LEAVES

     I'm watching my Best Friend's child with her grandparents. Things are going normally until she has to share the television. Grandma wanted to watch something and O the affront to this little girl's sensibilities!

     I get an idea to go rake the leaves in the yard and make them into as big a pile as her backyard's leaf litter will currently allow. The Child is watching me through the sliding glass door, still obviously upset.

     As the leaf pile grew, I started gesturing to her frowny face to come outside but she would ignore me which was not exactly a problem as there were still quite a lot of leaves to organize.

     Finally, she came outside but was still visibly upset because I refused to put on Ruby & Max for her so that her grandma could watch something she had been wanting to see. At first, she was mad, irrationally yelling at me through tears to "put the leaves back." She wanted me to unrake them which is about as silly as it sounds but then I don't pretend to fathom the intricate workings of a 4½ year old brain and calmly told her that I couldn't do that.

     After a few more plaintive attempts to get me to put the leaves back, she grabbed an armful of leaves and dumped them on a cleared portion of grass. I was in no way mad at her for doing this as interacting with the leaf pile was the plan all along. Instead, I got cartoonishly mad, wildly gesturing while using a silly-sounding "angry" voice that The Child was ruining my leaf pile! Why? WHY??? would she undo all my haaaard work?!! After a few armfuls, I started picking up individual leaves and making quite the overacted announcement that I was adding this leaf to the pile!

     At first she was annoyed but after maybe two or three of these announcements (and following through on them), she started giggling. I had her! Now to convince her to play in the leaf pile instead of trying to destroy it.

     With some encouragement to jump into the leaves by doing so first, she joined me and to no one's shock but her own...she liked it! Now I play-chased her around with the intent of "getting her" and she did what I hoped she'd do...she hid in the leaf pile to which I would get all confused about where she had gone (I was unsuccessful in getting her to say, "Nobody here but us leaves!" as I exaggeratedly wondered aloud where she could possibly have gone), pretending I couldn't see her in her leaf camouflage.

     When she had grown tired of our silly games, she played on her slide/swing set (it had been a while since I had last pushed her on a swing). I then got the idea to rake up more leaves into the front of her slide. She wanted to help this time so I let her have the rake so she could clumsily try to do what I had been doing but, from my perspective, with a comically oversized rake (it was made for adults after all). She was all-in now with the outdoor fun.

     Eventually she let me have the rake back after some full-hearted attempts to rake & scoop leaves and I got a decent-sized pile going in front of her slide, covering part of the end as well so she'd just barrel on into the leaf pile.

     Unfortunately our time together was at an end but coincidentally she wanted to go inside so playtime ended exactly when it needed to. Childhood Rite of Passage unlocked: played in a leaf pile :-)

DELIBERATELY CIRCULATED: TEN YEARS LATER...

 Once again, I've charged the battery to my 2007 model digital camera to document the current state of gouges, rubbing, and smearing of the designs of various coins I've been carrying in my pocket (in some cases) since 2007 (and in more cases, later than that - the most recent addition, a 2017 New Jersey "America the Beautiful" quarter dollar, started on October 2017)

I don't know if this digital camera will survive to 2025 for the next documenting. It was quite wonky this time like bit rot had begun setting into its circuit boards or something. I'll miss the camera when it goes, especially for this project, as it has the ability to focus much closer in macro mode than my other cameras.

I tried something different with this set of photos and the results look fairly good. I'll still never recapture that 2015 magic but this is a start to something I may use consistently. I put the coin off to the right of the light source and used my hand to shade the coin that it would be lit more by ambient light than directly (which cut out both harsh shadows and overly lit areas where the light reflected into my camera) and photographed it with a longer shutter speed

The largest coins are propped up with a dime but everything from the Susan B. Anthony dollar to the angel token I was able to photograph flat for the first time.

I did, however, forget to adjust the white balance. While this didn't affect the cupronickel coins all that much, it didn't make the cents look really off so I maximally warmed the image to make those coins look more coppery so if they look really off to your non-colorblind eyes, that's why. But they look okay to me so I went with it rather than do a reshoot with a camera increasingly unwilling to cooperate with my commands.

And yes, I'm aware I still have not finished comparing the ATB quarter mintages to those of the Statehood quarter mintages. I still might get around to that.

Might...

Anyway, as always, click on the images to enlarge

2007 Silver American Eagle: about 12-13 years wear

 The rim of this coin is still sharp. I guess it doesn't face circulation pressure in my coin purse set-up. The main parts of the design all show heavy wear now with the top part of the date no longer protected by its recessed area. The E PLURIBUS UNUM on the ribbon in the eagle's mouth is almost entirely gone. The bright spots in all the coin photographs show the remaining protected areas which, for this coin, is still largely the lettering along both sides' edges.

