Coin Search Step-By-Step

Here’s a rundown of what specific actions I take with a new bag or box or roll of wheaties to be searched. It’s basic, and of course doesn’t contain “The Moves”, which are derived from Magic in the Mirror — MiM — in order to handle the coins efficiently and effectively. I’ll assume that the coins are already separated out into decades. If not, they’ll have to be separated out before beginning a search, because you can only compare coins with other coins of the same decade, when grading, or you’ll get entirely baffled by the sudden changes in quality, so the general rule is ALWAYS SEARCH BY DECADE.

So, you’ve got a bag of TEENS, TWENTIES, THIRTIES, FORTIES or FIFTIES coins. Let’s begin a search on them. Put the bag nearby on the floor or on a very strong table.

  • FIRST ACTION — Open the bag.
  • SECOND ACTION — Reach into the bag and scoop out a handful of coins.
  • THIRD ACTION — Place the handful of coins on your right on the velvet search pad.
  • FOURTH ACTION — Put on your Opti-Visors. I use #7, fairly strong ones, these days.
  • FIFTH ACTION — Arrange the pile of coins on your right into piles of about 10 coins each.
  • SIXTH ACTION — Take the first pile of ten coins and FAN or SPREAD them out in front of you where the light hits them perfectly, so you can see every detail.
  • SEVENTH ACTION — FLIP or TURN OVER the coins so they all face downward, wheats up.
  • EIGHTH ACTION — FLIP your Opti-Visor down so you can see the coin’s surface through them clearly and easily, and CHECK THE COINS for any sign of “quality”, meaning that there are some lines still in the wheat ears. You want to take out anything that isn’t TOTALLY FLAT — absolutely every sign of value or quality.
  • NINTH ACTION — Place any GRADABLE coin FACE DOWN, WHEATS UP, on the velvlet pad, to your LEFT, in a separate pile.
  • TENTH ACTION — FLIP the remaining coins in the spread FACE UP, to reveal the date and mint mark, if there is a mint-mark. Remember that coins produced at the Philadelphia Mint never carry a “p” mint mark, although in other denominations there are exceptions to this rule, notably the wartime nickel.
  • ELEVENTH ACTION — PLACE the coins in the correct piles, starting with the lowest date on the left. All mint-mark coins should be stacked FACE UP in the far center, slightly to the right, building stacks of about 15 coins.
  • TWELFTH ACTION — Scoop up the stacks of coins into tubes and label each tube as you fill and cap it.

Now all that remains is to store the tubes in boxes until they are needed. I’ll now do a step-by-step rundown on how to handle the coins from search to sale: Continue reading

Gorby’s Best Grading Skill-Builder

If you ask me, what’s my best grading skill-builder, I’d have no hesitation in saying that it’s my 1940-1958 “s” mint-mark pennies, that range all the way from G4 to AU-57 and sometimes MS-60 BN, which is common enough to make mention of it.

The BEST GRADING SKILL BUILDER comes in packs of 100 coins at $25 per package, just a hair below my actual cost of acquisition of those coins.

Sure, I lose in the short run, but I assure you that I DO make it up in volume, and it’s not about net profit, it’s all about cash-flow, as any accountant will tell you.

If you’re planning on using these coins to help others gain these skills, you don’t sort or pre-sort these coins, except to build your own skills — they should be poured out onto the table for the trainee just as they came to you in the plastic ziplock baggie. Continue reading

Holiday Shopping Ideas

 

We all want to find that perfect Xmas present — the one that packs small but plays big, that looks like a million and costs like a candy bar. Well, bunkie, you’ve come to the right Huckster Booth!

So let’s build a Holiday Gifting List a little differently this year. I’ll post a few of my personal favorites from my collections on zazzle. Lemme show ya a couple of cheapie stocking-stuffers that will blow your mind:

Continue reading

One Day Is All You Get

Della appeared at the gallery as we set up the small booths.

Living life, you only get one day at a time, no matter how it may seem. The illusions of passages and connectivity and coincidence control create a condition of deep, deep sleep.

