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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant
    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.
    It's quite an interesting reminder of what the risks can be when the only thing that makes a note even remotely rare or scarce is the number on the label. And it's the main reason I never really liked paying top-dollar for the highest grades when building my Zimbabwe set. I wanted a complete set of notes in really good / solid grades - usually gem uncirc grades in the 66 EPQ + range, which, in the holders especially are almost indistinguishable from 67 EPQ, 68 EPQ or 69 EPQ examples. Sure, I'm sure there are differences, but they're so subtle that I don't think most people would notice or care. Building the set this way let me do what I wanted at a budget level I was okay with, going on the assumption that I'd probably never be able to fully recover my costs if I ever had to sell. I approach building that set on the idea of being happy / okay with it if I took a total loss on it and never saw any of that money / value ever again, so I didn't have to worry or stress about future value or resale - easier to do when many of the notes I got to fill out the 2nd and 3rd dollar sets I spent $8-12 a piece getting, already graded.
    Possibly more on this later, but that set, which is now a Registry award winner, only cost about $2,000-2,500 to build. Proving that this isn't always about who has the most money to throw at the problem.
    I sometimes wonder if someone that recently came into the Zimbabwe notes registry in a big way is ever going to regret the large amount of money they dumped into their sets to get really high grades on everything in a short period of time. Maybe they have the cash and they can spend at that level and have similar feelings to mine with regard to not having to worry about ever getting that money back out of it. Personally, that would have made me cringe, based on what I can guess and infer about some of the prices they must have been paying.
    Short of winning the lottery I don't think my Zimbabwe sets are likely to ever dominate the #1 rankings again just because - short of money just becoming no object - I'm unlikely to ever spend thousands of dollars to win a slap-fight over labels and condition rarities. Still, with what it has achieved and what I still have planned, its still going to be one of the bigger and more complete Zimbabwe currency collections I've ever seen, and it's going to get a more fully realized and flushed out coin arm in the NGC Registry later this year - the coins are getting ready to be submitted. But more on that in an NGC journal later. I'm also still not completely closed to some limited upgrading when it can be done at a reasonable price point - I have some 64 EPQ and 65 EPQ hole fillers that I wouldn't mind upgrading to 67 EPQs if this can be done for more in the range of $25-35 / note.
  2. Revenant

    More Bolivares and More Turtles

    By Revenant,


    Hyperinflation Notes and Sets
    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 and I was agitated over the loss of that work on the Venezuela set, so I decided to spend time today working on restoring my lost set work. Fortunately it didn’t take long to restore most of what I lost and then I moved on to writing some new stuff. And I’ve been more careful this time to save my work.
    I’m really excited to get some of these set up because I was able to order 5 new Soberanos notes in 67 EPQ for a total of $124 - so about $24.80 a note. Basically, the cost of the notes + grading, to say nothing of shipping 3 ways (to PMG, back, and to me). So I’m very happy with that and very excited to get those in and add them to the set. That will give me all of the 2018 issues except for VEN104 and 1 of the three 2019 issues. I’m not really seeing many / any of the 3 new 2021 notes for sale already graded by PMG. I’m sure those’ll start popping up soon enough.
    I’m getting moving on this later than I’d originally thought but I still want to and like the idea of mostly finishing a Venezuelan Hyperinflation set before the end of 2021. I’m only going to need about 6 more notes to make that happen.
    My wife has this group of friends she talks to on Facebook Messenger that’s a group of moms with kids all around the same age as Sam. And… I guess she was telling them about my currency collecting and brought up my turtle theme set and one of them asked if I had a Kuwaiti 1/2 dinar note… and I was like, “No… why?” Apparently it has a sea turtle on it.


    It really is amazing, the unexpected ways that information comes to you sometimes.
    So I’ve added a slot to my Turtle set to remind me to go after that later, right along with a 20 Ringgit note from Malaysia.

    Maybe one of these days that set will look a little more like something / a little more impressive.
    Edited to add: After boxing them up the other day, the 15 bearer and traveller's checks were picked up today and are now officially on their way! So... I guess I'll know how they did in like late June or July.
  3. Revenant
    A couple of weeks ago a pair of P-23 notes came up for sale - a P-23e and a P-23c, ending in that order, a couple of days apart from each other.
    I have not seen a lot of P-23s come up for sale over the last few years. One of the few I’ve seen offered is one that has a “Pick-Unlisted” label that was graded years ago, so you don’t know from the label what variety you’re getting and the seller wanted $200 for it - which has always and still seems insane for that note. This probably explains why it still sits unsold. Anyway…
    These new notes had starting bid prices of $29 - which was very reasonable.
    I was hoping to snag both if I could get them cheap, but I ended up having some competition for them. I decided to try to snag the P-23e and let the P-23c go for now. I ended up being glad I did. I won the P-23e for $38.88 + shipping + tax (set me back $47.50). The P-23c sold for about $75 before tax and shipping - two other people wanted that one bad, I guess.

    It is very nice to pick this one up though. This P-23e, with the P-22b I got in a lucky win earlier in the year, is finally giving me some in-roads and progress on a segment of the complete Zimbabwe series / collection that I’ve been pretty weak in up to this point.
    This note has one of the new style holders with a 15-year label. That got me thinking a little…
    The note itself is from 2003. It’s only 17 years old and it was made only 2 years before PMG got started.
    This realization got me thinking about the fact that the 2nd Dollar series was released in 2005 and 2006 and that PMG was just getting started and was a “cool new thing in the industry,” right at the time when the Zimbabwe hyperinflation and the collection craze over these notes was entering into its peak phase. PMG was only about 3-4 years old when the 100 trillion notes hit the street. This makes me wonder a little if this coincidence of timing helped power Zimbabwe into being #20 in the list of the countries with the most notes graded by PMG.
    This has my interest a little piqued to see if I might be able to get one of the 2005 dated 2nd dollar bearer checks in a holder with the 15-year label on it for my collection. I just can’t help but think that would be neat to have. I’m not sure what dollar value that novelty is going to have for me or what I’m going to be willing to shell out to make that happen but it’s definitely going to be “on my radar” now.
    Incidentally, 2005 is also the year I graduated from High School… and now I realize it has been 15 years since I graduated from High School… and… dangit… now I just feel old.
    Dang it! … I am old.
  4. Revenant

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

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Bearer Checks
    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 were in the toilet. I got a P-5 in 67 EPQ (top pop at the time) for $7.50... Things seem to have turned back  up in late 2019 and 2020 with the new series seemingly bringing in new interest and we're back to some sellers asking for (and getting) some pretty silly amounts.
    There's someone with a P-72 in VF-30, which looks nasty, and they're asking like $450 for it.
    I have plans in motion to fill the last holes in my 1st dollar (P-3) and 2nd dollar sets (P-40, 45, 46), but that last 3rd dollar hole is going to sit empty a while.
  5. Revenant

    I think I know where you bought those...

