Revenant

1 hour ago, ddr70 said:

Oh goodness, not sure that's good with the shill bidding plus notes that aren't quite as expected.  

To the extent that they aren't as expected it's my fault for not paying attention to them being 2019 issues and not 2016/2017 issues and not noticing that they don't say "bond note" in the top corner. So what I thought was a bond note is actually a newer issue I wasn't previously aware of.

25 minutes ago, Sheik Sheck said:

 I find I have to create another DUPLICATE set to continue to add the plethora of notes, for instance like the Type 1 $10 NBN that I seem to purchase in copious quantity. So many duplicate sets are boring! 

Yeah. I definitely feel your pain there increasingly with my 3 first dollar sets, the 2 sets each for 2nd, 3rd and 4th dollars. We'll see how many I end up with!

You both have a lot of great Nationals. It's not ideal but it's not the worst problem to have!

Okay... Per a conversation I'm having today in the PMG Registry forum... It's looking like I did NOT get my Bond notes this week, but I'm going to have to look at the notes more when I get them in the mail soon.

Still happy with the purchase. Still happy to have them... but... It's starting to look like what I thought I bought and what I bought are 2 different things.

I feel like NGC gets all the love because that side is so much bigger (13,000 vs under 1,000) and they do more business over there. But things seem to have picked up with PMG in terms of submission rates in the last couple of years.

I'm hoping PMG will get the new-registry treatment and that both PMG and NGC will get a new, updated signature / custom set system in the new registries, and I'm hoping that will help make this place a little more appealing to more people. 

I think you get a cart and horse / chicken and egg problem though. It's hard to argue for them to make major investments in this place when it gets no traffic and doesn't drive much revenue, but unless they invest in it, it isn't likely to attract traffic or drive revenue - the r/Currency subreddit seems to get more love and traffic than this place some days and it's sad to me because Reddit tends to be pit. "Front page of the internet." Riiiiiight… talk about talking something up.

The challenge with getting new competitive sets here would seem to be showing that there's demand for it and that the category will get participation. The more narrow you make a set, the more niche it is, the less likely they are to make it.

With that in mind, I think your first ideas could work but I doubt they'd make the state specific ones and you'd have to just implement that yourself - as you basically already have in 1902.

5 hours ago, ddr70 said:

For some reason he won't sell it to me cheap :-)

How uncharacteristically unreasonable of him. 😆 

2 hours ago, ddr70 said:

I know a lot more about Zimbabwe because of your collection--they are beautiful notes.

Thank you! I think that's the nicest thing that can be said of a registry set.

It's amazing to me  that you have, among other things, a radar note from 1902.

I know you're dealing with 120 year old notes that are far rarer and more valuable but I got a bit of a laugh about "see if you can get lower than .. an average of 360.67 pts / note." Most of my Zimbabwe notes only get 37 to 50 points a note for 66 EPQ to 68 EPQ notes. I think I only have 2 notes in my ~85 note set that get more than 300 points for 1 note. But that's how it should be - those note are super common and easy to collect if you have any kind of decent budget and a little patience to not let dealers fleece you with their pumping rhetoric.

6 hours ago, Sheik Sheck said:

Fantastic set. My compliments to the chef. 

Thank you! Most people only really pay attention to the 100 Trillion note but I think the 1st dollar set(s) is the jewel of my Zimbabwe collection and I've enjoyed looking into the varieties. Building a complete variety set one day would be awesome but very hard I think because of the rarity of a few of them.

57 minutes ago, CaptBrian said:

Beautiful currency.  I'd like to see our currency prettier, but I suppose tradition of the "greenback" and anti-counterfeit measures slows that idea.  Bahamas have beautiful coinage and paper money.

I've seen a lot of pretty world currency lately, a lot of which makes our current designs look so ho-hum by comparison.

On 4/1/2020 at 2:41 PM, ddr70 said:

Well, CaptBrian did mention flowers and plagues, so back on topic would be a note with flowers (there must be some world notes that would fit in here)...

 

The 2nd series of designs for the Zimbabwe 1st dollar, issued in the mid-1990s, used an image of some flowers that I think are supposed to be Flame Lilies - the national flower of the country.

At some point I would like to get a submission in to NGC, but I don't have any mylar flips - just the cardboard ones - and that's not how NGC wants them sent in. Even if I could get those flips, I'm not sure I could get a box / packing material together.

10 hours ago, ddr70 said:

Neat.  Suggest posting a link to the set.  From Control panel, find the set and click on signature (far right).  Then copy the UBB code in the upper box and past into your journal post (you can edit your original post).  That way we can get the same info as on your screen capture, but also open and see each note.  So for my Large Size national type set of 1882, see:

thanks

That's the custom set I made to combine all the smaller competitive runs

1 hour ago, Ali E. said:

Hello, Revenant.

