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Revenant
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Posts
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Days Won
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Journal Comments posted by Revenant
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8 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
2007 10 dollar note
Not to advertise, just trying to help, but $60 feels super reasonable for a 69 and they (Banknoteworld) are running a 10% off sale for memorial day.
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4 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
I spoke too soon on the Zimbabwe banknotes, it appears as though I will be getting at least one more for a signature set. The 2007 10 dollar note, what yah do.
How random... Why?
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3 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
I've been burned by just saving links, too many times I'll go back and the article will have been pulled. I now save everything I find in Word documents.
When I go for that option I normally go for PDF printing.
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4 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
I'll check those articles out in the next few days. God, I enjoy reading about this stuff WAY too much. I think I may have a problem.
Me too. I haven't listed it anywhere and I haven't always been the best about remembering to save links but I have a now quite long list of links to articles and resources that I've referenced and used while researching these sets and notes for my descriptions.
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On 5/23/2021 at 7:13 AM, Fenntucky Mike said: I'm with you on the size I had imagined them as being smaller as well. I'm not as shocked that they came in a book, that's pretty standard practice, I think. The perforations probably don't show very well in a scan.
So far I've manage to dig up a couple of contemporary articles with these things being used as a kind of commodity-backed pseudo-currency around 2008, which will be great for my narrative and the justification for their inclusion once I can get them graded.
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1 hour ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
Now the question is will PMG differentiate between the two?
I plan to test it and, maybe, in the process, force it. I'm trying to get copies of both types for the 5 L and 20 L and send them in together, maybe with a 20L from AMBY too.
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31 minutes ago, Love Collection said:
If it was an error speak to PMG first and in my case they waived the costs for the reholder fee. 👍
Yeah. They've already said they would. Just have to send it in. It's still a P-23, but it's an "f" and not a "e." It doesn't really cause me problems fortunately.
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40 minutes ago, Love Collection said:
I know I have had the issue with a few notes that the Pick numbers have been labelled incorrectly. PMG were able to fix one that was a mistake
Yeah... I recently discovered that I have one with that problem that I'll need to fix.
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4 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
The only reason I have Third dollar Billions and 2008 Agro Check sets was pure frivolity and since I do have these sets I have a slight inclination to complete them but not in any serious manner.
Ha! Well if you decide instead you'd rather get out of it just let me know.
I think that $1 Billion - P-83, which is fairly crazy at 69 EPQ - would be about a 4 point upgrade for me. My P-83 is one of my earliest purchases and one of the relatively few 65 EPQs in my set. Add in the fact that it's in one of those old-gen holders and that's one I could see upgrading one day.
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2 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
I'm really happy with the new dollars and don't regret for a minute getting them, I'm probably most proud that I've kept myself in check and kept my Zimbabwe sets to a minimum. One day I may go for a first dollar set but we'll see, that's a long way off if it even happens at all.
You're an odd one in my experience in that you show little interest in the 3rd dollar series and the P-88 to P-91 block in particular. P-65, P-90 and P-91 are usually among the ones that people go for first. Anyway... blame what you want on me. It makes not difference! You have the sickness now:
When you start talking about "a," "b," "c" and "d" you'll know you're in REAL trouble.
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2 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
I guess I would have to count myself among that group but I can guarantee that I would not have even sniffed the new series if you hadn't posted about it and the Bond notes. It's interesting that you are putting the upturn pre pandemic starting with the new series, I'm onboard with that, but would the current price levels be the same without it?
At this point I have a pretty long history with this set. I bought my first notes in Dec 2015 / Jan 2016, while we were expecting Ben. I bought a few notes finally then, when I hadn't around 2010, because the prices had finally come down a lot. Even then, I was paying for 65-66 EPQ notes what you now expect to pay for 67-68 EPQ. This influenced the grades I bought back then for some key notes in no small way.
In early 2019 you see the final capitulation of some major dealers. One major dealer around this time slashed their asking prices from $25-30 a note to $16-20 for pmg graded notes and started running sales for 50-60% off specifically on Zimbabwe notes - actively just dumping inventory just to get rid of it. This is a big part of why I was able to grow my set from 11 notes to about 60 in a year on a very limited budget after Sam's birth.
It is around late 2019, with the release of p101 and p102, that you see these hitting the market with strong asking prices and you start seeing stiffer bidding competition and you see the sales start to dry up - and this place still has inventory so I don't think that was the problem. Incidentally, this is also around the time that PMG featured my Millions set in OCT 2019.