Waking up from that zombie sleep can be tricky and difficult, if you don’t know exactly how to go about stimulating the waking state — there isn’t any other way.

Banging the Waking State on the head won’t open the door.

Get the job done right. Join the Gallery Group and take a bite of responsibility and right action.

Your first job is to get with the group, the POG — Pack Of Green.

If you have no experience in our D2 Safaris, get some. Everything you do in the gallery space will depend largely on your spiritual growth through the interactions experienced in the Safari runs.

The Gallery is a common space where many dimensions intersect.

You are expected to develop a working wormhole from your home universe or dimension — that’s “where you live”, which may be defined as: “Where you park your cell phone”.

Think of your Cubby, Cubicle, Divider Wall or Jewelry Booth as your face. Continue reading

The Next Step

Now that you’ve joined the Ashram for $30 a month and gotten a place in the gallery — either a cubby at $100 per month or a booth for $200 a month or both — it’s time to look at the program.

You are now part of a team.

That team operates in the subtle plane, but manifests clearly and tangibly in the gallery as a group of artists and artisans.

The art varies widely, as does the crafting. Materials and methods are very much unique to each of the experienced artists of our Grass Valley Graphics Group, and that creates a lot of excitement in visitors to our space.

Because we specialize in miniature works of art, our walls are filled with lots of interesting things to see. People tend to stay longer in the gallery precisely because there are so many paintings, drawings, sketches, embossings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings and more, and the longer they linger the more likely they’ll shop, meaning you get the sale.

How the support boils down is that whenever we have some surplus, it can be applied to promotion and publicity, but keep in mind that money can’t buy you love, and you can quote me on that! Continue reading

Gallery Strategies

So you’ve found a great, natural wood-floor, well-lit gallery space, and you rented it. Now what are you going to fill it up with?

My first answer would normally be “Nothing”.

Me, I’d leave the gallery totally empty except for a few very large, very impressive celebrity art in the form of paintings or other types of hanging pieces, and maybe a few full-length sculptures, a meeting area on a luxury Persian carpet, and that’s it.

My preference is to make a few good sales a year, rather than keep the register going “ka-ching”, but that’s not how we’re going to run this gallery, because there’s a lot more at stake here than celebrity art and celebrity artists.

We have a work community. Continue reading

Mass-Murdering Fuckhead?

Hey, I wasn’t the one to say it first in public. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yuliz Cruz said “I am done being politically correct. I am mad as hell. This is genocide.”

Meanwhile, Mass-Murdering Fuckhead Donald Trump tweeted back, “The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.”

Human suffering means nothing to him. Death and destruction mean nothing, no matter to whom they happen, but to brown and black people, he doubles down on not caring.

Donald Trump is going to go down in history as a Mass-Murdering Fuckhead, just like Adolf Hitler, although you can’t get anyone to believe that, quite yet, but wait, you’ll see what happens, and Donald’s name will be besmirched forever.

He doesn’t care how it happens, as long as he stays more famous than Obama, he could care less how history sees him, and as an advanced Altzheimer patient and paranoid-schizophrenic with delusions of poverty, he couldn’t give two shits, and he doesn’t.

The reason he’s totally shameless is that he really, really doesn’t care.

Nothing means anything to Donald Trump. He has no reality on anything around him, and very little reality even on his own self.

In short, he comes up short. Continue reading

Greatest Kid’s Gift Ever

 

No matter how strapping and healthy I might be at age 76, and the issue is still in doubt, but getting better every day — I’m a short-timer on Planet Earth, and I’m not making any long-term personal plans that might involve the 22nd century.

I guess you’d place me in the “Oh, go f*ck yourself” stage of life, meaning that there’s nothing they can do to this country or to the national standards of decency and honesty that has any long-term effect on me, but Hell, that’s been true since the day I took rebirth, and it’s not likely to ever change, not now, not ever.

As for building personal wealth, I’ve had a running battle with government for years on the subject of Voluntary Poverty as a way of life that is accepted, but have not had much luck on that front.

