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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. Revenant

    And... it's Blank on the back.

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    I just thought I'd share this as a journal now that it's here and I can get higher res images:


    it was stamped as “PAID” on Oct 26 2004 (which happens to be just a week after my birthday, the year I turned 18). It was also marked as “Zimbank Waste” on “11-10-2004,” which, depending on whether you use US or UK conventions for dates, either October 11th or November 10th of 2004. Even though I’d normally expect them to use the UK convention, I’m tempted to say they used the American one and this refers to November 10th, because this stamp seems to have been placed after the Oct 26th stamp and it just doesn’t make much sense for me for this have been stamped as “Waste” before it was stamped as “PAID.” How something that was redeemed and stamped as waste to be discarded came to be in my collection and encapsulated in gem uncirc condition is a bit of a mystery to me but... it happened somehow! Somebody kept the trash I guess – possibly foreseeing that one day there’d be people like me with an interest in these things, and they kept trash paper and turned it into something that I later paid about US$40 for 16 years later. Life is funny sometimes that way, I guess. 
     
    Some of the things I find interesting here is some of what is NOT on it. The “Date” line is blank, so they didn’t bother to date it when it was issued to someone. The name of the person it was issued to was also left blank and, even though you were supposed to have to show ID to redeem these, there’s no redemption signature on the check. So there’s no record of when it was issued, or to who, or who it was that redeemed it – at least not on the check itself.  
     
    That information might have been retained at the Chisipite Sub-Branch in Harare, which is apparently where this check was stamped as waste, but I have a feeling the answer is “No.” My guess is, based on all the blanks, at least by this point in late 2004, they were just dealing with a ton of these increasingly worthless $1,000 checks and they were doing things “fast and loose” to process them all faster. By the time this thing was redeemed, $1,000 in Zimbabwe dollars was barely worth an American quarter or dime – so who would have even cared? It wouldn’t have even bought you bread probably. 
  2. 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.

  3. Revenant
    So we're about 17 days away from the cut-off for consideration in the 2020 Registry Awards. The ad campaigns so to speak are in full swing - I've gotten the emails, seen the Instagram and Facebook posts. It's hard to miss when you follow their social media and spend time here. Anyway...
    This has gotten me thinking about how far the Zimbabwe set has come in the last year - something I take a lot of pride in. While my 3rd dollar set has been largely static at 92%, this year I think I've brought my 4th dollars from about 45% to 100%, my 2019-present series from 0% to 100% (as soon as the $20 comes in the mail in a few days) and made by biggest strides by far (IMO) in building out a 1st dollar set with an increasing number of varieties. I think my signature set has gone from having about 65 notes and about 90 slots to (soon) 104 notes with 110 slots.
    But I'm kind of kicking myself for something - I never screen-capped or made a record of what the set looked like at this time last year.
    PMG, unlike NGC, doesn't seem to save and post an archived record of what the #1 set in each category is each year - not that this would have completely solved my problem though because not all of my sets are #1 ranked. But it would have helped.
    So, I'm really kicking myself for that. Because I can't help but feel like it'd be cool to be able to see how the set grew and developed from Dec 2019 to (soon) Dec 2020, not just in terms of % completion but all the work I've been putting into refining my descriptions - including attempts I've made in some areas to reign myself in and make myself say less and not go on unnecessary and self-indulgent tangents too often.
    Side Note: But as my Venezuela hyperinflation set starts to flush out with a full set of Fuertes notes and some Soberano notes, I think I'm going to make a Signature set for those next year so I can present that set the way I want to. I'm also going to have to decide what i want to call it. I've considered naming the sets "Gradually, then suddenly: Zimbabwe" and "Gradually, then suddenly: Venezuela," but I'm not sure I like that and I'm not sure that the referenced quote fits Venezuela in the same way it fits Zimbabwe (purely IMO).
  4. 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.