1978-D Eisenhower Dollar: about 11 years wear

1978 Kennedy Half Dollar: about 9-10 years wear

The relief of Kennedy's head at this point in the series (1964-1987) is very high so it's almost impossible to photograph it without harsh shadows but this coin is already more worn than almost every Kennedy half dollar I've ever handled. I only a regular customer back in 2000 who kept a 1964 Kennedy in pocket for many years (for all I know, since 1964) that he'd take out when getting change to pay for his coffee. It had gotten so worn I thought at first it was an old Barber half until I got a better look at it and realized it was indeed a Kennedy half dollar in PO-1 - FAIR-2 condition! If I live long enough, maybe this coin will suffer the same fate :-)

1999-P Susan B. Anthony Dollar: about 13-14 years wear

The obverse is still pock-marked with gouges from all the other coins I carry but the overall design of one of the earliest members of this deliberately circulated club is now about one-third of its way through its expected circulation lifetime of 40 years. I'll be an old man if I'm still carrying this coin until then!

1999-P New Jersey State Quarter: about 13 years wear

Washington's spaghetti hairlines persist but are getting noticeably weaker and the reverse design is well on its way to becoming a silhouette

2017-P New Jersey America the Beautiful Quarter: 5½ years wear

Washington's bust is so flat in this version of his design that his hairlines are already noticeably weaker despite a much shorter time in my coin purse compared to his Statehood counterpart. Either way, much of the reverse design is still sharp but then this coin isn't much more worn than the rest of these coins were when I first photographed them in 2013 for this project

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [first issue]: about 13-14 years wear

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [second issue]: about 13-14 years wear

Both of these Westward Journey nickels are just moving along in their circulation. The lettering for the Ocean in View nickel is getting difficult to read (and not just because I need glasses now!). I'm still waiting for the Jefferson heads to show noticeable circulation. It's very hard to see it with this design.

2001-P Jefferson Nickel: about 13-14 years wear

This coin takes a beating on the reverse area with FIVE CENTS and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It's nearly smoothed out for parts of it and overall, as evidenced by the bright spots in the images, running out of protected areas as the design gets worn down.

2009-P Jefferson Nickel: about 11 years wear

1974-S Lincoln Cent: about 13-14 years wear

I still like that the protected areas have this subtle blue color to them. Overall, Lincoln has taken a beating. The Memorial on the reverse is nearly a silhouette and even the mini-Lincoln within it is no longer protected, showing wear on his li'l legs

2010 Lincoln Cent: 13 years wear

 

You can really see how good the restoration of Lincoln's portrait was for the 2010 issue when you compare it to the 2009 issues. His bust is like proper sculpture whereas the bicentennial issues reveal all the cheats the Mint did to his design make it, I guess, easier and cheaper to strike. I know it only lasted for the 2010 issue though. As soon as 2011 you can see changes made to the design ostensibly so that it would strike up better but for one year we got this glorious restoration. The reverse shows what protected areas remain, showing up rather golden for the cents

 

2009-I Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

The protected areas on the reverse make it look like a log cabin at sunrise or sunset :-) But the protected areas on the obverse of this series of four coins make the Lincoln design look cheap.

2009-II Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

2009-III Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

2009-IV Lincoln Cent: about 11 years wear

Whereas the protected areas on the log cabin design made the image look like a sunset, the protected areas around the unfinished Capitol building make it look like it's on fire :-)

angel token: 10 years wear

Trying to get rid of those caption boxes from accidentally deleted pictures is proving more trouble than it's worth so I'm just letting them be. The white lines on some of the photos are from misalignments when I merged the obverse and reverse photos that I didn't see until posting them here. I'm not fixing them now, however distracting they are to me...

See y'all in two years!

FUN TIMES FORCIBLY OUTDOORS...

      I feel like I should've written about this very soon after it had happened if only for clarity of memory but alas, I did not (also, I seem to be WAY behind posting the very few things I still do write for this blog!)

     Some weeks back, I was asked to come over early on a Friday to babysit Best Friend's daughter and I did, because I love that child dearly. The day looked to be nice weather-wise as well as humidity-wise (and finally too...this Summer had been so brutal!) so we filled up the kiddie pool outside in case the child wanted to play in it (SPOILER ALERT: she totally did want to).

      I was given a list of things to do with her to keep her occupied and told what foods to offer her for lunch when the time came. All was well. The Child wanted to go outside before mommy left and so out we went and naturally, she wanted immediately in the pool so mommy got her bathing suit and into the pool she went!

      Shortly thereafter, mommy had to go and she left me in charge. I kept an eye on her in the pool and when she was done with that, she wanted to play on her swing set/slide. After clearing some ambitious cobwebs and changing her back into her dry clothes (which thankfully she also had outside), I pushed her on the swing for a long time because she just loves chilling on that thing. Not a care in the world, I suppose (although she does demand I push her higher and giggles every time she gets high enough for the chain to go slack and I say, "CHONK!!!" along with the noise that immediately follows)

      Eventually, though, the Child tells me she's hungry and I say, "Okay, let's go inside and get something to eat!" I try the sliding glass door...and it's locked. Mommy absent-mindedly locked the door on us! Undeterred, I took the Child with me around to the front door hoping against hope and, of course, it too had been locked.

     My phone was inside so I wouldn't be able to reach mommy but since this wasn't an emergency, I didn't immediately start going to neighbors' houses in an effort to get them to help us (thank goodness I got my best friend's phone number before I got a cellphone: I still know it by heart!). I leveled with the Child and told her that mommy had locked us out; that we couldn't go inside so we would have to wait for mommy to come home before we could eat.