I have no retirement fund, and no plans to build one. No medical insurance, if they take away medicare. I’m shit out of luck on that front. My only concern is that I’m not a burden, and I’ve done what I had to in order for that to happen. I’ve made sure that my personal voluntary poverty will at least do no harm.

Personal Poverty is one thing, cultural poverty quite another, and in this country, culture has gone rapidly downhill toward the days of Ancient Greece, Rome and Sumer, not to mention Babylon. Continue reading

Trump is a 4-Letter Word

 

Trump is a 4-Letter Word. It’s properly used in a sentence as in: “Trump you”, or “Go Trump yourself”, and can be applied correctly in this way: “Trumpsucker” or “Trumpfucker”, making it obvious that the word “Trump” is far more obsce than “fucker”, but I digress, and I haven’t even started yet.

Trump makes a habit of attacking people. I don’t have that habit, but thanks to our stupid and clearly insane leader, I’m learning.

But, like I said before, Trump Trump — there’s no time to hassle his world, no energy to take in the news every day, day after day, no room to fit the overflow of information about Trump. Try to spend the entire day never once saying “Trump”. Good luck on that. You’ll be muttering his name constantly, until he gets himself impeached.

That’s why I say, “Trump Trump” — I gotta concentrate on making a living, and at the age of 76, that’s no longer an easy task — it’s barely possible.

 

 

Maybe you’re in the same situation. Almost everyone is, these days, thanks to Trump’s incessant need for praise and public scorn. They go hand in hand, in case you didn’t know.

So — are you living from paycheck to paycheck or worse? What I mean is, are you living from day to day? That puts you in the “day-laborer” category, whether you know it or not.

If you’re living from hour to hour, that’d place you on a street, in a subway or sleeping in an all-night theater.

You need some cash, and fast.

Do you dine frequently in the local cafeteria? Do you count out the change when you board a bus? Are you worried that you might not have enough money in your bank account to cover the check you’re about to write? Has your credit card been chopped up by your mate?

If the answer to any of those questions is “Yes”, you’re in more trouble than I thought, and there might not be any hope.

 

 

Oh, Hell, we can always hope. Let’s hope. Are you hoping yet?

Kind of a “Mr. Rogers” way of handling things, eh? Can you spell “Up shit’s creek”???

It’s so simple to pull yourself out of it, but will you do it? Do you have the will, and if not, can you borrow the will?

I want to send you to a website page. When you get there, please scroll all the way down the page to note all the items. It took me an entire evening’s work to hang those there, and many thousands of hours to produce them in the first place.

Keep in mind that these are FREEBIES in the sense that YOU pay the same as I pay for these items, except that I have to order 24 at a time, but YOU can order just a six-pack carton to try out a title to see how it sells, or to use for an event that relates to the item.

These FREEBIES carry small versions of images that I sell and have sold throughout the decades for hundreds of dollars, and they are all available through Redbubble as prints, posters, metal prints, stretched canvas and  acrylic block prints, as well as a variety of additional products featured on Redbubble.

The presentation and premium value of these items cannot be overestimated. They make incredible corporate gifts, personal and family gifts, get-well gifts, wedding, anniversary, birthday, graduation, baby shower, baptism, confirmation, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and indeed any other holiday or festive occasion, including Celebrations of Life for short-timers who want to, as it were, attend their own wake.

 

 

These collectible tins come in two sizes, 3 ounce and 7 ounce, and the official worldwide wholesale price is $6.20 per tin. Keep that number in mind. Actually, memorize it.

The retail is $12.50, but you can vary this as $12.95 or $12.99 if you like those numbers better. They all work — I’m convinced that it’s a matter of superstition that one price tag makes more sales than another, and I’d be inclined to try $11.99 as a better alternative, but you’ll never really know what makes a looky-loo into a cash customer.

There are a wide variety of images on these things, but keep in mind that, no matter what they look like, THEY ARE ALWAYS THE SAME PRODUCT.

It’s just one product, called “The Product”.

Properly marketed — which means I need about $20,000 to make this happen — we’d put a single product into bulk form, dispense and package it up at need, and have a wide variety of images that could be put on the product, all of which make the product collectible.