That's why I don't attribute this to the pandemic. I think the pandemic is helping and I think those big 3rd stimulus checks are helping. I think revived inflation fears might also be resurrecting interest in the topic of hyperinflation. So there might be an number of things playing in here.
One other thing I can't fully assess the impact of is that this is also hitting just a couple months after a certain set won an award and a $500 grading credit for a Zimbabwe collection.
I got you into this. I wonder if I got Bonez onto this or if he found it on his / her own. Some people started hopping on both Venezuela and Zimbabwe shortly after my Venezuela set got featured in late 2020 - which could have brought people into my profile where they saw my Zimbabwe sets. There really is a chance that with the Oct 2019 feature, the 2020 award win and all these journals that I am my own undoing. I can live with that I think.
2 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:Looks like good news on the gas coupons front, good luck.
Yeah Definitely some promising news on that front. I'll post more about this soon but I need to make an order soon I think.
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9 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
+9 = 2,229
OK, here you go @Revenant
Increases were observed in the following categories
10 Hryven +1
20 Hryven +1
500 Hryven +1
100 Karbovantsiv +1
2,000 Karbovantsiv +1
5,000 Karbvantsiv +1
5 Karbowanez +1
10 Karbowanez +1
100 Karbowanez +1
Still not sure I can glean much from this, so we'll see if I have time before next week to expand the spreadsheet by Pick #.
Well, in fairness I was talkin about your overall pop numbers, not doing it by pick number, that sounds like a lot of work.
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23 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:I find it really tough to do both and not end up writing a book about it. Probably one of the reasons I'm dragging my feet on these. I think I need a word limit/goal.
A comment I've made to myself that I'll repeat: "Sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good."
I went through a while where I couldn't make myself happy with my Venezuela set and I had nothing up and eventually I just posted what I had while I gave myself time to think - and PMG gave me a feature.
Sometimes you just have to work on it until you figure it out. I'm finally closing in on an overall plan and presentation for the Venezuelan signature set. But I'm only getting there because I've kept playing and tweaking.
My 4th dollar and New dollar descriptions went through MANY adjustments as the timeline advanced.
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6 hours ago, Love Collection said:
Hey that’s why it’s your set...I feel you should do what makes you feel good and not overthink it. If you wanted to go into detail of both animals and historical figures maybe space them out and label them?!
Well, the "great" / helpful thing about the Bolivare Fuertes set is that it's broken into 2 6-note series that basically use the same designs in the same order. So I can use the descriptions of the 2nd series to focus on the bio information and the animals and places while I use the 1st series to focus on the history of the run-up to the hyper inflation and just say, "look at this note for more information on the people, animals and places." So I can strike a balance that way.
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I've often thought, in the extreme case, I could start collecting duplicates based on collecting different 2 letter prefixes on Zimbabwean notes. That would represent going into the weeds a but but... 😅
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22 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
Mainly my Ukrainian sets, I'm wondering how much of the human aspect I want to put in the descriptions. The balance of factoids about the note and how/why it came into existence and why it stopped circulating, I find it really tough to do both and not end up writing a book about it. Probably one of the reasons I'm dragging my feet on these. I think I need a word limit/goal.
That has been my biggest challenge on the Venezuelan set. I didn't really have this problem on the Zimbabwean notes because the designs are frankly kinda repetitive and boring 😅 so I focused on the history. But I'm actively working on a revamp of the Venezuelan set that will make me (finally) happy and I think it'll be a winner - just maybe not literally winning anything."
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2 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
... and it has me thinking of what I want my descriptions to be.
For your Zimbabwe set or your Ukrainian set?
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8 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
Good stuff, I think you're spot on with all of this.
I like the description of the Z$20, and it has me thinking of what I want my descriptions to be.
Is there a place to see old Bloomberg articles for free? I almost got a subscription the other day and now the Zimbabwe article.
Guess I'll just have to bite the bullet.
I think they give you a few for free every month and I make do.
I just found that by googling.
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1 hour ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
I have to imagine that the country is running on USDs right now anyway.
Hmm, I did a little more reading and it seems the RBZ is running a bureaux de change scheme? If I understand this correctly the RBZ has been holding auctions in which they are selling foreign currency to private businesses and individuals. So they flushed their monetary system down the toilet, again, and are selling foreign currencies ($80 million USD worth) to the highest bidder above spot? I might be interpreting this wrong but that's what it seems to be.