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos
    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 Zimbabwe sets.
    Okay... I see how it is. I wanted those but there's more out there! 
    I am / was planning to try to make the Soberano set happen next year just because its a short set of relatively inexpensive notes that'll be fun to build now that I have the Fuertes series complete. I've also started building the bones / frame of a new Signature set that I'll use to display and talk about the set the way I want since I'm thinking I'm not going to get exactly what I want in a competitive set
    New sets popping up that bump you out of #1 less than a week before the cut-off! The sniping is very real this year!
    Lol not that I'm entirely sure what we're fighting over at this level. PMG doesn't give certificates or display ribbons for Best in Category so I guess it's just pure bragging rights.
  6. Revenant

    Finally scored some nice wins…

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Bearer Checks
    About 2 weeks ago a P-77 came up for auction. This had me super excited because it would have completed my “Millions” set and left me needing only the $10,000, P-72 to complete my 3rd dollar set… but then someone else bid at the end and the price was getting out of hand so I let it go… sadness.
    Then about a week ago a P-3 came up that would have given me a 100% complete 1st dollar set… and the bidding got so high at the end that I didn’t even bid on it…
    However, I’ve finally scored some wins that I’m very happy about and I was able to do it because I didn’t blow all of my budget and then some on those other notes.
    The first win came about 3 days ago. It is a P-21d in 67 EPQ. This gives me a complete pick set (but not a variety set) of the 3 note, 2003 bearer check series (P-21 to P-23). I’ll see when I get it entered but I think this also might just barely give me the lead in the category (by about 10 points) and give me the #1 spot for a while. Should be fun to digitally poke jeyanth7 with a stick like that. Lol

    The 2nd win came this morning and this is the one I am really happy about - and paradoxically it’s probably one of the most homely looking “notes” in the whole series - and calling it a “note” is really generous because this thing is a check. It is not a reusable, transferable, “check” with an expiration date like the “bearer checks” and “agro checks.” It is a literal, bank-issued, single use, canceled check.

    I was very excited when this popped up. When I’d asked about these previously PMG had indicated that they weren’t currently grading these and so I’d been thinking it’d be impossible to ever have these properly represented in my signature set. But this check is clearly recently graded and indicates that they’ve changed their mind and they’re willing to certify these now. I’d removed the empty slots for these from my signature set because I thought the were unfillable. I’m not going to add slots back for all of them for now. Rather, I’m going to include this as a representative piece for now and see what develops over time. On the competitive side, depending on what happens in the next few weeks, when I add this one to my set it might be the only one of these listed in the registry and anchoring a #1 ranked set or one note.
    I had been hoping to snag that P-15 for $25 unopposed - much like I won the P-21d without anyone bidding against me, but I had to fend off a sniper that bid on it with 3 seconds left on the clock. I’d been hoping to go for a 68 EPQ P-30 note tonight but I’ve decided I’m going to have to let that one go - it’s just not in the collecting budget at the moment. I’ll need to convince myself to wait a week or two before I buy anything else. That is a bit of a bummer because the P-30, with the P-21, would give me a complete denomination set of the 1st dollar bearer checks, but there is a 67 EPQ that will end in about 9 days and I may go for that instead - still a good note in a good grade while mostly honoring my agreed collecting budget.
    I've also decided for now that I'm not going to have slots for all three $50,000 issues in the 1st dollar bearer check series (P-28 to P-30) for now and I'll just add more slots as I get them. I'm pretty happy with and I think the set will feel reasonably complete if I get a P-28, P-29, or a P-30 (most likely a P-30) and I don't necessarily feel like driving myself nuts getting all three in the near term. 
    While I still have some holes I'd like to fill as I'm able, it's getting harder, and I feel like the signature set and the collection overall is getting to a pretty mature state, where it feels pretty complete and new purchases are likely to start slowing down drastically soon. But... I've been wrong about that before.

    Just thought I'd use some screen caps to show how I'm restructuring the signature set for now. The P-15 and P-21d are going to drop into adjacent slots once they arrive.

    I am very happy with how my 1st dollar collection has improved and shaped up in the last 6 months. It feels awesome.
  7. Revenant
    PMG posted my P-3 submission as "shipped" and posted grade results today. Received on 8/3/21 and Shipped on 8/12/21.
    9 calendar days, folks. That is a turnaround.

    A 65 and a 66 are solid, especially for 1st dollar notes and very consistent with my set overall. A 67 or 68 would have been GREAT. A 63 or 64 would have disappointed me. This is kind of a literal shrug.  I looked at it and just nodded a little and was like, "Not bad."
    The seller I bought them from advertised them as "gem." A 65 or higher is gem Uncirc, so... as advertised. Can't complain about getting what you paid for, right?
    Since the cert#s are active in the system already I've already plugged them into my competitive and signature sets! I wasn't excited about getting to fill those holes at all!

    Competition-wise these additions are far from game changing but I'm still happy to see 100% on that set, and it is just going to be what it's going to be until and unless I decide to drop big-bucks for a P-3a, P-3b or P-3c to smackdown with the other 3 in the top 4.