Collectible tins. They can hold buttons, seeds, sea shells, antique iron keys and so much more. They can be traded, and in the case of the illustrations and fine art images, they can be collected in groups, if you can manage to connect the dots, which means, in a nutshell, that I put the things up as they came up on the screen, not in any particular order.

Consequently, you’ll inevitably find a few doubles that appear in two or more places at once, which is a feature — actually, it’s quite explainable as an effect of quantum entanglement, where a single object is bilocating — they do that, in my world, and it makes it hard as Hell to keep track of who’s who, and where they are, exactly.

 

 

Okay, so the point is that these FREEBIES are useful as marketing tools. They can be given as a premium in a much higher dollar sale, or placed at every place on a board table at a marketing meeting, or sold as “samples” at a mall, or sold in a fair, in a shop or taken into any kind of shop from beauty supply to builders & consumers lumber yards.

Every imaginable tie-in is available, and if it doesn’t already exist, I’ll make it for you and put it up for you.

If you want more than one six-pack flat, contact me. If you want any flavor other than DOUBLE DUTCH, you’ll have to order 24 tins or more to get the design through their process. They won’t run less than 24, unless the order comes from zazzle — that’s the only exception, and that’s part of a promotion operation that might not last forever.

What I mean is, get off your ass and DO something.

If you’ve wanted some of my artwork, or vintage historical photos and more, this is your ONE opportunity to get them in this great, saleable art-form that is SO inexpensive.

I’ve never had any of my artwork up for sale this cheap.

$6.20 per Unit of Product.

Again, don’t forget that important word, “Product”. It’s the only word you need to describe what you handle, use and sell.

It’s a magic product.

 

 

The magic is in the Blessing, but also partly in the image — but the image and the package have a greater use. They invite the buyer to bring this powerful magic into their lives.

Please take advantage while we still have the freedom and the means is still here for us.

FIRST COLLECTION

There are two WHOLESALE ONLY collections at this time. Here’s the link for the second one, which I’ve just completed this morning, about an hour ago, before working on this blog.

SECOND COLLECTION

Those two pages will give you more than enough to get started selling. You can use those pages as catalogs, and the whole idea is to shift the customer away from the basic six-pack order to a 24-count totally custom product for their business or shop or family event, so you can get a percentage out of it.

If they only want the six-pack, let them select and buy right there on zazzle. I’ll protect you on any custom orders, so not to worry about losing the sale.

Think of all these pieces on zazzle as merely samples. The real sale happens when you take an order for 1000 units or more of a single title.

See You At The Top!!!

gorby

YOU WIN!!!

 

 

Not only can you buy a 3 oz. tin of drink mix on my wholesale pages on zazzle, but you can also buy the 7 ounce tin, which I wasn’t going to introduce at all, but here it is, delivered by zazzle! The price of the 3 ounce tin is $6.40 apiece, and the large 7 ounce tin is only $8.40!

Hey, a major breakthrough came through last night, thanks to my friend, Marketing Angel Archangel Zadkiel, who suggested this rather novel and eminently workable scheme, in which I list hundreds of buyable wholesale-priced — that’s $6.40 a tin — products, at the base wholesale price, disregarding the fact that I get a lousy quarter for each item in the bargain, but before you sigh out of pity, let me explain:

The Wholesale Hustle

Okay what the hell is a wholesale hustle? I really don’t know, but it had such a mellifluous ring to it that I could hardly refuse to duly exercise my digits accordingly to bring this concept to type. In short, the title is itself a hustle to get you interested, and me whipped into a frenzy of explanation to help you over the few higher hurdles of POD Marketing.

First of all, I’ve spent the past several days feverishly — some would say haphazardly, but they’d be wrong — working out the math on the wholesale end of the drink powders, which is all I’m going for, at the moment.

What I wanted to do was make hundreds or thousands of package and label designs, and yet have the luxury of not having to actually order the items and store them, let alone pay for them.

I developed a line of interesting drink packages both iced and hot, and made hundreds of designs, all of which work, but you can’t see, so you can’t order them, and I can’t make that happen without a great deal of personal effort and a lot of time that I really can’t spare. Continue reading