You requested your note with Pick# 44 to be added on Christmas Day. It was approved by an administrator and accepted into your set a few days later. Thank you and let us know when we may assist with the PMG Registry in the future.

I know. Never doubted that it would be resolved really and the issue automatically goes in the queue when the attempt is made to enter it, but it was still somewhat novel event, as I said.

When I looked the other day the slot had been set up to allow a P-44 or a P-44a. It looks like the P-44a is gone now so I'm guessing I'm right and there is no a and b variant for that pick number. The P-44a was probably put in there initially by someone who  thought it did have an a and b because the 46 and 48 do, which would make sense. But the fact that those variations exist and just for those two notes is one of the funnier quirks / facts about the series. It's also funny and strange that P-47, right in the middle, wasn't impacted and doesn't have an a or b either, now that I think about it.

16 hours ago, IndoHound said:

 However, what I noticed is that the Traveler cheques hitting the market were all redeemed ie they had a dated stamp with the date of redemption as well as signatures of the people that bought and then redeemed the notes.

On the other hand, I made sure that I did not sign the notes when I bought them even though urged to do so by the bank staff of RBZ at the time. They are also not bank stamped, of course. Except for the examples I mostly sold into the South African numismatic market at the time and a couple of others spread to Zim fanatics around the globe, I haven't seen any re-enter the market.

 

I agree that if you have some of the traveler's checks that are pristine and not stamped then those are truly a rarity in the market. You're lucky to have gotten the chance to get them yourself back in the day.

1 hour ago, Paulies 1992 said:

I'm not sure if PMG will Still let You send in PCGS Notes to cross Over with the same grade...

 

They'll let you cross them I think, but I don't think they've ever guaranteed the same grade would be given.

Apparently this is the design they were considering. Strange that it wasn't going to have the modern security features like the colors even - or maybe this was a work in progress / incomplete design.

7 hours ago, Lance A D said:

We won't see a Tubman bill until Donald is history. As a life-long , it hurts me to acknowledge that he often time asks like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person child.  Why not remove a (Jackson) from the face of the note? He is despised by many blacks and native Americans.  Why not replace him with a hard-core , Bible thumping, gun-toting, war hero who happens to be a black woman?  He could get a lot of votes if he would get his head out of his 'you know what.' 

I think you also have to consider the idea of Jackson on a "Federal Reserve Note" rather ironic given that he worked very hard to kill the Bank of the United States, hated the idea of a central bank, thought the national debt was a national curse and would have hated the Fed and the FRNs.

I think it could be fun to drastically redesign our currency and move away from the "greenback" concept. I've been seeing more and more world currency lately and most of it just looks a lot better than the current batch of US currency. They've added colors and security features over time but they've been reluctant to move away from the base look / design concept of the "greenback."

As far as Tubman on the bill? I think it could be good... but all the concept art I've seen for the bill is just "blah." It doesn't look good. I suspect that's because most of what's out there keeps the basic look of the bill but inserts Tubman in the place of Jackson. I really hope that when they roll this out they'll make a visually appealing bill. I'd love to have one and keep it in my collection. It'd be a really special development for US currency.

I don't really consider myself a note / currency collector. I just have my one, very narrow and targeted, area of interest in notes and beyond that I'm about the coins. But, even in my narrow focus, it seems like prices have generally declined since 2015 / 2016. I'd mostly chalked this up to a drop in interest as we gained more distance in time and people forgot about the Zimbabwe hyperinflation. I still think that's probably a big factor in that series but it's interesting to hear that prices are down mostly across the board. But I'm no currency expert.

3 hours ago, Sheik Sheck said:

 I guess you get my drift. And I am still working on the custom "signature"sets which is a really poorly written code. You agree? Anyway, no answers from me. Just rambling.

Yup. I see your point. I'm definitely not in love with the signature sets on this side of things. My view counts are stuck at zero even though I know people look at them, Every time I make even the slightest change to the slot name or comments my pictures disappear. Every time I try to add a new slot that doesn't go to the end of the set most of my pictures and some of my comments get blanked. I back-up all my writing in a word file on my dropbox to stop losses... I've brought most of this up with them but they haven't fixed it yet. I suspect the issues will be fixed when they just release a new format and change everything. I can't really blame them if they take that approach. When something is a mess and you're replacing it anyway, why invest time in fixing what you're just going to kill soon?

10 hours ago, theplaceintexas said:

I have acquired via eBay many banknotes from Croatia without any problems. All were send via registered mail and arrived within two weeks. 

I'm sure. This seller had a great feedback score and seemed great. I was more commenting on the novelty of it from my perspective. I rarely buy from outside of the United States were a US seller has the item just because the shipping costs (to say nothing of time) can be prohibitive - sometimes shipping cost is as much or more than the cost of the item. But this was one case were I was able to get what I wanted in the grade I wanted most easily by going with an international seller.

I like the idea, but, maybe it's just my computer, I actually can't zoom in enough on it to see all the details in the notes.