  5. Revenant

    Ordering some Cheques for future grading

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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 that grading credit and rounding out the set a bit / filling out the new holes I added in January. 
    I've known for a while what this purchase would be. I've wanted to load up on some of the traveller's cheques (P-15 to P-20) for a submission but I didn't want to pay $8-9 + $5 shipping per check for these. I had found a seller offering sets with all of them from 15 to 20 for $22 each and he had multiple sets. This auction didn't promise uncirc or a-unc checks like some other listing but the condition looked okay in the image and I'm not sure I need these stamped and canceled checks to grade 60+. I could be quite okay with examples that grade a little lower and have a bit more "character." That said, I did go ahead and ask if he'd be willing to look and give me the nicer examples he had.
    He responded saying he had some nicer / better condition sets he'd been holding back and, for $30/set, he'd give me the 2 nicest examples of each one that he has. I agreed and he said they'd ship out no later than today. I figure $16 + tax is fair for his time and attention (responding to me in the first place and not just grabbing from the top of the pile and calling it a day).
    I'm looking forward to getting these soon. I'm going to be looking at these for any fun dates. There was a graded P18 for sale a while back that had been stamped Oct 18th - painfully close to my birthday of Oct 19th. I pointed out to Shandy at the time that if that had been stamped the 19th I would have needed to get it - budget or no. Lol It would be so cool to have one that was canceled on 10/19 or another important / significant date to me - like the birthdays of my sons or my anniversary.
    I'll be scanning these but also trying to get them sent out to grade soon. I'm going to try to not let this linger for months like I have with and NGC submission - which will be going out by registered mail soon once I find a good box and get it over to the PO.
    I'm also again considering buying some lots of Zimbabwean coins and submitting some of those - maybe keeping the less promising ones in my binder of 2x2s - more on that soon I hope.
  6. Revenant

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

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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 I look at them the more excited I get about the idea of buying and collecting some of the old fuel ration coupons from ~2005. And if PMG is willing to grade them I could see them either being included in my current "Gradually, Then Suddenly," and / or becoming the focus of a new Signature Set / Collection. These are very interesting to me as much as anything because you have the Reserve Bank issuing ration coupons and not the government or some other part of the executive branch. So I feel like that makes these very much adjacent to the Bearer Checks and Agro Checks as collectables.



     
  7. Revenant

    Getting Better Organized Now Maybe

    By Revenant,


    Note Storage
    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 gave me some graded note storage boxes that look like old books on the outside.


    They are different colors (I think they're available in 4 colors) but they also have a small label pocket for saying what's in each one.

    She got me 2 to start out but I'm going to get to add a 3rd in a couple of days and take advantage of 5% eBay bucks at the same time.
    I'd initially been linked to these on eBay by another reddit user when I saw a post by that user showing one. I've had the impression that my wife might have / might be getting me some of these. This paradoxically in the short term made my organizational practices even worse - I lost all interest in fighting my old system to try to get things in order and sort in new notes when I knew these might be coming in a week or two. And, they would have been coming, because if she hadn't bought them for me they probably would have been the next thing I bought myself.
    I got really excited when I saw these in that reddit post and saw that the price was reasonable ($20/box). I've been wanting something like this f or a while and prefer something like this to albums and pages.
    I clearly haven't finished putting all my notes in them yet but I can already tell they're  going to make life so much easier when dealing with my notes.
  8. Revenant

    I guess there's something about GREEN.

    By Revenant,


    Note Storage
    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 green was a little over $31).
    So what's up with green?
    The first thing that springs to mind is that it is essentially PMG's chosen color and that might make it preferred by some but I also know PMG isn't the only grader. I see other companies used in my Facebook and Redit groups - I just personally have never gotten anything other than PMG for graded notes.
    It's also the main/ dominant color of money and "the greenback," if you are an American or collect US notes.
    I'd love to have all four colors represented on my shelf because I'm a weird, collecting freak - maybe just a couple of steps shy of being a hoarder - but I'm just not willing to pay 60% more for a different color. 🤷‍♂️
     
  9. Revenant

    The new checks are in...

