. 

Working up to expanding this to coins as with Zimbabwe but that's still slow going and something has come up that may shift my focus back to the 10G set.

On 3/22/2022 at 11:14 AM, Revenant said:

and something has come up that may shift my focus back to the 10G set.

   Interesting!  I like. 

It's an emoji day for me. 

On 3/22/2022 at 11:14 AM, Revenant said:

I'm not paying $60 to upgrade a 67 to a 68.

But would a 67 to 69 upgrade in the same price range interest you? A 68 is good enough for most and is an arbitrary goal of mine when building modern sets. I've a couple 69's which I picked up in that price range, but they weren't upgrades.

Fill an empty slot in a collection or upgrade an existing one??? A key problem I have had for coins and now seem to have for banknotes. My coins and notes are usually old enough that top grades 66-70 has never been an issue with 58-63 more realistic however I have recently bought a few more 'modern' notes so I too now have this dilemma although the top grade available may still not go to 68 and then there my only be 1 or 2 examples in the population report.

Having initially started looking at British Colonial notes, to match my coins, there seem to be plenty available although the top grades attracted very high premiums. By contrast I was surprised that the numbers of graded notes for most Latin American countries was surprising low with the exception of Mexico and Colombia. Most countries have less than 3000 in total and with many types having no graded examples at all. Completion of any set looks like I may have to work out how to submit notes to PMG.

We are all mad

On 3/22/2022 at 6:42 PM, ColonialCoinsUK said:

Fill an empty slot in a collection or upgrade an existing one??? A key problem I have had for coins and now seem to have for banknotes. My coins and notes are usually old enough that top grades 66-70 has never been an issue with 58-63 more realistic however I have recently bought a few more 'modern' notes so I too now have this dilemma although the top grade available may still not go to 68 and then there my only be 1 or 2 examples in the population report.

Having initially started looking at British Colonial notes, to match my coins, there seem to be plenty available although the top grades attracted very high premiums. By contrast I was surprised that the numbers of graded notes for most Latin American countries was surprising low with the exception of Mexico and Colombia. Most countries have less than 3000 in total and with many types having no graded examples at all. Completion of any set looks like I may have to work out how to submit notes to PMG.

The main reason a modern, world, registry set in grades 68+ is a realistic goal for some sets is due to a lack of graded banknote collectors (or collectors in general) in most of those areas and larger sellers having these notes graded in bulk then selling at reasonable prices. Notes graded 68+ that I've recently picked up are in the $25-$60 dollar range. 

3000 notes graded for a Country is not too shabby, that would put them in the top 100 (out of 246). While that number is indeed small in relation to the number of notes, varieties and replacements most countries have issued, it is a respectable number over all. 

On 3/22/2022 at 6:42 PM, ColonialCoinsUK said:

We are all mad

So true! 

On 3/22/2022 at 4:48 PM, Fenntucky Mike said:

But would a 67 to 69 upgrade in the same price range interest you? A 68 is good enough for most and is an arbitrary goal of mine when building modern sets. I've a couple 69's which I picked up in that price range, but they weren't upgrades.

69s always get my attention, but they're rarely offered at prices I find attractive.

On 3/22/2022 at 5:42 PM, ColonialCoinsUK said:

Fill an empty slot in a collection or upgrade an existing one???

There are few holes left in that set. And the ones that are left are not trivial to contend with. From here it's mostly upgrade or bust. And if you look at several of the series / subsets they're 100% complete.