One of my first trades of the year… that went downhill straight away.
Tom offered these wonderful Disneyland quarters. After he mailed them, I realized that I didn’t have a single coin he asked off of my trade list. Yes, I felt horrible about lying online… I sent Tom what I hope was enough money to cover the cost.
New Disneyland ECs.
I’ve been trying to get back into the hobby through buying and trading coins. Haven’t been very successful so far however…
eBay has close to 5,000 listings of elongated coins at any given time. Going through each one is absolutely exhausting. No matter how I sort, I usually don’t get through all the pages. If I use “Price + Shipping: highest first”, I end up gawking at how expensive the coins are (and getting a smug feeling when I have a copy of the coin in my own collection.) I swear Disney coins weren’t so expensive 10 years ago…
I’m also drawn to those “X different ECs for Y dollars” listings, even though I never purchased any. To think, going through a bag of 1000 ECs will be absolutely wonderful and dreadful at the same time. I’ll be able to fill a few boxes of traders for sure.
Speaking of traders, my trade list is out of date 
I was in the middle of an exchange with Don when I realized that I couldn’t find 4 out of 6 of the coins he asked for. This is a nightmare! Did I have a whole other bag of trades somewhere and just left them behind when I moved?? Maybe it’s time to figure out another trading organization system…
The last of my coins from the Savannah trip was scanned and cataloged today. I wonder why, with four or five machine locations on River Street, I only visited two shops.
Here’s a picture of the Waving Girl statue:
And the coin that accompanies the scene. Perfect depiction:
New ECs from Basket Bears & T’s Oh My Savannah, GA
I started focusing my inventory effort on the foreign coins. Maybe it’s because they don’t fall nicely into the 50 states system, I’ve always had a hard time getting worked up about organizing them. It’s a horrible laps of judgment (yes, a long, 10 year laps), as these are probably the hardest ECs to replace.
First thing I did was start making tags for the locations.
I used Post-Its before, but quarter sized note cards seem to be sturdier.
Sorted out the coins that Austin pressed for me in Budapest years ago. I always assumed that since the coins came from the same trip, they must have been from the same location. As it turned out, two were from St. Stephen Basilica while the other was from Buda Castle.
It was surprising to find that the majority of my Israel coins were not cataloged. Most were nicely labeled and just needed to be scanned in. Even more confusing were the South African ECs, which have been in my possession for as long as I can remember, yet were not documented anywhere.
Back on the domestic side, I updated the trade list with a few Washington DC coins, left over from earlier request when I was going to DC more regularly for penny pressing trips. There are a few Smithsonian museums I’ve yet to visit, such as the Castle, the Museum of American History, and the Museum of American Art. I’ll start tackling the ECs Jennifer and Adam pressed for me next, as soon as I find them among the unpacked boxes.
Wow, has it really been so long since my last post? Shortly after the October post, I fell into deep depression over the state of my apartment. Note to all serious collectors: Do not move into a basement apartment with slow Internet connection, it’s detrimental to your hobby, among other things.
I just moved out and had my first house warming party, so I figure I should celebrate on getting a grip on the mess I left behind.
Special thanks to all those who visited my site during my long absence. Special special thanks to Jennifer and Adam, who’ve been sending me coins continuously.
What Happened in Savannah
I did end up going to Savannah, but didn’t exactly return with 32 pennies. Some of the designs were not working, plus I don’t remember where I packed all my coins. They’ll turn up eventually.
New ECs from Dockside Seafood Restaurant Savannah, GA
I’ve been pinning to go for over a year now. One of our company’s clients is close to Savannah and that was said to be a worthy trip, with good food and night life to look forward to after work. I also really wanted to go after reading “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” It’s such a romantic book and I definitely want to see Mercer House when I finally go.
I’m flying out of DC on Sunday morning, spending the day in the city, attend a meeting on Monday, then turn around and hop back on the plane again. For the day I’m in Savannah, I’m hoping to visit a few places:
Aside from the Bass Pro Shop, everything is within half a mile.
The meeting on Monday will also take me close to Pooler, GA, where I hope to visit the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum. Finally, I’m driving to Albany, GA on Monday night. I might have a minute to go to the Flint RiverQuarium before driving again to the final destination in Dothan, AL.
It’ll be a long trip. But if all goes well, I’ll be looking at 32 new coins when I get back 
Over Labor Day weekend, Andy and I visited the local Potawatomi Zoo. A few years ago, the old machine was replaced with brand new penny designs. Being so close from home, I never planned to visit to get the new coins. It was because there was a few minutes of spare time, and the Asian grocery store I shop was near by, that we went to crank out the new pennies this time.
But the Potawatomi Zoo is worth visiting if you were in the area. I can’t say it’s very different from all the other zoos across the country, but it has its own charm. Ride the Zoo Train, it’s my favorite.
New ECs from Potawatomi Zoo South Bend, IN
I recently moved to Walkersville, MD and it took me weeks before being able to post imagines online. Not that I was great at updating the blog before, but having all the coins packed up in 10 different boxes tend to handicap organization process.
The biggest problem, after fishing out all the coins from various nooks and crannies, was getting Internet connection. My new apartment has a wireless network that only my laptop can connect to, my scanner has an outdated cable connection that only hooks up to my desktop, and I have no cross-over cable to connect my desktop to my laptop. Luckily, my buddy Suhail loaned me his USB to transfer the files. I scanned 20 coins from the San Diego Zoo and posted them up just now.
New ECs from San Diego Zoo San Diego, CA
I finally found a store that sells heavy duty, double row, 14 inch, 2×2 coin storage boxes (in red). It charges an arm and a leg for shipping, but who doesn’t nowadays. Check out Wizard Coin Supply
Jennifer sent me an email one weekend, saying that she was at Ithaca with Adam. At first I thought Adam was socializing with the good peers at Cornell, after all Ph.D. students meet and toss around dissertation ideas, right? But she explained that, instead of visiting the Hampton, like the rest of the Manhattan crowds, the two of them opted to go hiking around Ithaca’s gorges instead.
The last time I was in the area was 1998. I was accepted to Cornell’s summer college program, made some friends in similar predicament, and a group of us walked by a local waterfall to satisfy the urging of our eager parents, all of whom spent thousands of dollars for us to attend the program and wanted to live vicariously through every dollar.
There’s me! A decade younger and not at all enjoying the beautiful surroundings.
Jennifer and Adam seemed to have a good time. Both of them are much more athletic than I was and they did drive 5 hours for the view. They visited Taughannock Falls, which is slightly higher than the American side of the Niagara Falls. From the pictures they took, it was a good trip.
What I can’t figure out is, how did they end up in Watkins Glen?
Almost an hour drive, directly west of Ithaca, is Watkins Glen. The town is supposed to be scenic, being at the tip of Fingers Lake. But Watkins Glen is most well known for auto racing, something that neither my family nor Adam’s (as far as I can tell) is interested in.
As it turned out, the shop where they rolled the pennies was in Schuyler, directly outside of the park’s entrance. Penny designs can be deceiving.
New ECs from Watkins Glen Schuyler, NY