    Of course, it would be wonderful if one day I could collect all three of those rare varieties and achieve the same thing with P-2, P-3 and P-4 that I've achieved with P-1. That would be INSANE! Such a mind-blowing achievement to me. But that's for later.
    For today, in other news, Mike was nice enough to point out to me that he's trying to "ninja" me in the Billions short-set. So this one is for you, Mike:



    A 3 point upgrade, bumping my 65 EPQ (in an old gen holder) to a new 68 EPQ. Just so you can work just a little harder, my friend. 
    I'll have to work on bumping up my 1 Billion P-83 and my50 Billion P-87 later and even then I suspect you may one-day over take me, but you will have to bring an A game.
    I am REALLY curious though to see if the note that comes is really going to be an AB prefix (The seller has more than one, so I don't consider this guaranteed). But an image of a 67 EPQ they have for sale also shows an AB prefix and so I'm thinking the seller got a wad of AB prefix notes and cherry-picked and sent in several so I'm hopeful. Anything other than AA is pretty rare in the later 3rd dollar notes (purely in my subjective experience) since they were in  print for such a short time. If this note IS an AB prefix it'll get added to my sig set and the AA prefix 65 EPQ will stay too. If is an AA prefix I'll drop the 65 from the sig set - like I did with my new 20T replacing the old one. 
    I also (to save on shipping, naturally) picked up a new VEN111b for my Venezuela set, to compliment my VEN111a.

    Since I have the a and b for VEN110 and VEN111 now I've also added a slot for VEN109a in my signature set and I'm going to make that an official goal - a and b for all three of those.
     
  8. Revenant

    I can put a fork in this again... (for now?)

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Notes
    After my wife bought all three of the Rhodesian pennies I was looking to maybe get with my collecting money for my birthday () I had some cash available to me, and then I saw a 68EPQ P106 note for Zimbabwe pop up from one of my favorite dealers that I've gotten most of the new notes from this series from.
    They were listing it for $35+$5 shipping so I decided to try for it. No one else bid and I took it.


    Unfortunately I can't add it to my signature set right now because it appears the PMG servers in Florida that the site needs to confirm the cert# are down.
    I'm hoping everyone out there with PMG and NGC are doing okay. My wife works remotely with a Florida-based company that's in Gainesville. From what she tells me they have all made it through okay but some are also without power.
    I already have a description / commentary written up for it to go into my signature set with it once the servers are back up and I get another chance to add it.
    This note makes me caught up with this series for probably the first time in a year or more. I didn't get the $50 until this one was coming out and I've just been constantly behind on this while I focused on Venezuelan, Zimbabwean and Italian coins. So it feels good to finally get caught up again.

    Mike may note that the grade is a 68. Now that I'm reaching pretty happy, stable points with some of the coin sets, I'm likely to take a break from some of those for a while, until next year when I start to prepare another submission.
    I'm starting to feel the temptation and maybe have the budget to put towards upgrading some of those 67s and 66s in this set to 68s as notes become available at prices I'm okay with.
  9. Revenant
    I'm putting this up as what I'm calling my 2022 update to the Zimbabwe set. When I got into this in 2015 I thought it would be done and that I would just get to build the sets and the descriptions and be done. It has been very interesting and an unexpected journey to have this new series that started in 2019 (2016 if you count the bond notes) and having to update and revise to reflect the timeline moving forward, but it's something I've enjoyed following immensely, carrying the set forward.
    The timing of this update is spurred partially by my wife buying me a graded example of the $50 (P-105) note for the series as part of my father's day present and also the announcement the RBZ made last week. My last major update to this set was in May 2021, a couple of months before the $50 note was released, so my $20 note description still said I thought the $20 note would be the last of the series. So an update was needed.
    The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced in early April 2022 that they would be releasing a new $100 bill. At the time, inflation was running about 6-7% a month and about 66-72% a year. The RBZ committee at the time talked about how it needed to “remain focused on inflation reduction” while also pointing to rising global inflation and the Russia-Ukraine conflict – which had started only about 1.5 months prior at the time.  


    The design of this note will look familiar to those familiar with Zimbabwean money. The front of the note is more or less identical to the other notes in the series with the exception of the color and the denomination and even the color seems very similar to the $50 note that immediately precedes it in the series. The reverse of the note features the Great Zimbabwe Ruins, which have not been featured previously in this series but they have been featured on the national coins and currency over and over again dating back to 1980 with the $1 coin. I think the first appearance of the ruins on a note was on the $50 bill of the 2nd series of the 1st dollar (P-8), which was released in 1994. 
    Every time the ruins are introduced or featured in a new series of notes it is done with new artwork but the artwork always seems to focus on this one structure or feature of the ruins. I think this new design is notable also for the prominent placement of the milkwood tree. I bring up the old $1 coin from 1980 in part because, of all the prior artwork, this new note most reminds me of that old $1 coin. 
    By Jun 2022, just two months after this note was released, annual inflation had spiked from 72% to 192%. 
    Forever behind the curve with this series, the RBZ once again released a new note that could not even buy a loaf of bread when it was released. For all the jokes that got made about the $100 Trillion dollar note (P-91) at the time of its release, that bill was worth about $2 officially at release and could buy bread – and if you sold it to tourists at the airport for more than it was actually worth you could get a loaf of bread or maybe two. But these notes, at release, didn’t even buy you bread. 
    Just two to three months after this note was released, in June and July 2022, you have some developments that are perhaps the most damning inditements of this new currency, the surest signs that this experiment in restarting a national currency has failed, and that this series may actually, finally, be close to an end. 
    In June 2022, the country announced that the US Dollar and other foreign currencies would once again be legal tender in the country and would remain so for at least the next 5 years. This is an official return to the multi-currency system that reigned from 2009-2019 and which was brought to an end by the government outlawing domestic use of foreign currencies and the forced conversion of bank balances to the new dollar in 2019. This comes less than three years after the RBZ stated repeatedly in October 2019 that there was absolutely zero chance that they would return to the multi-currency system. 
    One month after that, in July 2022 - last week -the country announced that they would start issuing gold coins later that month that could be purchased for the value of the coins + production cost and used in domestic transactions or kept as an inflation hedge.  
    Actual gold coins, struck possibly even for circulation. Can you even believe it? If it happens I think that might be one of if not the first time that gold coins have circulated in nearly 100 years.
    I'm looking for pictures.... I wonder what they'll look like.... I need one of these things. Like Seriously. I'm going to have to get one.
    But... they're still supporting this zombie currency. It's dead. The people have rejected it. They've brought the multi-currency system back and they think they'll get to just take it away again in 5 years?
     
