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Revenant

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Journal Entries posted by Revenant

  1. 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.


  2. 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.  
  3. 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.
     




  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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…
  7. 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.  
  8. 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.

  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  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

    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.
  13. Revenant

    The two hyperinflation signature sets.

    By Revenant,


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

    I also went back and changed "ZIMUNL" to "ZIM101" through "ZIM104" for the newer notes, since they're now listed that way in the competitive sets.

    Better yet, I took the skeleton, the bones, of a Venezuelan Hyperinflation signature set that I'd made about 6 months ago and started filling that out with more than just Pick numbers.
    View Personal Collection (collectors-society.com)
    This has me getting very excited and happily building and writing and tweaking descriptions again and... this is getting me pumped to start trying to fill out some of those holes in the Soberanos set.  
    I thought I'd be here sooner, but it feels good to come back to it after a break and feel that energy and feel pumped again. It's time to build the Venezuelan set into a proper brother for the Zimbabwean set.
     
     
  14. 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.
  15. Revenant

    1 Million Bolivares...

    By Revenant,


    Venezuelan Bolivares Soberanos
    My first love of hyperinflation is a bit quiet and dull lately but Venezuela is not disappointing. They've announced new 200,000, 500,000, and 1 Million Bolivar notes to be released soon.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hyperinflation-pushes-venezuela-to-print-1000000-bolivar-bills/ar-BB1ei8Dj
    The 1 Million Bolivar note will be the highest denomination Venezuela has ever issued - they always re-denominated the currency before they got to that number before - but it's only going to be worth about US$0.53.
    Like in Zimbabwe, the economy is becoming increasingly dollarized - I bet the anti-Washington government in Venezuela LOVES that - and the economy has shrunk in inflation adjusted terms for 7 straight years.
    At some point I suppose I need to get more serious about building a Soberano set, before it gets too far away from me.  
    This note suggests that Venezuela is not going to try to de-throne the Zimbabwean 100 Trillion note for the "most printed zeros" title, because they're just going with "1 Million."

  16. 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.
























  17. 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.
  18. Revenant

    Surprise in the mail today!

    By Revenant,


    Registry Awards
    So I'm outside in the driveway cleaning out trash from my wife's car (it got a bit trashed when we resorted to camping out in it for warmth the week of President's day) and the mail carrier drives up and drops off this yellow padded envelope - which is a complete head scratcher to me because I wasn't really expecting anything.
    I open it up and it's the PMG "Best Presented" Plaque - just the PMG one; I'm guessing the NGC Journal one is coming soon and on its own.
    I'm really shocked at how fast NGC and PMG have been on getting these things out the last couple of years considering what I know of how long it takes to just get these things made by a 3rd party company and delivered to you. They must be getting the orders over to the award company almost as soon as the announcement is made or even sooner / before the announcement to get them out to us this fast. I was really shocked to get my Journal Award last year on March 2nd but PMG has done one better this year by getting it in just before the end of February. I'm going to be really happy if the NGC one comes early next week and they repeat last year's fast turn-around on the NGC side.
    I can't say I could at all blame NGC if they're a bit slower getting theirs out this year than PMG - they have way more to send (like 5 times more) and they're sending out those special coins this year (Side note, but I'm super curious about what that coin is going to be... Did they ever say publicly?)
    As soon as I opened it and saw what it was I showed it to Shandy and Sam was right next to her. He immediately flipped out and demanded that it be given to him and took an immediate shine to it.


    Seriously. He seemed really into it. I think because it is black and, yet, somehow still shiny.

    I eventually got to have it back...

    I gotta say, it is a trip to get to have "Best Presented" awards on the NGC and the PMG side. Maybe it's time to start some shenanigans on the Comics (CGC) side?  (Wife seems very firmly opposed to this lol)
    It has been a stressful few weeks here in Houston. This brightened my day in a really nice way.
    Edited to add:
    Also last week I got my 3rd note storage box and finally got my notes all in the new boxes, taking some time out to do that as "me time" as a break from cleaning the house. I had to cram the two boxes of Zimbabwe notes a little more full than I prefer for the convenience of flipping through so I could fit them all. I definitely need a 4th box soon / at some point. Especially with some plans / hopes to add to the Zimbabwe note set soon with some graded traveller's cheques. 

  19. 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. 🤷‍♂️
     
  20. 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.
  21. 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.



     
  22. 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.

  23. Revenant

    How much more could you want?!?

    By Revenant,


    Zimbabwe Notes
    I was talking to my wife tonight about the fact that, having built a nearly complete pick set from P-1 to P-104, I'm probably going to take a break soon and slow down a lot - move on to other projects for a while.
    She looks at me and says, "yeah, but how much more could you want at this point?!?"
    "Well I could work on building out a set of 2003 traveler's checks, get more into replacement notes, specimen notes, fantasy notes... I could branch out into the fuel ration coupons..."
    She's looking at me in horror, like I've lost my dang mind. "Okay. Nevermind."
    "See. You really shouldn't ask me these questions." 😆
     
  24. Revenant

    My Fancy Fantasy Gag Gifts Arrived.

    By Revenant,


    Fantasy Notes
    I got my gold-foil Zimbabwe 100 Trillion notes in the mail today. I popped them in some top-loaders and they're ready to go in some stockings. My wife likes them, thinks they're neat and thinks they'll be fun to give as gag gifts too.
    They're stiffer than I had been expecting. The top loaders might not have been necessary but I like having the "notes" in them for presentation and handling.
    I'll be keeping one for myself / my collection. Ben immediately claimed one for himself. Sam took a shine to them and then proceeded to immediately break a top loader by bending and contorting it - the child is both strong and destructive for a 22 month old!
    Still working my way through a coin submission with a comedy of errors - realizing my printer doesn't have ink, realizing after 2 days that my pages didn't print because the printer then ran out of paper and I got distracted by kids and work again. Hopefully I'll get my act together in the next couple of days.

  25. 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.