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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 some of that grading credit to grade fuel coupons and such instead. There's another part of me that finds these interesting with the different dates and stamps and different banks / branches canceling them and thinks that a deeper dive into that could even be fodder for a signature set of its own. For instance, most of these are canceled in 2003, with some in 2004, but one of these P-16s showed that it was canceled in 2005 - what's the story there? And then there's just the other little things about these - how some where stamped on the front versus the back and some were stamped upside down or how some are dated in pencil  and just all the little quirks that these things acquire from having been canceled.
    Mike had indicated that he was interested in playing a little guess-the-grade and so below are front and back scans of all 12 checks, starting with the P-15s.
    There's a P-19 stamped on 10/18, like that graded P-18 I saw a while back. Dang. Just not quite hitting it with that date.
























  10. 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.
  11. Revenant

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

    By Revenant,


    Hyperinflation Notes and Sets
    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 that there were more varieties I could go for and replacement notes and specimen notes... and the RBZ still hasn't given up! Just updated my P-104 description because they say they have some fight left!
    I was also thinking I could add some more SA Rand denominations that would have been in Zimbabwe at the time and maybe some of the other currencies in use during the multi-currency period.
    I'm not nearly as super-gung-ho as I was in 2019/2020 - trying to build a Pick set - but I'm still very interested in continuing to grow and build, update and evolve that set... and, like Rose Red, it may never be finished until I am. 🤣
    On a related note... I've been watching some 5 L and 20 L gas ration coupons for a while where the seller had them listed for $1.99 but with a $5 shipping charge. I knew from prior experience from this seller that they'd combine shipping for +$1 per additional item, so if I bought all four of these things I could get them for $16 or about $4 each. I just had a hard time convincing myself to do that. I'd often thought about tacking them on to another, larger order but I always forget - case in point, I could have added them to that $124 bolivar order for $12, $3 each... Anyway...
    I saw another seller listing some 20L coupons for $4 + free shipping and I just pulled the trigger. I don't even know what possessed me to do it. It was $8+tax and I just decided in that moment that I wanted it and I was going to get them after months of hem-hahing. I think it was about being able to just snap up a couple for under $10 and not make a bigger outlay all at once.
    Anyway... If I like the quality / condition the seller has some 5L,  and10L coupons for $5-5.50 that I may offer them $3.50-4.00 for to get 2 of each. They also have some of the 50L coupons, which seem less common, for $8. I think I'm going to stick to coupons with the RBZ seal and not the Amby ones... for now.
    I still do not know if these are even things PMG will grade. I may touch base with them on that, but I still like the idea of having some of these, even if they stay in a small flip-style currency album from Hobby Lobby.
    If PMG will not grade them I may use the cert#s for some of my extra traveller's checks to let me backdoor the coupons into "Gradually, then suddenly."
    But... yeah... I've officially gone beyond "notes" by getting those 1-use, cancellable checks and now gone beyond "currency" in the catalogue by buying things that don't have assigned pick numbers and gone beyond "currency" to expand into coins I'm working on submitting. The many times I've broadened the scope of this set to include something that absolutely was not part of the original plan... Like new rooms / wings on a house? 🤔
  12. 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.
  13. Revenant

    Wow. PMG is on it!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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 to not worry or think on it much, this paradoxically has me more keyed up.  
  14. Revenant

    Scheduled for Grading!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    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 of my "Gradually, Then Suddenly" set.
    https://notes.www.collectors-society.com/registry/notes/ViewPersonalCollection.aspx?UserCollectionID=1650&Tab=list
    Now that I'm mostly done with the writing work of building out the Venezuela set and i just need to buy notes as they become available at good prices, this set will probably be a major focus going into the 2nd half of the year.