    Edited to add:
    My wife's father's day present to me also included 2 other notes.
    One is a 65 EPQ graded P-18 that Noteshobby had listed recently. I showed her the check / linked her to it (and the P-105, and the Congo note) recently when she was looking for ideas for a present for me because she considers me hard to shop for. This 65 EPQ example is better than the 63EPQ and 64EPQ I'd gotten graded last year. So it upgrades my "best possible set" of these checks but I'm not actually putting it in a competitive set with my other "best" checks. I'm putting it in my incomplete set that contains the now 3 of these things that I've bought from elsewhere. I just like the idea of those other two sets being entirely self-graded too much to introduce a pre-graded, bought note into them and ruining those -001 to -006 runs I worked so hard to make. I don't need to fight currently to have the highest ranked set of these so I like the style of keeping those other two sets "pure." But this note is now with all the others in the signature set I made to highlight these specifically. 


    The Congo note goes towards my elephant note set - which I may get more seriously off the ground one day. I'll have to do some research for this one ... one day... as I have time.


  10. Revenant

    The P-3s

    By Revenant,


    1st Dollar Banknotes
    Today I got the email from PMG that they got my submission of a Zimbabwean P-3d and P-3e that I'd bought raw to finally fill that gap in my first dollar set. The d and e aren't as desirable as the a or b but they're still quite nice.
    However, the day I was getting ready to mail those off to PMG a dealer listed a high grade P-3a and a high grade P-3b for sale starting at a low price on eBay with a 10 day timer / run. I knew I probably wouldn't win because I expected them to go for about $125 and I just wasn't willing to spend that for them right now but I wanted to know what they'd go for. I was surprised!
    The 3a went for about $230 and the 3b went for about $370. Lots of bidders. A few of them wanted these things BAD I guess.
    lol. Once again, glad I knew going in I had no chance. I mostly don't see much inflation / price increases going on with these but it does seem to be happening with the rarer / highly desirable varieties and notes.
    PMG seems to be moving fast. I'm hoping to find out how the P-3d and P-3e did at grading sometime in September and have them back home for imaging well before December. I'm going to love having a 100% complete 1st dollar registry set at last.
     
  11. Revenant

    In under the wire: Got the P-77!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Banknotes
    Back in early August a P-77 graded by PMG popped up and I got really excited. It would have completed the “Millions” set that PMG featured in an article last year and it would have put me only 1 note away from a complete 3rd dollar set.
    https://www.pmgnotes.com/news/article/7791/PMG-Registry-News/
    Unfortunately, the note went above $80 (after shipping and taxes) and I let it go. I just couldn’t convince myself to bid higher for it. Letting that go was a bitter pill - I wanted that thing.
    A couple of weeks ago, however, with the deadline for the registry awards looming another one popped up with a starting bid of $30. I won it for about $55 after shipping and taxes - a lot better than $75+.
    To my great shock and surprise, the note was delivered to my mailbox yesterday, on Thanksgiving day.

    (Side note: I frequently get confused at first glance with the one million P-77 and the ten million P-78 because they're both predominantly blue and they're only one zero away from each other. The P-78 is just darker blues on the whole. You really have to pay attention to the "ONE" and the "TEN.")
    (Second Side Note: If this note just had a 0 instead of a 1 or a 1 instead of a 0 it would be a Trinary Radar note. So close and yet... NOPE!)
    I know some people like to rag on anything that isn’t a 68 EPQ (), but this 67 EPQ is actually TOP POP for this note with a pop of 3 in grade and 10 total graded based on the current population report.
    So, with that, the “Millions" set is complete and the only note I lack for the 3rd dollar set is the P-72 - a note I never would have thought of or expected to be the last note outstanding when I started this. However, the P-72 is surprisingly hard to find / get in uncirc condition and PMG-graded examples tend to have asking prices in the $250-350 range. Even raw uncirc examples are usually asking $100-200 and you see heavily circulated rags that have prices of $20-$50 on them.
    People are asking that. I see no evidence that the sellers are getting that much / people are actually buying them at those prices.
    Still, it makes it difficult to get one. In some ways it makes it harder to swallow that price when I can find no evidence that anyone else is actually paying for that because it makes it feel more like the sellers are just trying to take advantage.
    Having finally scored the P-77, having this lone white whale out there is going to have me a little stumped and frustrated. That price feels really really  REALLY steep (especially given that I got my P-1d in 68 EPQ Star for $110 and got a 68 EPQ 20 Trillion also for $110 and we’re talking people asking $350 for a 65 EPQ), but it would complete the set. I just don't know if I'm willing to pay that though.
    3rd Dollars Complete:

    I'm very proud of how this set has progressed from the end of 2018 to the end of 2020.
    End of 2018, ~30%, 8/27 slots filled. (and, really, this is how we ended 2016 and it didn't change for 2 years)

    Today, Ending 2020, at 96% complete, 26/27 slots filled:

    Millions Set:

    As you might guess from the above shots of the complete 3rd dollar set, the Millions set didn't even exist really in 2016. It was a Billions and Trillions only set back then. I think I just had an empty place-holder set, and now it is complete.

    This also gives me a set that is complete from P-73 to P-104 and the P-72 is the only gap from P-47 to P-104… Somehow I need to find a way to attack that double gap at the P-45 and P-46.. and the P-40… One day. Most of those are another story of sellers wanting way above market rates for notes in grades that are less-than-stellar.
  12. Revenant
    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 really thinking about it much, I'd always mentally imagined them as being about 1/4th the size that this thing actually is. I guess maybe it's the fact that they're called "coupons," which makes me think of newspaper coupons for grocery store... but this thing is rather... big.
    They really aren't much smaller than the new series notes.
    The other thing I can't help but notice is that they have a perforated edge. I was reading on the seller's description about how they got many of these things directly from Harare still in "books" of coupons and these things had tear-away edges to tear them from coupon books. How interesting and how odd.

