Notes from California

For the past few days I have been in California attending a programming conference. The conference was helpful, but my trip was supposed to be a whole lot more fun because Meg was planning on joining me. On Monday I screwed up big time and caused us to miss our flight. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided on the time we needed to leave the house. I'm not sure I was really thinking at all. We then waited three hours for another flight. We got on that plane, but before take off we were removed from the plane. I can't really explain it; we had boarding passes. It was really stressful and meant we'd have to wait seven more hours before we left. Meg decided to stay home at that point. It was the right decision as our the time we would get to spend together was greatly shortened. It was a tough decision.

On my previous trips to California I had more time to source, search and dump coins and so this year I just couldn't get through as much. I did, however, have one good bank find. One of the last banks I visited had a whole bunch of mint set rolls (these were sold directly by the mint and can usually be sold on E-Bay for a premium). I found five Sacagawea mint set rolls (2002D, 2004D, 2005D, 2 x unknown) and five half dollar mint set rolls (2003P, 2 x 2003D, 2005D, 2006D).



91 large dollars and 116 half dollars only produced one 40% silver half (1968D).

I also came across three Presidential dollar coins I hadn't found before, 2008D Van Buren, 2009D William Henry Harrison and 2009D James Polk. I couldn't find any rolls of 2009D John Tyler. I found a single one, but I spent it by mistake! Ugh.

I rounded up 32,050 pennies and in them I found ninety-six Wheats, thirty Canadians, eleven US dimes, one Bahamas 1¢ and one plastic penny. In the mix I found a new variety, the 2009D Professional Life. I also came across a nice blank planchet (I'll have to weigh it when I get home to see if it's 95% copper penny or a copper plated penny. The Wheats were:

1913, 1940S, 1942(3), 1942D, 1944(5), 1944D, 1944S(4), 1945(3), 1946(2), 1946D(3), 1946S(2), 1949S(3), 1950(2), 1950S, 1951S(3), 1952S(5), 1953D, 1953S(4), 1954S, 1955(2), 1956(5), 1956D(13), 1957(2), 1957D(12), 1958, 1958D(12)

Found: 27 pennies (15 at Mollie Stones), 1 nickel (at Mollie Stones), 6 dime (1 in my rental car), 1 quarter (at the airport)

Halloween

Yesterday was Henry's second Halloween. In the morning we went to a party with Meg's mom friends and Henry's little buddies. It was timed perfectly for naps and the kids did pretty well together, although they didn't want to pose for group photograph. In the evening we brought Henry out trick-or-treating with his two cousins. Henry only went to six houses, but had a lot of fun. His behavior was better than I could have ever imagined. Meg and I were very proud of him.







This week's halves were very poor. 8,000 of them produced two 40% silver halves (1967, 1968D), one proof half (1971S) and one commemorative (1989S Bicentennial of the Congress). Finding the new commemorative helped things out a lot. I've found the circulation strike version of that coin before, but this is the first time I've found the proof type. 767,897 were minted.

Found: 4 pennies (1 at Home Depot, 1 at CVS, 2 at Target), 1 nickel (at Target)

Last night's coins were so-so.

37 large dollars, 13 small dollars and 96 halves didn't produce anything.

3,240 quarters turned up one Canadian, one US dime, one US nickel and an Austrian 5 Schilling.

500 dimes and 280 nickels yielded just one key date Jefferson, the 1949S.

2,650 pennies produced seventeen Wheats, nineteen Canadians and one Euro 2¢ (Ireland, 2003). The Wheats were:

1917, 1940, 1944, 1945, 1946(4), 1947D, 1947S, 1948, 1950, 1952D(2), 1957, 1957D, 1958

Found: 1 penny (at Stop & Shop), 2 dimes (at Stop & Shop) and 1 quarter (at Stop & Shop)

New Words

New words seem to be coming pretty steadily from Henry. Last night I he pointed to a few flags in a book and said, "flag." It was a bit difficult to discern, but if I paid attention closely I could hear all the letters in his pronunciation. Henry's also said "outside" and "cookie" lately.

In addition to saying new words he's also been "counting." Now when we ask him how many of a particular item he sees he often points to each instance and "counts" by utter some sound. I think he's just gotten used to us pointing and courting off the various things in his books.

Last night's pennies treated me very well. 6,450 of them turned up thirty-two Wheats, fifty-six Canadians, two US dimes and one UK penny. In this batch was a new Wheat variety for me, the 1928S! 17,266,000 were minted. I also got another clipped penny and a penny with JFK's portrait stamped into it. The Wheats were:

1913, 1928S, 1929, 1936, 1937, 1940, 1941(2), 1942, 1944(2), 1944D, 1945, 1945S, 1948, 1950, 1951(2), 1953, 1953D(2), 1955(3), 1956(2), 1956D(2), 1957, 1957D(2), 1958D



This morning I finished reading another book, Lake Ngami, or Explorations and Discoveries during Four Year' Wanderings in the the Wilds of South West Africa, by Charles J. Andersson (1827-1867). The book was originally published in 1856. The copy I have is a reprint done by Rediscovery Books in 2006. The facsimile is pretty good, except that the prints are clearer on Google Books and the map is printed so small as to be almost unusable.

The narrative details expedition Andersson made with Francis Galton to explore what is now Namibia. Their goal was to reach Lake Ngami. Most of the journey was completed by riding oxen and was done on the cheap. Galton went home to England before the completion of their goal and Andersson continued and completed the quest. Sadly, when Lake Ngami was reached the results were a bit disappointing.

The book like a lot of narratives from this era is lengthy (530+ pages). Andersson has personal writing style that was easy to read once I got used to the mid-19th century wording and included many stories about the peoples and wildlife of the area that I enjoyed. The many prints throughout the book are fantastic. The cover of the reprint gives some idea of the others. I'm looking forward to reading Andersson's two other books about his African travels and one day reading Galton's book on the first half of this expedition (I was able to find a map from Galton's book online and that was very helpful to have while reading the first half of this book).

Just a quick coin update ...

7 halves didn't have anything.

1,800 quarters produced five Canadians and one US nickel.

1,950 dimes yielded one silver Rosie (1964D) and seven Canadians.

960 nickels turned up one Canadian.

5,000 pennies rounded up thirty Wheats, thirty-two Canadians and one US dime. In the mix was a penny that had the state of Missourri stamped on the obverse of it. The Wheats were:

1941(3), 1944(5), 1945(2), 1946(4), 1950, 1950D, 1951S, 1952(2), 1952D, 1953D, 1956, 1956D(2), 1957(2), 1957D(3), 1958D

Whole Lotta Nothing

12,000 quarters yielded three Canadians, two Bermuda 25¢, one UK 10 pence and one washer.

150 dimes, 40 nickels and 100 pennies turned up one Wheat (1944).

Found: 1 nickel (at Wendy's)

Enjoying the Fall

Today despite Henry being a little sick still Meg and I got to enjoy the nice season. We didn't want him near other kids so we decided to spend the day outside at the nearby botanical garden. We had a lot fun just being outside together and at this time of the year the place is beautiful.







At the bank on Friday things started pretty well for me, a teller saved me a silver dime (1958D). My boxes didn't look so good with no silver showing, but in the end I did alright. 8,020 halves had three 90% silver halves (1939D, 1964, 1964D) and twenty-nine 40% silver halves (2 x 1965, 3 x 1966, 7 x 1967, 12 x 1968D, 5 x 1969D). The new variety made the batch for me.