    The gas ration coupons will probably be sent in for grading with a P-3d and P-3e once these clear QA/QC.
    I have quite a group of them now.
    I'm excited to get those coupons graded but I may be more excited to get a graded P-3 and close that last major gap in my 1st dollar set.
  15. Revenant

    Silver and Gold Foil Fantasies

    By Revenant,


    Fantasy Notes
    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 - which was exactly what he’d done. He felt a bit silly for that but said he might then go ahead and try to get one of the real ones soon-ish.
    It’s interesting to inspire someone to start collecting something that you collect, and I wish him well with it, but this got me thinking about the silver foils again and about a month ago I ordered a group.
    These cost me a bit more than the gold ones - I paid $7 for 20 gold ones and paid about $11 for 10 silver ones… Go figure. The silver ones were more expensive than the golds.
    It’s an interesting group to look at - and not especially easy to image.

    I’ve long viewed the gold ones as harmless because they’re just obviously not right, but I’ve also long considered the silver ones more dangerous because they look a lot more like shiny versions of the real thing. If you’re not paying too close of attention you might see the silver / white and blue and think someone is selling you one of the genuine notes like that guy on reddit did. But his experience just confirmed for me that these are just a little more dangerous. Fortunately, I don’t see them as too much of a problem as they are still cheap, and I don’t see many people crying over wasting a couple of bucks.
    The silver foil ones came with this silly little CoA that I just want to laugh at. I’m not at all convinced that these are plated with genuine silver. I’m not at all convinced that the production of these was limited in any way, much less to 1000. There might have been 1000 in that run… with was probably run number 50 or something. The fact that the CoA is made of the same shiny material as the notes just makes it look so silly and over-the top.
  16. Revenant

    Grades on the Checks!

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's 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 don’t claim to know. This was a shot in the dark for me with the best examples I could find at a reasonable-feeling price. This is one of the reasons I normally would not want to self-submit notes because I just don’t know what makes a promising bet and what could be a deal-breaker. So, I was just trying to cross my fingers and come in with what I hoped were reasonable expectations and this blew me away.
    11 out of 12 got the EPQ designation and 9 out of 12 came back at 63 or above.
    A 66 EPQ a P-17 and a P-19 has me over the moon and a 65 EPQ for P-20, combined with the P-15 in 65 EPQ is enough to make a very strong set of these checks, with a 63 EPQ and 64 EPQ to round out the set. It is a tiny bit of a bummer that both P-15s came back at 64 EPQ, below the 65 EPQ on the one I have, so on paper that arguably was a waste, but those are still very solid grades that just barely missed the other and I wanted P-15s as my -001 on the invoices.
    I split the traveler’s checks into 2 invoices so I’d have two groups of -001 to -006 – maybe two competitive sets with all the same invoice number. Because all the higher grades didn’t land on one submission and because the P-15s didn’t beat the other, if I want to make the best competitive set I can I’d have to mix and match, which would defeat the purpose of paying the $10 to split the two invoices and submit the P-15s. I’ll decide later how I want to deal with that – go for style or go for the strongest possible group of 6.
    I’m thinking I may have to contact the seller and tell him how this turned out and thank him. I’m definitely feeling good at this point for paying the extra cash to have him pick and pull the nicest examples he had.
    On the bearer checks, the 64 EPQ on the P-46b is slightly disappointing, but the 67 EPQ top pop on the P-40 was great, and this gives me a complete graded set for the 2nd dollar, which is what I wanted out of that. I'll be in no rush to upgrade or try for an upgrade on that 64 I think.
    The "Stamp Cancelled" comment is interesting in that it IS in the comments on the back but it seems to be new. My older P-15 - which is still in a new gen holder - doesn't have it.
     