    But also, what an interesting and fun addition to the collection.
    These two coupons are numbered 187788 and 187789, so I'm guessing he ripped both of these out of the same book specifically to send these to me - they were the last two of this type he had listed for sale.
    Since these look good and I'm happy I'm putting in offers today to get some 5L, 10L, and 50 L coupons that I'm going to try sending in with the P-3d and P-3e notes I should be getting in the mail later this week.
    Interestingly, even these seem to have type A and type B issues:


    and then there's potentially Amby and Caltex issues:

    Edited to add: While I am very proud of what I'd accomplished with my signature set as of the end of 2020, I'm really hoping and thinking that expanding it to include 1) a full set of the traveller's checks, 2) these ration coupons and 3) the inflation era coins and bond coins, it'll really elevate the collection in to something truly unique, special, and great.
  13. Revenant
    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 myself into that for now.
    Not a complaint about the fees or saying their services are not worth it but I don’t think its worth $40 / coupon to me to get those coupons graded. Unless they just graded REALLY well, I don’t think that’d be money I’d ever see again. Sometimes you notice that something hasn’t been done / graded before and you figure out why.
    I have them. I have examples of a lot of them in good condition, safe in top loaders. I may add more varieties, but I have what I have and raw / ungraded is good enough for me for now.

    Incidentally, since I only have about $140 left of my grading credit, and I really want to grade those 2 P-3 notes I bought raw, and something came up today that might also lead to me grading something else…
    I’d been thinking this morning, even before this news that I might need to scale back my planned / hoped for 7-8 in favor of something else. I won’t say what that is in case it doesn’t pan out but… yeah. I think this news killed the plan of grading the coupons for now.
    So I’m not saying the plan to grade the gas coupons is dead, but it most likely won’t be this year.
    This may oddly make me more interested in getting more of these and having a raw collection of them, just enjoying them and not worrying about it.
    Maybe, since they’re basically one-sided, I just composite some images together and use an extra note to plug in some images into the signature set and talk about them there anyway in a raw state.
     
    In other news, the checks arrived home today! I'm thrilled!
    15 Notes and 3 top pops. I never would have dared hope for that could of an outcome with the Traveler's Checks. I just kept telling myself to try to be happy with 12 AU50s and AU55s and like 63s and 64s on the bearer checks, because I just didn't want to be disappointed.


  14. Revenant

    Well, let's just call them out on it!

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos
    I found a Yahoo Finance article that takes the digital bolivar - newly born less than 2 weeks ago - and throws it right under the bus.  

    Let's just lay it all out there:


    So I guess, after a lot of uncertainty and talk and murkiness, it is official. It's not a CBDC. It is not blockchain based.
    This is like the Long Island Ice Tea company renaming themselves "Long Island Blockchain" to cash in on the hype and get bid up - which actually worked on at least a short term basis for the company I think.
    How sad... They don't even want to bother printing the notes anymore but they can't go cashless because too much of what little of an economy is left depends on cash transactions.
    Per the article, just like in Zimbabwe, the 3rd redenomination is more about banking, computers and software than anything else. Also like in Zimbabwe with the 4th dollar (now the 4th Bolivar) it is going to be large irrelevant because the economy is mostly dollarized and using the US dollar and the people are fleeing / rejecting the new currency before it even gets out the gate.

    So, at this point we're up to three redenominations having removed 3, 5 and 6 zeros respectively. So Venezuela is up to having lopped off 14 zeros in 3 redenominations in about 14 years..
    Zimbabwe did 3, 10, and 12 and removed 25 zeros in 3 changes of currency in about 3 years- making the Venezuelan's look like amateurs! Total novices, really.
    I was pretty against the idea of continuing past P-114 when I thought this was going to have a blockchain component. Given that this is just a new fiat currency with a disingenuous name, I'm a little more inclined to continue with the new Bolivares. This does kind of wreck my "Strength and Sovereignty" name...
    "Strength and Sovereignty, Blown to Digital Bits?"
    .
  15. Revenant
    So, I saw this thing come up and knew it was higher grade than what I had. I added it to my watch list and then never followed up or look at it.

    I got a notification last night from eBay that it was ending. It had no bids and a price of $27. The seller - who I buy from often - had a BIN option on it in another listing for $35. Just for fun I put in a $27 bid as the minutes were ticking down. I thought mine was a 66 EPQ but I didn't feel like I had time to check. I won it though!
    It turns out the one I had in my set was a 67 EPQ. So this was only a 1 point, minor, upgrade... but it's an upgrade. The set gets slightly better, slightly stronger... slightly closer to being acceptable to Mike's lofty standards.
    The seller's image is of an AB. I wouldn't mind if this turned into another case where what they actually send me is an AA, because what I have in my set already (the 67 EPQ) is also an AB. So that could be nice. I guess we'll see.
    The serial number on the note they image is interesting - Not fancy, but interesting. Somehow I doubt this is the one I'll get but... interesting to look at nonetheless.
     
    Edited to add:
    A few months ago I finally bit the bullet and bought a 66 EPQ VEN104a just to fill the whole in my set. 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. 
    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.
     
     

  16. Revenant

    Time to buy some raw notes and do some grading.

    By Revenant,


    Registry Awards
    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 great a grading notes and making sure that what comes back are gem 66+ notes. Given this, and given the fact that these notes often come up for sale in high gem grades at prices that are only slightly higher then what it would cost me to buy them raw and take the risk on grading myself, it just hasn't been economically viable for me to try to go it alone on submitting up to this point.
    This grading credit is going to give ma a guilt free pass to buy some travelers checks and Cargill bearer checks and  a couple of missing 2nd dollar checks and submit them for grading. i'll get to build out the last few parts of the run where I don't have much and not feel bad about "wasting money" or making a bad pick / bad "investment" if the grades that come back are less than impressive. 
    As a kind of "declaration of intent" I've gone back this morning and added some slots for these notes - bringing the total number of slots up to 124. 
    I'm still not going to add slots for a lot of sub-types and varieties that I don't have at this time. I think If I added those in I'd be somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-160 slots. I'm still interested in maybe one day getting to the point of having all the sub-types / varieties for all the notes but that wasn't part of my original goal for the set and I'd be extremely happy just to have every pick number represented - or really close to it.
    The last 3rd dollar note that I don't have, the P-72, is probably not going to be part of this effort. I'm probably still just going to leave that alone and leave that slot empty for now.

  17. Revenant
    Leading up to my birthday a couple of weeks back I became aware of a 100,000 Bolivar Fuerte (VEN-100) note coming up for sale and ending on my birthday. On the big day the note hadn’t got any bids. I showed it to my wife, and she told me to just bid on it and call it an extra birthday present if I won.
    I bid. I won unopposed and took it for $24.99 after shipping. Normally I don’t know if I would have popped on a 66 EPQ at that price but the VEN-100 is one of the more desirable notes in the set it seems – much like the 100 Trillion of the Zimbabwe notes - and I wanted to fill a hole in my set. As it is, this is one of the highest point-getting notes in my Venezuela set now.

