Probably one of the coins I was most excited about buying a couple weeks ago (when I went back home to visit my parents.) My old LCS had a box of a few items they wanted to show me before they sent them off to someone they trust (to sell.) Most of the box was pretty ho-hum, seen it before, nothing special. But this coin...this coin stood out so much to me that I instantly knew I wanted to add it to my collection. I honestly didn't think they'd even sell it to me (one of the owners is German by heritage and quite often gets really, really particular when selling anything German) - so I knew I would have to make a strong opening offer or they'd just put it in their trays (just in case someone down the road would might to buy it - they do this kind of thing to me all the time.) Well, I made an offer that was above what Krause showed for the retail price of the coin, and they accepted. I present to you my newest German States coin commemorating peace after a victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870: KM 252 "Zu des Deutschen Reiches" (To the German Empire) "Friedens Feier" (Celebrating peace) Thanks for checking it out!
Baden is really interesting--while basically everyone else in 19th century pre-Prussian-Empire-Germany was only making commemoratives in thaler or gulden (or gold) denominations, Baden has a really lovely series of kruezer commems. Nice find.
Just a quick update: After staying up until 2 am reading about the unification of German states into the German Empire (as well as the preceding Napoleonic Wars and Franco-Prussian War) and THEN dreaming about defending a nuclear power plant from Godzilla-like creatures...using only a garden hose set to "mist"... ...I'd like to report that this coin has been sitting at NGC waiting to be graded for almost three months. And they keep extending their turnaround times. Sigh.
They're probably experiencing about two years worth of submissions coming in all at once. It's understandable.
I'm not so sure that it's understandable. It takes them a month to just open and log items. Then it's at least a few more months to grade. I'm getting the impression that something is wrong but they aren't admitting it. The parent company (Certified Collectibles Group) of NGC was purchased by Blackstone over the summer and I wonder if they are cutting costs (or are changing the way things are run in a way that has backfired). Just one example is their Instagram rep. The guy that used to run that account was very helpful, would reply quickly, and was engaged with the community. A few months ago I tried asking a question and got ghosted. I later found out that the original guy had been replaced and that the account was much less active.