  17. Revenant
    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 the traveller’s checks is a bit more of an open question and I’m weighing options…
    Since I only had 1 of these before this (A P-15) that one note had to do the heavy lifting in the signature set with information on that 6-check set and about that particular example.
    https://notes.www.collectors-society.com/registry/notes/UserNoteDetail.aspx?UserNoteID=20885&UserCollectionID=1264
    In the competitive set I split it with the series information in the set description and just the information / discussion on that note in the competitive description for that note. I’m going to continue that practice in the competitive set, but, in the signature set…
     
     
    I have three options I’m considering…
    1) Have the information on the set and that specific note in the description for each of the 6 notes I’ll have in there.
    2) Have the information on the set on the P-15 as now but don’t repeat it on the other 5 (P-16 to P-20).
    3) Have two P-15s in the signature set, use the first to discuss the set and have the 2nd with a feature about that note P-15 note and have the P-16 to P-20 just talk about those notes.
     
     
    On a different but related front, I’m considering using the certification numbers for some of the traveler’s checks I wasn’t going to use as place holders to put in some images of the 5 2014 bond coins I’ve sent in for grading. Speaking of which, my 13 Zimbabwe coin submission is official “received” at NGC today, but with current advertised wait times I don’t expect to see those grades or coins until mid to late August, when I’ll be in a new home hopefully! I'll probably have more to say on the coins in the NGC journal soon.
     
     
    Having gotten these grades back, the question occurs, "Would I do it again?" Or rather do more? Clearly, I'm thrilled that I did these two sets but do I think I'd be willing to hunt more examples of the P-16 and P-18 to chase a full gem uncirc set? ... and I don't know!
    If these first two sets had done a little less well - like if I had at least one pick # where the best I had was an AU 55 I think there'd be more of a case for trying again to finish an uncirc. set. But with an example of each in at least 63 EPQ it is harder to have confidence that grading more sets / notes would get me an improved set. I have seen unstamped, clean, examples only get a 63 EPQ.
    To make things a step worse, many of the people that sell these things have multiples of each and the pictures / scans always look good, but I think in many cases you’re seeing scans of some of the nicer ones and what you’re seeing might not be what you get. And on top of that many of the prices on these can be surprisingly steep. I got very lucky on these. I found a seller willing to sell a full 6 note set for $30 - $5 each - and pick the nicest examples to send me on top of it. I’ve seen many sellers that want $14-$40 per check or more… and that can get expensive in a hurry! If I knew a place where I could go and look at these in hand and have more confidence in what I was getting it might be easier, but, with buying these raw online, there’s just too much uncertainty.
    All in all, I did too well with these for the cost / benefit / risk equation to seem favorable for more. I don’t think that will change unless someone else comes up with a set that can challenge the one I have now. But, if an already graded P-16 or P-18 pop up in a better grade than what I have I may be a bidder!
    Of course, if they'd all come back as AU 55 or below with this batch of 12, I wouldn’t be sending anymore after that for a very different reason.
     
    Now that I know the fate on these I need to make myself get on sending in those two P-3 (a "d" and "e" I think) notes and some (probably 7-8) gas coupons. I need to put in a question to PMG though I think and see if those can all be on one invoice or two. I also have a mechanical error I need to send in with them - a P-23f posing as a P-23e. As good as it felt to see "100%" on that 2nd dollar set, I think it's going to feel even better to see 100% on a first dollar set. I don't think I would have ever imagined that when I started this in 2015. I never would have dreamed that I'd build that set to what it is now when I just picked up a few (11) notes for it in Dec 2015 and Jan 2016.
     
    That's all for now. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I has no notes yet.  
  18. Revenant

    Upgrading my P-93 $5 note.

    By Revenant,


    4th Dollar Banknotes
    A couple of nights ago I was able to win a new TOP POP (for now) 67 EPQ P-93 note that can upgrade / replace my 64 EPQ that I got last year as a hole filler just to have the set complete. I spent about $36 all in and decided to this rather than go for a $51 68 EPQ 10 Billion note for now.
      