    While I was waiting on that to come in the mail I saw a VEN-93 100 Bolivares Fuerte note come up for sale, this time in 68 EPQ. This note had a starting bid of $28.99 on it but I thought it could still be very worth it if I didn’t have many opposing bids and I got to get a great note to fill the last hole in my Fuertes set. I did end up winning it – on November 3rd, election day. The auction ended at 6 AM. I don’t know why the seller does this but they do, so I woke up to find out I’d won.

    Having won that, I say that there was a P-102a* (66 EPQ) and a P-106 (67 EPQ) up for bid ending within a few hours to a few days. They were from the same seller and the seller combines shipping, so I decided to wait and see what I could get. I snagged both for $19 each.


    They were paid for all together, but I won the auction for the P-93 first, so I think this counts as keeping my promise to finish the Fuertes set before starting on a Soberano set. The also gives me something to put into the Soberano set so now I can stop feeling guilty about bugging Ali and PMG to make a category so I could have an empty set.
    Somehow I managed to load up on all the "100" notes in rapid succession with this, which is a little funny.
    I really like the Soberanos. The Fuertes notes look nice but the Soberanos are very bright and colorful and even my wife commented on it with the VEN-106.
    Maybe more on this but the VEN-93 and the VEN-100 drive me nuts. The VEN-100 was the only one where they didn't put all the zeros on it and, with the coloring added in, the VEN-100 looks a LOT like the VEN-93. See the VEN-99 below for how the VEN-100 should have been handled:

    My Fuertes set is now complete but I don't get a 100% complete registry set out of it because PMG wants to include the old Bolivares notes that were issued after the change in government / constitution in 1998 but before the redenomination to the Bolivares Fuertes. So they're in this registry set but these notes have a different ISO currency code, they're part of a different series and look completely different. And I have no near-term interest in picking them up.
  18. Revenant

    A P-29, another step closer?

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Bearer Checks
    I was just messing around online and on eBay and I saw that one of my favorite dealers, who has been powering my set's (and my competition's set, and Mike's thrice cursed upstart of a set) towards completion, was listing a 67 EPQ grade copy of the P-29 note. It isn't competition for the 68 EPQ note that someone has in their set (not that I'm much competition for them grade / pointwise these days anyway ) but it's still a great, superb gem copy of the note that was available for sale at a reasonable price that I could just buy and didn't have to have a slap-fight over and lose at the last second to a sniper, so I took it. I got it for $33.80, which I think is solid for this one. 
    The P-28 and P-29 are two notes that you need for a complete pick set but I haven't been overly concerned about them - I've been okay with not having them in the set because they are almost identical to the P-30, which is far more common. The main differences are the serial number prefixes - the issue dates and redemption dates are the same. The P-28 has an earlier issuance date (Oct 2005) but prefixes starting with A like the P-30. But, with this one popping up, I wanted it, I can afford it, the price seemed reasonable, and so I just got it.


    Getting a P-29 takes a small bite out of the last major hole in GTS, which is dominated by the oh-so-hard to get and oh-so-expensive in any condition Cargill Bearer Checks. At one time I'd collapsed 28-30 and 31-32 into 2 slots instead of 5 just because they were such low priorities for the set. But... we're coming to the end. And the set can't truly be complete without them.
    I showed my wife an image / screencap of the whole set, just to show off how far it had come and I was super proud of it and the first thing she says is, "What are all those up there?" pointing to the big, gaping, hole.  

    My P-32 was the first note from this group and it was a 66 EPQ that I got for cheap. I may convince myself to bump that up one day to get a 68... but I'd rather add a P-31.
    Near to the end folks... About time for the RBZ to start pumping out another 25 note series!
     
  19. Revenant

    The P-72 at last. :)

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Banknotes
    Today I officially got a P-72 Zimbabwean banknote for my wife for my birthday. I think it actually came right around a month ago but as of today it is officially “mine” and I can list it. Anyway… 
     

     
    It came with a circulated 500,000 note as a tag along.
     

     
    At a whopping $265 – a very high price tag for this set, making it cost about 1/10th as much as the rest of the 100-note set combined and beating the next most expensive note by a factor of ~2.5 – this was a bit of a painful one to pull the trigger on but I just had to have this or I don’t think I’d ever be able to feel fully satisfied with the set.   
    This is / feels like a pretty big thing because it finally completes my 3rd dollar banknote set by pick #. 
     
    This means the list of accomplishments in my Zimbabwean banknote collection (Gradually, then Suddenly) for 2021 includes: 
    First dollar banknote set complete by pick # - I added the P-3 at last. 
    First dollar traveller’s checks complete by pick # x2 sets 
    2nd dollar bearer checks complete by pick # - I filled in the last 3 holes, one with a top pop I sent in myself. The only thing I think that is arguably missing here is the P-46a sub-type. 
    3rd dollar banknotes complete by pick# - I have hardly ever seen a 73b, a 74b, or a 76b for sale and I refuse to pay $140 for a grade 15 just to say that I have that variety. 
    A whole bunch of raw gas coupons added and added to the set with a placeholder. 
     
    The set is complete by pick number from P-1 to P-12, from P-15 to P-23, and from P-32 to P-104. 
     
    For the first time since I expanded the set to include all the pick numbers there are fewer than 10 holes / gaps in the set.  
     
    6 of those holes are the Cargill Bearer checks – I’ll try my best down the road but… those are hard, and I just don’t feel bad about not having them! 
     
    2 of those gaps are notes that, as discussed in other entries, I’m not convinced deserve to even have their own pick numbers (P-28 and P-31). 
     
    And the last hole is a P-105, and… does anyone think I won’t get that as soon as I’m good and ready?  
     
    Looking at it, seeing that last gap in the middle of that huge, otherwise unbroken, 70+ note block… Feels nice! And I’m a little shocked and in awe. I would not have believed I’d get here in 2019, especially not in just 2.5 years. 
     
    At this point, my set has more notes and varieties and more images of notes in higher grade / better condition than many of the sites I used to learn about the collection and build mine.   I feel really good about reaching this point. REALLY REALLY Good. 
     
