ikaros

I don't know about the current guide; I picked up an edition of the guide to fantasy issues and unusual world coins and it was absolutely riddled with typos (including HTML markup), so I'm not a huge fan of the Krause guides as anything more than a checklist and general guide. How are they up to the 42nd edition already? I have the 10th edition for 1901-2000 and that was only in 2003.

Well, that was unexpected... Yup, I found a steelie! Glad I needed to stop by the Kroger's on my way home; I glanced at the Coinstar, saw one coin, and nabbed it, and it was this!

That's quite a piece! Will you be able to salvage all the coins?

The buffaloes in high grade are really... wow.

If you had to have a stalker, Art is preferable to many I could think of.

I'm tempted just for the novelty of a proof from Philly rather than San Francisco. It's been quite a while, hasn't it?

Love love love love love the Seattle coins -- huge fan of Googie architecture. Also love the New York '39 ones which I used to have but have gone missing many years ago...

I love the Seated Lib design, and I'd love to add one to my hoard.

It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but '09 has definitely turned into the official Tough Year. And the current series isn't a lot easier. The only one I see a lot of is the Arches.

Well, well, well. One of the machines in the break room paid off again -- I got the last Statehood quarter I needed to complete the 112-coin set in P and D from change. THe 2009D Guam was the last holdout. Woot!

Wow, difficult choices all around from among their final candidates. I had the good fortune to get to meet one of them -- Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who came to my alma mater for a talk during my senior year. And I have to say, it was very like being in the presence of a force of nature.

That's not just a coin haul, that's the United Nations!

I take time off work so I can go to the state coin show -- I always have a ball, and always come home with something that makes me happy that I would not have predicted I would have come home with. And every now and then, you get a once in a lifetime opportunity to see or do something -- like when they had a display of a complete set of Seated Lib dollars five years ago, and while I was drooling over looking at them, the owner of the collection casually reached into the case and handed me the 1870-S so I could have a closer look...

Got the penultimate Statehood quarter (Northern Marianas 2009D) -- getting the '09s in change is brutal. Last one I need: Guam 2009D, and I will have all the Statehood/Territory quarters from change. Other than that, nothing really interesting lately.

Hello and welcome! I agree, the ultrahigh denominations are fascinating; I have a German inter-war issue in the denomination of five billion marks. Too bad they can't be cashed in for the equivalent of five billion post-war marks...

Oh, I am all on board with the space-themed $50.

Do you, like, own a fleet of Coinstars that you can raid at will?

Yeah, I was surprised at the numbers. I haven't got any two cent pieces; I'd kind of like to find one of these myself. There never has been a US coin that was normally medal-aligned, was there?

Sounds like a rotated die error; according to this site, that's relatively common for the 1864 2¢ piece. A comment on this site suggests that one in every twenty 1864 2¢ has medal alignment (both sides point up the same way) which is unspeakably common for an error (with a population that large, I'd call it a variety rather than an error), but unfortunately they don't give a source for that statistic.

The PR69DCAMs aren't especially tough -- there are thirteen to eighteen thousand of them in that particular grade, and only several dozen total PR70s across all proof Ikes. So for a typical collector like me, they're obtainable while the PR70s carry a ridiculous premium. The MS66s and higher are actually tougher finds -- there are only 12000 or so in all grades MS66 and higher, and a third of those are the MS66es, and those start to spike pretty aggressively when you wander north of 66.

The new Ike is here!

Spotted this on the Bay of E. Something tells me they're not really PCGS PR70...

New incoming for the Ikes -- PCGS MS66 silver 1972S. Pictures when it's arrived. I've set a goal that MS65 is my lower limit, and is to be exceeded if at all humanly possible.

The more of these you post, the more I think I want one. Or more than one.

I am seriously starting to believe you're a time lord.