    At this point I don’t know if it will arrive here or if mail forwarding is going to send it to the new house by the time it’s all said and done. We have 15 days until we move. Given past experience with this seller I think it will arrive here within a few days of the move.
    I'm still debating how far I'll ultimately go and how much I'm ultimately willing to spend to upgrade the Zimbabwe set. The few 64s and 65s I have are definitely up for upgrades over time as 67/68 examples come up at reasonable prices, but I'm finding that most upgrades I'm seriously willing to consider have to be 3 point upgrades for $40 or less.
    This is only about the 3rd time I’ve done a direct upgrade of an existing note in the set - and one of those was bought by my wife without me knowing what it was. There have been 2 or three times though were I had a replacement and got a regular issue in a different grade that earned me more points - or vice-versa.
    I find anything for $50+ or anything that is only a 2 point upgrade a lot less appealing. I have almost no interest in 1-point upgrades, especially when I already have a 67. The cost / benefit just isn’t there for me as a 67 is already a superb gem Uncirc and a dang fine note for any collection.
    The ZIM93 is kind of the poster child for why I'm reluctant to buy anything below a 67 or 68 for the VEN104 - I actually think about this note every time I think about giving in and buying a VEN104 in a lower grade. At the time I bought that 64 EPQ I already knew that it really wasn't what I wanted - I already knew that I really wanted at least a 65 or preferably a 66, but it was the only graded example I'd ever seen and I wanted that set to be complete - and it only cost me about $20. Now I've seen at least 3 67 EPQs of that note come up for sale - and it has only been maybe 1-1.5 years. Not long in the grand scheme... but it did feel good to have the 4th dollar become one of my first 100% complete Zimbabwe sets.
    At least one higher grade, more recently purchased note that is likely to get upgraded at some point is my 66 EPQ P-100. It is a 66 EPQ that is in a set that is full of 67s and I don't see myself buying anything lower than a 68 EPQ for that set in the future, and I may ultimately bite the bullet and build out a full 68 EPQ set of those. 
    This P-93 also probably will not be the last upgrade to the 4th dollar set. I have a P-65 P-94 and P-95 that will probably both get bumped up to 67s or 68s down the line when the opportunity comes up and my P-92, which is a 66 EPQ, may get replaced with a 68 EPQ at some point because 68s of that note can sometimes be had for just $30-35, like this P-93 I just snagged.

  19. Revenant

    The newest Zimbabwean note, the $50, P-105.

    By Revenant,


    2019 Series Zimbabwe Dollars
    In other news, Mike pointed out to me that the $50 note, the P-105, finally dropped after about 6 months of talk.

    That statue on the note is the statue / monument to the unknown soldier, which is in the National Heroes Acre (which is actually about 57 acres). This is also where the "Eternal Flame of Freedom" / "Eternal Flame of Independence" is - you see that show up in a few different places, including on the old P-3 notes I'm grading soon, the P-99 (&P-101) and the P-97.
    No clue yet who this person is supposed to be.
    I like the color on this one though. It looks similar to the old P-40s - only talking about the color here. Those notes (bearer checks) look nothing like this.  
     You get different values on this thing depending on what you reference. Some articles put the value at US$0.59-0.60 based on prevailing official bank rates and some put it at US$0.35 based on black market rates. Other black market rates I see would put it at about US$0.13-0.14. In either case, it isn't worth much.
    If they had any sense they would have skipped these completely and done $100, $500, $1000 and $5000 IMO but they're afraid that releasing new notes too fast will spook people with memories of 2006-2009.
    But inflation is still running at 106% (down from ~800%).
    They are again allowing the US dollar in parallel with the ZWD so you're back to dollarization.
    The new note still won't buy a loaf of bread - it takes two of them. You still need a huge wad of bills to make any reasonably sized purchase.
    People are already worried about the fact that they are seeing 1 or 2 new, higher denominations every year.
    People simply aren't this dumb.
    They're already talking about the fact that more, higher, denominations will probably be coming in articles announcing this one.
    The RBZ might be thinking that releasing new denominations slower is going to make people less alarmed and have them not remembering 2006-2009, but, they remember. The kids know about it. The fear and the awareness is there.
    This is now the 5th design in the new series and the 7th issue / slot (if you have the P-99 and P-100 bond notes separately like they are in the world catalogue and the registry here). The 4th dollar had 7 designs and denominations and included a $100 and $500 notes. I think we'll get both of those and have the new dollar equal the run of the 4th dollar within a year and we may see a $1000 note and see the new series exceed the run of the 4th dollar by late 2022 or early 2023 at the rate they're going. I guess we'll see how long they stick to their guns and keep denying facts.
  20. Revenant