    But every time I hit a milestone like this though the “road ahead” becomes a steeper climb. Lol 
     
    Last night I also won a new P-46b unopposed. The P-46b in the set is one of the three notes I submitted myself earlier this year, but it disappointed with a 64EPQ. I was happy enough to get to have the 2nd dollar set, but, as I long suspected would be the case, not long after I just graded them myself the dealer I get so many of these notes from started popping up with more 2nd dollar bearer checks in high grade for cheap. They've been listing a lot of things in the range of P-39 to P-49 in 67 and 68 EPQ grades the last couple of weeks.
     
     
    I'm a bit salty over this because I got charged sales tax again this time when I haven't been charged sales tax the last couple of times I've bought from them. That brought the price up to $37.88. If I'd known I'd be hit with tax and pay almost $38 and not $35 I would have just bought the note from them through their site. It's $35 on their site and I won with a $30 bid, but I could have used their 10% discount code, not paid shipping and gotten out for $36.50... At the end of the day, it's $1.38. Not a big deal, but still mildly annoying. I'm getting tired of this on again / off again with this seller and eBay on Sales tax. Between that and the discount code on the site I'm increasingly convinced that I need to just give up on eBay wit this seller as long as that 10% code is on offer. However, as Mike has pointed out, a lot of their better stuff goes to eBay on auction, and doesn't show up on their site until much later, if it shows up at all. So waiting and hoping to see it on the website is a bit of a risk.
     

     
    It's a little funny to me that this post is focused on the two different 10,000 dollar notes in two of the series / sets that have them. There's a total of 5 $10,000 denominations, with P-14 (RARE!), P-17 (Dirty Common), and P-24 (RARE) rounding out the group.
  20. Revenant

    "Clearance Sale." Ha! Clearance yourself!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Notes
    I think it was about a year or so ago that Banknote World announced they were going to start releasing Banknotes with their TAP (Total Authentication Promise or something like that) notes with these blue labels.
    Up to that point Banknote World had been a very good source for me on PMG-graded notes. But then they had these things and a lot of their marketing started focusing on these and less on PMG and they never got any newer releases in stock as PMG graded notes – they’d stopped sending things to PMG it seemed.
    So, this led me to conclude pretty early on that they had either gotten tired of paying fees to PMG or they’d gotten tired of getting saddled with a lot of notes in 65/66 EPQ holders that they had to sell at a loss because they aren’t good at screening notes for submission.
    But, in either case, they seemingly had decided to “break up” with PMG (and PCGS, but, who cares about them anyway when it comes to banknotes).
    They made this even more clear about 2 weeks ago when they announced a “clearance sale” and put all PMG and PCGS graded notes on inventory on sale for 25% off. I think the funniest part of their announcement of the clearance sale was them talking up PMG and PCGS graded notes and how recognized and respected they are... and no prominent mention of TAP in that email... Interesting...
    And now, after abandoning eBay like 3 years ago, they’ve started listing a number of their PMG graded notes on eBay, I’m guessing because their clearance sale didn’t do as much as they’d hoped to clear this inventory they’ve been sitting on for a while. So I take it they are just really desperate to empty out their inventory of these notes.
    I know I didn’t order from that sale even though they had some 68 EPQ Zimbabwe notes I wanted. Why? Their order minimums – which they keep increasing.
    It used to be, in 2019, I could spend $20 and pay $4 shipping and get a couple of note I wanted, but if I spent over $50, I’d get free shipping. Then you couldn’t order at all unless you spent $50. Then you couldn’t order at all unless you spent $100. And I don’t always want to spend $100. Sometimes all I want is a small impulse buy.
    There was more than one time when Sam was in the hospital, and we didn’t have a huge amount of money to throw around and I got to order 2 notes on a 50% off sale for $20 and pay the shipping and get out with 2 notes for my Zimbabwe set for $24.
    Then in 2020 their customer service became absolute garbage. Every time they screw something up it takes 3 weeks to get a $10 refund from them. And those corroded Zimbabwe coins I got? That was from Banknote World. Never ordering coins from them again. Ever.
    But, here’s the thing with TAP, and I’m just going to say it: TAP is garbage. Absolute, total, garbage.
    They put grade RANGES, of 60-70 on notes… which is meaningless. Utterly. Totally. Meaningless. “It could be spun gold (70) or it could be worthless (60-63)! We aren’t going to say! But it isn’t a fake! Which is a promise you’d hope any dealer would make and stand by!” It's like they woke up one day and completely forgot the entire point of Third Party Grading - that, when buying sight unseen, it's nice to know you're not just taking the word of the person selling it to you that it is in good condition and authentic. This is like asking the fox to guard the hen house after serving a few years on supervised probation with a sheep dog.
    So… Yeah. Garbage.
    I hope they know what they’re getting into, because especially after PCGS Goldshield cratered, there is 1 sheriff in this town, and that is PMG. PMG owns this space. And they would have almost no chance on a good day, but they are crippling themselves with these non-grade, wishy-washy grade ranges.
    So. Yeah. Have fun with the “Clearance Sale,” guys. Pack ya bags and “clear” yourselves out. I’m almost certainly never ordering from you again and I’m never order a TAP banknote, even second hand. I’m not helping you establish a market for your dreck.
  21. Revenant

    The P-1d

    By Revenant,


    1st Dollar Banknotes
    I still don’t have a P-3 at the moment and I still have that nagging hole in the set, but I recently won an auction for a P-1d – one of the highest grade examples you can ask for – a 68 EPQ Star.


