A visit from Benjamin and Emma

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COIN ROLL HUNTING

No Ikes last week as the local operations manager couldn't get in touch with the vault manager about getting more until it was too late. She was able to order another $1000.00 for this week but it is the last remaining amount they have or can order in Washington (each state has it's own cash vault). Hopefully I'll go out with a bang.

As for my weekly order of $3000.00 in halves, I had pretty decent luck considering the amount of skunk boxes I've seen recently. I scored about 8 silvers total, including my first ever Benjamin half, dated 1958. Benjamin half dollars are composed of 90% silver and were minted prior to the Kennedy series, from 1938 to 1963. (sorry, forgot to snag a picture so the below is a stock photo from the internet).

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METAL DETECTING

Received my metal detector back from Fisher Labs on Saturday. The note they included with the shipment stated that my coil was defective and so they replaced it for free, which is nice, but it makes me wonder what I missing. Anyway, I headed out early Sunday morning to West Seattle again but didn't have much luck - only finding sparse modern coinage. Perhaps my good finds from earlier were beginners luck?

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OTHER STUFF


On Tuesday I had my third softball game with a bunch of the folks here @ Motricity, and as with previous games, we were destroyed. It was a double header and we lost both games due to mercy rules, being outscored 26-8 in the first game and 29-3 in the second game. To give you an idea of the skill level the players that make up our team, notable outs for us in one game included accidentally throwing the bat at the umpire, stepping completely out of the batters box to swing, and leading off from first base. We've been known to slide into first, run through second / third base, stand off first base and tag out batters (instead of just touching the bag). I'd even venture to say that lazy ol' me is one of the most athletic folks on the team.

Turning to the professional side of sports, Erin and I headed to a Mariners game on Friday, which turned out to be a fantastic day. The weather was perfect and the seats were great - we definitely had a blast.



I leave you with a picture of the famed Emma, who is planning to visit Seattle in the coming month and should hopefully give Riley a run for this money.

Happy Mother's Day!

"Happy Mother's Day" means more,
than have a happy day.
Within those words lie many things,
we never get to say.
It means "I love you" first of all,
then thanks for all you do.
It means you mean a lot to us,
and that we honor you.

But most of all it means to us,
that we're thinking of your happiness,
on this, your day, Mother's Day,
with pleasure and with love.

Ok, so I overestimated a bit ...

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COIN ROLL HUNTING

Received another $1000 bag of Ikes this week and oddly enough, again found two American Eagle silver dollars and two 40% silver 1971 Ikes. Still no Peace or Morgan dollars, but I have another bag coming in tomorrow so I'm crossing my fingers. Not that I'm complaining ...

My luck with half-dollars has been less that stellar over the past few weeks. My estimate is that after searching through around $6000 in boxes (that's 12 boxes), I've found at most about 10 silver halves. That's pretty crappy luck, but ever crappy box brings me one box closer to a real winner

Regarding this post's title, the first of my eBay auctions of the Ike dollars finished up this weekend and my estimates on profit were a little be higher (ok way higher) than what was realized. Here's the breakdown:

Total Ikes Sold on eBay: 625
Total Cost: $625.00 (from the bank)
Total Sale Price: $727.28
Total eBay Fees: $28.69
Total Shipping Cost: $27.85

Net Profit: 45.74

Not awful, but certainly not 160% of the cost. Considering the amount of time I spent counting, packing, and shipping them - along with the gas burned to-and-from the USPS office, I'm thinking I'll just haul them into my local bank instead and just get face value ...

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METAL DETECTING

Still haven't received my metal detector back from the lab yet, so no metal detecting updates..

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OTHER STUFF

Erin came down with something on Friday night so she was horizontal for most the weekend. As for me, I've starting playing a new PC game a friend introduced me to called Mythos by Flagship Studios. It's currently in pre-release (beta) stage so it's not available to the public, but I was able to get access to it through a mutual friend who is a software developer currently working on the game. It's a pretty fun hack-and-slash role-playing game, similar to Diablo 2 and designed / written but many of the folks who were part of the original Diablo development team at Blizzard Entertainment.

That's all for now!

Weekend Update - 04/27/08

This week I got my first of hopefully many bags of Eisenhower (Ike) dollars from the bank I order boxes of coins from. It's basically impossible to find Ikes or any other large dollar nowadays in circulation and except for one case, none of the local bank branches I have visited around here have had any for sale. I just happened to be lucky enough to stop by soon after someone else had deposited them.

Banks obviously don't request them so I guess the majority of them are in collector's hands or sitting in central bank vaults across the country gathering dust. They don't like to ship them around either and I had to bribe my teller friend to work her magic on the central bank vault manager so that she would be willing to send them to me.

You may think I'm crazy to order these $1000.00 bags of coins, but there is logic behind it:

1. You stand a chance of finding 40% silver Ikes, Proof Ikes, and if you're really lucky an older %90 silver dollar like a Peace or Morgan dollar.

2. Because of the difficulty in obtaining these dollars, you can sell even heavily circulated and scuffed Ikes for a premium on eBay - normally 160%-180% of face value!

So anyway, now that you understand my logic, time to share my finds. In my first bag I considered myself extremely lucky as I found (2) circulated 1971s 40% silver dollars (worth about $6.00 each) and to my surprise, two Silver Eagle dollars! Silver Eagles are composed of 99.9% pure silver, weigh in at exactly an ounce, and are slightly larger than traditional Ike dollars. Since Silver Eagles are basically a ounce of pure silver, they are worth the current market value which as of today is about $17.00.

If you calculate it all out...

2 * 6.00 = 12.00
2 * 17.00 = 34.00
996 * 1.60 = 1593.00

Total: 1639.00
Profit: $639.00 + fun!





Also of note this week, I received my new toy digital microscope camera to make examining coins and identifying valuable error varieties easier on my eyes. Even better, you can take great zoomed shots of interesting things like my shaved face!




And finally, Erin and I visited WSU. If only she would post, you would know all about it!

Token Info

I ended up getting in touch with King County and they provided me with the following details regarding the transit token I found last week. Seattle Transit was the predecessor to today's Metro Transit. It provided service between 1939 and 1972. The token was issued as a convenience for travelers and this version of the token was distributed between 1940 and 1948. In 1949, the stylized name Evro. M. Beckett, was removed from the bottom of the token. Evro Beckett was one of the three original original members appointed to the Seattle Transit Commission.

Thanks to Sarah Driggs from the Department of Transportation for digging up this info!

Tardy Post

No really interesting finds to report this week which is my excuse for being tardy. My main detector is on it's way (if not there already) to El Paso, TX to get upgraded and bench-tested so that sort of killed my metal detecting. There was nothing wrong with it per-say, but an upgrade was available and it never hurts to get your metal detector bench tested at least once after purchasing it. Estimated time in the shop is two weeks so I'm thinking I'll get it back in either late next week or the week following.

We did have some welcome guests this weekend as my Aunt Sue and Uncle Murray were in town and we met with them for a three hour dinner at Ray's Boathouse. We had a wonderful time with them and they were able to see the town-home and the kids for the first time.

Erin's been busy studying for her first exam (takes place today - wish her luck) and so her life has been even more boring than mine. Oh well, as they say, "No news is good news!".

Oh ... and the picture below is Erin's fault.

Hells Angels on Ice

Looks like there is a new breed of biker gang invading the slopes of Colorado's rockies. The two subjects pictured below are suspected to be the ring leaders of the gang, a husband and wife duo known to be extremely dangerous. Be forewarned!