    My new P-17, and going deeper down this rabbit hole.

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    I didn’t get a chance to dig into this as much as I wanted to during the move, so this post has been somewhat “on hold.”
    In late July I noticed a seller had a P-17 note for sale - a 64 EPQ - starting at $12 + shipping and it popped up in my saved search email. This doesn’t sound like something that would get my attention normally since the two I graded myself got 64 EPQ and 66 EPQ and so I don’t really “need” this, and it doesn’t upgrade my set. HOWEVER! This P-17 was stamped 18 Oct 2004. That’s the same date stamp that was on a 65 EPQ P-17 I lost out on when Bonezdogg sniped me with 2 seconds to go with a bid about 55 cents higher than my max. He won that one for $47 + shipping + tax - maybe tax. I was seriously so mad when I lost out on that by such a narrow margin. I was salty about that for days when what showed up in their set and I knew who'd beat me. 


    While I already have one in that grade and one in a higher grade, I wanted and still wanted that note for the date stamp. So, I decided to watch it… but then I noticed the seller had a 65 EPQ P-17 starting at $20. So, I watched both. I decided I’d try for one or both depending on how things were looking.
    The notes were ending at about 3 AM Monday so when the 64 EPQ had picked up a bid and the 65 EPQ hadn’t I put in a bid at like 11 PM Sunday night and went to bed. I woke up to see that I’d won the 65 EPQ unopposed for $20 ($27 after s&t) and someone else walked off with the 64 EPQ unopposed for $12 + s&t. I was pretty stoked about this! At the time I lost out on the other one I was frustrated to have lost out on such a desirable date stamp (to me) but I knew I was barely willing to pay want I’d bid and I knew at the time I was better off just sending mine in and seeing what grades I got and I got that confirmed when I got my 66 EPQ. But I still wanted that date stamp! And now I’ve won this one in the same grade for half the price.
    Sometimes patience does pay off. The note has made it to the US from the international dealer and should be in-hand in a few more days - the first note the be delivered to the new house.

    The nice thing here is one of the notes I graded myself was also stamped on that 18 OCT 2003, that one a P-19:

    I also have a P-16, a P-17 (or 2), a P-18 (or 2), and a P-19, all stamped as PAID Inward Clearing by the RBZ on 08 Dec 2003. That’s 4 of 6 notes for a set of Traveller’s checks stamped on that date. This is probably not surprising given that I got all of those from the same seller who probably got a bunch of them from the same person / place, and they just got a bunch from that day / batch. But it still raises interesting possibilities - date sets / sets that have all the dates the same, branch / location / stamp sets where all 6  notes come from the same branch / location with the stamps or sets of the same note from different branches. You could really go nuts digging into this just playing with the stamps and dates.
    Also, incidentally, the stamps on for 08 Dec 2003 in the checks below are all upside down.  