Yeah, they aren't issuing another bill.
The whole thing is such a mess. That announcement is really odd in that the usually didn't do that. They don't announce "intent" to release a note. They release a new note. That announcement, when you read between the lines, was more about denying the $100 & $200 notes, which people were already speculating about, and it came right after a guy on the MPC, Eddie Cross, said the release of a new $50 was imminent and that "higher denominations" where in the works. I think that was a denial of the higher denominations to try desperately to put a lid on inflation expectations.
I think, however, that if that $50 was coming it would be formally announced by now, and the last thing I can find on it is a Feb 2 article talking about how black marketeers where doing the over/under on the announcement. They've surprised me before - I never thought we'd actually get the $10 and the $20 and then they released them, but I really think that only happened because they already had the designs prepared from the failed Bond Note run and they just had to remove "bond note" and hit "print." I don't think a $50 design was part of the original Bond Note plan, so I think they'd be making that from scratch, and I just don't see them doing that for a Z$50 note at this point.
Also: There was an article i saw from Nov 2020 saying that people were back to using USD for basically everything and back to literally washing and repairing old, nasty dollar bills and continuing to use old US dollars - no matter how terrible the condition - just because that was the only thing people wanted, not the new Z dollars.
https://www.coinworld.com/news/precious-metals/zimbabwe-brings-different-meaning-to-money-laundering
If governments are good at anything though, it's denying reality:
At this point, I'm guessing we'll see a new redenomination, a new currency / currency system, and maybe a brand new series around late 2021 or 2022.
Okay, because they made me do it, my Mid-2021 update to my $20 note (P-104)
What a mess. What a disgrace, and what a crying shame.
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A $1000 note would at least maybe get you a loaf of bread. That new $50 note would only be worth about a dime.
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13 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
It's been a few months now but the RBZ did issue a press release in mid January declaring their intent to release a $50 note and denying plans to print $100 & $200 banknotes. Who knows, all that may have changed ten times since then. I did read inflation was down to 194% in April, it seems that they are being a little more systematic this time around.
Huh. I missed that one. Mkay. So they're taking the Venezuelan P-100 approach- releasing 1 last 1-off before giving up (If they're smart or wising up).
From everything I've seen there's little point in a Z$50. They need to skip a bit like they did back in the day and hit a $500, $1000, $2000.
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16 minutes ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
That's awesome my friend!
Now to work on those fuel coupons. 
Isn't the RBZ due to release a $50 note soon?
So... I think I have enough credit left to send in 7 more modern issues for grading after this under the credit. 🤔 I so I think I need to try to get some of those soon just for fun, and maybe a P-3 note or two to be a cheap gap filler even if it doesn't come back super high grade.
I mean, I know you are joking but they are kinda due. We got 2 in 2019 and 2 in 2020. So they are due to issue new collectables. But I have not heard anything official saying they're wasting more paper to print $50 and $100 notes. I honestly wouldn't mind. 2 notes a year is manageable. 30 in 2 years hurts.
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2 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
Turnaround times are better at PMG than NGC so...... mid July probably.
FYI, no skunks yet but I haven't given up.
I'll give you the update first when I know!
Just for fun, where you thought one of the checks would grade higher, I submitted those to one invoice and submitted the others to another. We'll see if all the higher grades come back on the one invoice. Either way I'll have two groups of -001 to -006 and I'll make one competitive set with the higher grades and a set with the lower grades (even if they don't all have the same invoice #) and I'll have a signature set of all of them + the P-15 I already have.
I'm excited though! Those 3 2nd dollar notes will make my 2nd dollar set 100% complete! I'll only have 1 hole (P-72) from P-32 to P-104! OMG! That's going to be INSANE! I never would have imagined!
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14 hours ago, Fenntucky Mike said:
+58 = 2,220 Another healthy jump up, see yah Malta. LOL!
So... Please tell me you've gone full nerd and there's a spreadsheet and a chart / graph?
Guess I'll just have to bite the bullet.
Now to work on those fuel coupons. 
... And in today's mail - here is where I become a crazy person.
in Gradually, then suddenly.
A journal by Revenant
Posted
Yeah. Just a difference on the redemption date by 1 year.