    This thing popped up on my radar about three months ago when it and a 68 EPQ (no star) were put up for sale with price tags of $190 (with the star) and $100 (no star). They were up for auction and those were the starting bids.
    Buying a P-1d was a dream and a goal of mine for over a year now but getting one of these notes at those prices would have easily made the note the most expensive note in my set. I could not make myself pull the trigger on a bid even though I knew I’d hate missing out on such great examples of the note.
    Apparently, I was not alone though in that no one else bid and they went unsold, so the seller posted them as a BIN at the same prices as the old starting bids. They sat on inventory for a while after that.
    I kept expecting them to sell but they didn’t. My problem wasn’t that I thought the asking price was unreasonable. I have seen rarer varieties of the 1st dollar notes go in auctions for ~$125 before and these were 68s. I was just having a hard time convincing myself to pay that for one.
    As time went on the thought of adding one of these to my set grew one me and I was close to ordering the 68 EPQ (no star). I couldn’t convince myself to go for the start for $190 but I did like the idea of getting this scarcer variety for my set in a really nice grade. I was just waiting a few more days to pull the trigger – lucky me as it turned out.
    The Star note got pulled from the BIN listing and a few days later popped up in an auction with a starting bid price of $100 – same price as the BIN on the non-star. At that point I decided to go ahead and wait a week for the auction to end and see what it would go for. I knew the 68 EPQ was unlikely to sell in the interim with this one up for auction. So that made me feel safe enough to wait longer.
    I waited and no one bid. So, Friday night, with the auction ending at 2:30 AM Saturday, I put in a bid of $114 and went to bed hoping for the best. I woke up the next morning and found out I’d won it without other bidders.
    I was going to be out of town for a few days soon after the note ended so I casually bid on some of the seller’s other auctions and waited a few days to pay, knowing that would help make sure it was delayed shipping out and that it would not arrive when I wasn’t home to receive it. I’m glad I did because it still came just a couple of days after we got back home.
    Its really exciting to have this and to have a complete variety set for at least 1 of the 4 first series notes.

  22. Revenant
    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, I didn't have one of these before, so this wasn't a problem for me. But, if I'd had a P-107a, and I'd been wanting a P-107b, I would have been Sooo annoyed. If this had happened when I was trying to get my complete variety set for the 2nd series of the 1st Zimbabwean dollar I would have been fit to be tied.
    So, note to self - don't trust the picture if the sub-type / variety isn't listed in the title of the auction / listing!

    Be honest, folks. Am I crazy?  Am I losing it?  
    Also: I'm keeping my promise to myself - I'm not going to into collecting varieties and sub-types in Venezuela like I did with Zimbabwe. I'm not doing it! I swear!   Oh dear... I have a problem. 
    Edit to add: Just for fun I had to pull these out and see them together. My wife was sitting in bed next to me and said, "That is ridiculous." She said it's cool... but it's ridiculous.

  23. Revenant

    Operation Sunrise and Zombie Dollars

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Bearer Checks
    So, apparently "Operation Sunrise" has been used as the name for military operations in WWII and the Vietnam War, but it was also the name given to the RBZs and Zimbabwe's "plan"  in 2005 to bring inflation under control by cutting 3 zeroes off the currency and make the 2nd dollar in the 1st redenomination. I say "plan" because I don't know why they ever thought it would work. But the release of the 2nd Dollar Bearer Checks were the first part of Zimbabwe's "Operation Sunrise."
    I've always tried to make my main competitive sets for my Zimbabwe collection do a decent / respectable job of standing alone as individual sets an not just as competitive chunks of "Gradually, then Suddenly." I think I've mostly achieved that with the First Dollars, the 3rd Dollars (and sub sets thereof), the 4th dollars and the "new" / modern Z dollars, but I think the 2nd dollars lost out and got the short end of the stick with presentation. I've been doing a bit of work to go back and fix that - building out the set description better and finally taking more advantage of the fact that note descriptions in competitive and signature sets can be different to allow me to make the 2nd dollar set "stand alone" better. As part of this re-vamp I'm renaming the set "Operation Sunrise."
    I feel like that has to be one of the more ironic names. That set / series wasn't the dawn of a new day. It just be came the first in a long series of failed attempts at a reboot of the national currency.
    On that note, I've also changed the name on my New dollars set from "Zimbabwe Dollars Reborn" to "Zimbabwean Zombie Dollars," because that currency is surely the monetary version of the walking / shuffling dead.
  24. Revenant

    The VEN 104 is starting to get.... annoying...

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos
    I'm starting to get frustrated and impatient for some VEN 104s to pop up in good grades. There's a 65 EPQ and a 66 EPQ that keep getting relisted and going unsold because... no one wants those. Anyway...
    I'm getting tempted to just snap up that 66 just to fill in the hole in my Soberano set that keeps taunting me but I know that's a mistake.
    The rest of the set just came together so fast and so easy and now that one gap is taunting me and graded examples of the new 2021 notes still haven't hit the market yet to distract me...
    I want a 67 EPQ or a 68 EPQ. I just paid to get a 68 EPQ of the 102a to replace a 66 EPQ 102a*. I just put money into bumping a 66EPQ VEN91 to a 68EPQ in the competitive set... I don't want to buy any more 66 EPQs right now! Even if it is cheap!
    I'm probably ultimately going to try to make all the 66 EPQs in my Venezuela competitive sets 68 EPQs, but I'm going to try to get different varieties to simultaneously build up the signature set in a fun way. I'm not going to start actively chasing variety sets, but if you're upgrading anyway, why not at least get different varieties so they build-on / expand what you have instead of just making redundancies?
    I have money to spend and stress shopping to do... If these notes don't pop up soon I may start upgrading Zimbabwean 3rd and 4th dollar notes and then the wife is really going to be looking at me sideways...  
  25. Revenant

    A P-11a!

    By Revenant,

    Somewhat to my surprise a PMG-graded P-11a popped up for sale in an eBay auction the other day and I decided to go for it.
    I say "somewhat" to my surprise because the P-11a, like many / most of these, isn't especially rare but you don't see every variety pop up having already been graded as a high uncirc grade every day. I think this is actually the first PMG-graded 11a I've seen and it's only recently been graded based on the holder.
    The auction ended at 10:15 PM Sunday night so I stayed up just a little later than normal (kids get me up early) and watched it end. I put my bid in with just a couple of minutes to go and won it - went to bed and paid when I got up this morning.

    I wouldn't have expected to be here a couple of months ago but I think I now have every variety of every pick number in the 2nd series of the 1st dollar except for the P-12a. That'll make the P-12a a priority for me if I ever see one pop up.
    Now that I have both P-5s and both P-11s and I'm starting to have more varieties in my 1st dollar series I'm thinking about making a new signature set that will be just the 1st dollars with varieties - something to showcase all of the 1st dollars and just the in one set. I love my full 1980-Date Zimbabwe signature set but I do worry some days about it seeming overwhelming now that it's up to about 90 notes and over 110 slots.