    The same seller had a P-15 in 65 EPQ but I didn’t go for it even though it got no bids, and I could have snapped it up easy - it is the same grade and has the same stamps with the same dates as another P-15 I bought from the same seller. So I feel it adds no value to my collection of these.
    I have been checking and watching the pop reports for these and I did see a small uptick in the populations for P-15 and P-17, but just for those 2, not for the others. So, I’m guessing this is the result of this dealer submitting these for resale. This also has me thinking there’s no value in buying raw checks from this dealer because they’re already submitting what they have that seems promising and this also makes me think this dealer doesn’t have any good / promising notes for P-16, P-18, P-19, and P-20. Maybe I’m wrong and they’re just taking their time. However, very interestingly… they got a new 66 EPQ P-17. Mine isn’t the sole finest anymore. But I haven’t seen that one offered for sale… yet.

    It's a little funny to me that I'm doing such a deep dive on these but I'm largely ignoring what I thought would be my "next thing" for the Zimbabwe set after my pick-set was done, that being getting more Replacement notes or more non-Replacement notes to compliment my existing Replacement notes. But I just find these / these stamp and date variants oddly interesting and I'm going a bit nuts but I'm enjoying it so much.
  21. Revenant

    Another P-3 explodes at auction on eBay....

    By Revenant,


    1st Dollar Banknotes
    So after a 66 EPQ P-3b went for about $370 last week, today, a 67 EPQ went for a whopping $761 + $10 shipping. That... is... something.

     
    My P-3d and P-3e, which where only acknowledged as received 5 days ago, are already scheduled for grading... So PMG seems to really be on it and I'm hoping to get grades on those by the end of the month maybe.
    Even if they grade well, they're still a d and an e, so I won't have struck it rich. But at least I'll have some P-3s in my set.
    Wow.
  22. Revenant

    The questionable future of the "STAMP CANCELLED" designation

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Traveller's Checks
    When I bought a P-15 note off a dealer a while back it just had "Exceptional Paper Quality," no "Stamp Cancelled" designation.

    So I was surprised when I submitted my 12 traveller's checks and all 12 got the label.

    The new P-17 I just got, which has a cert# indicating it was submitted after mine were submitted and graded, does not have the designation.

    So, I'm really not sure what this means... I'm not sure if they just forgot to include it on this one (which I think was one of 4 or 5 the seller submitted with this group) or if they aren't sure if they're going to keep using it or not, or what.
    But this introduces the idea that my 12 are the only ones that have this label / comment and they may stay that way.  I wonder if that would make them more or less valuable?
    The joys of trying to build registry sets over time and with notes you bought and which were graded by others over a longer span of time.
    Side note, but you can really see that Zimbabwe bird watermark (or at least the outline of it) when you look on the back of these things, at least in my scans.
  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

    The Venezuela Set is looking solid now!

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos
    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 historical narrative for the set / series so It doesn’t hurt my plan / narrative much to have that gap for now.
    I’ll use the descriptions for the 2021 notes to extend the historical narrative for the series, as I can. I’m still working on those.
    I really need to teach myself to pay more attention to watermarks with notes. I often overlook this aspect of note collecting because it has no analogue with coins.

    The Bolivar Fuertes notes have a watermark of the person on the note. Interestingly, the Soberanos don’t do this and just have a watermark of the new Portrait of Simon Bolivar that was used on P-108 through (now) P-114.  I’m not sure what made them switch to using the same watermark on everything.
    Maybe it was to save money. Maybe it was just to get the notes out faster. Maybe it was to give them more flexibility on what denominations they printed with any given paper delivery.
    It’s interesting that there are three men that appear in / on both series. Two have different portraits used in the two different series, but the third uses the same portrait in both series in two very similarly colored notes. This makes the P-104 kind of obnoxious to shop for. You see that portrait as you scroll through, get excited and... it's a P-98! 


    Ddr70’s comment that “Received” is the purgatory of grading is being proven out. I think the Traveler’s Cheque and Bearer Checks were received in the mail on 5/18 and opened and marked as received on 5/24 and they are still… “Received.” Turnaround time on world modern notes has been hanging 21-22 working days, and, if turnaround times really do start when the box hits the mailbox then I’m still hoping I can get the grades on those around 6/22…