      She seemed okay with this and I then took it upon myself to let the Child do whatever the fuck she wanted for however long she wanted (obviously nothing that would endanger her!) to keep her mind off the fact we weren't going to be going inside any time soon.

      Some of those things involved (because I'll never understand how a three year old thinks) gathering up the loose asphalt pebbles from her driveway and carrying them over to a planter to deposit them over and over again (repetition, thy name is every fucking child who has ever been :-) ). There's little shade in the front yard and neither of us were wearing sunscreen but whenever I suggested we go back into the backyard to be in shade, she would say flatly in that darling little voice of hers, "No." :-)

     It made me laugh when I'd go to sit on the porch in the shade and she'd get up from her place in the sun to walk over to me, holding out her hand and repeating to me something she probably saw happen in her daycare, "Smile! Don't be upset. Tell me what's wrong! It's going to be alright," like she was a therapist. It was so cute.

     Another was picking leaves off trees so that she could give one to each of her stuffed animal friends. I at least got to show her how to pluck leaves without tearing them (grab the leaf by its stem: the way she repeated "stem" makes me think I had taught her a new word). I also got to carry her for long lengths of time and every time I asked to put her down because my arm was getting tired she would say flatly in that darling little voice of hers, "No." :-)

     I showed her what it looked like over all the tall fences bordering her yard. We chased each other around. We did Spins (where I hold her sideways facing outwards and spin 720 degrees in one direction and then 720 degrees in the other direction so I don't get dizzy) until she tired of it. Then we did "Whee!" whereby I gently toss her up and catch her until I couldn't toss her anymore. We even managed to do a piggyback ride after I figured out how to get her on my shoulders without someone else's help. We chased after a ball together and "somehow" she would always beat me to it at the last dramatic moment. And sometimes she'd give me a break by playing in the pool again.

     Unfortunately I also didn't have my wallet so we couldn't go on an adventure to a local store to buy some food so we were stuck getting hungry together. But when she asked for milk, I had the idea to teach her the age-old rite of passage that is drinking from a garden hose and, to my joy, she loved it and then she played with the garden hose for a while watering various things and whenever I suggested we should turn off the hose so as not to waste water, she would say flatly in the darling little voice of hers, "No." because damn it, this girl was on a mission! What that mission was is anyone's guess and that guess would surely be wrong because who the hell understands the particular curiosities of a three year old? Not me, that's for sure. But it kept her occupied and distracted which was the point :-)

     Periodically she would whimper that she wanted her mommy to come home and one time when I said back, "I know, I wish mommy would come home too," meaning her mother obviously but the child misinterpreted me. She thought I was talking about my mother and incredulously replied, "Your mommy doesn't live here!"

     Some of the neighbor's kids were playing in their backyard. The Child wanted to see them so I held her up high and she shouted to them, "Hi neighbors!" and they didn't reply which, I admit, annoyed me. Who doesn't say hello to a three year old?!

      But after some more leaf gathering and her wanting her mommy, I noticed her yawning and asked if she wanted to lie down. To my surprise, the kid who never wants to nap anymore said yes. Thankfully, her parents have lawn furniture and one of those pieces was a love seat I then cleared leaf debris from and lay on with the child on my chest. I had to drape my legs over the arm rests and they immediately lost circulation. I asked the Child if she was okay and ever-so-cutely told me, "I'm comfortable," and then like a goddamned cat, fell immediately asleep. I am so jealous of her ability to do that!

      I don't know how long we laid there. I almost fell asleep myself before realizing I was supposed to be keeping watch! My neck wasn't doing so great but I was able to move it without waking her. I spent that 30-60 minutes watching the sun dapple through the leaves above and those same leaves sway in the breezes. I listened to bird calls and squirrel noises and the next door neighbor kids playing and then suddenly I felt my chest get very warm, then wet. The Child peed on me in her sleep!

     I woke her up and she did not like that. She wailed for several minutes before I was able to soothe her and then, by dumb luck, I saw movement in her house. Mommy had (finally) come home...and she had brought grandma with her too. The Child and I were both happy to finally get the fuck inside. I told mommy that she had locked us out; that we haven't eaten; and to give the Child whatever she wants (and she got her ravioli and crackers and juice and even cookies to eat for her late lunch) while I cleaned up.

     But I was proud of the Child. She handled this unexpected circumstance with a surprising maturity and poise. For my part, I got only mildly sunburned (somehow: I was expecting way worse) and the most mosquito bites I've gotten in many years. I'm sure I was a veritable buffet holding the child still on my chest in the shade :-)

     Needless to say, I will always be carrying my keys with me henceforth!

DELIBERATELY CIRCULATED: EIGHT YEARS LATER...

      Once again, I've taken my old, dusty-lensed digital camera out of retirement to capture the state of the coins I've been carrying in my pocket, some as far back as 2007 (and one as recently as 2017). I've been enjoying this journey, this patience project of mine, even though the circulation on these coins is decidedly unnatural-looking

     As I've speculated before, metal-on-metal rubbing seems to produce a different result than on coins which have naturally circulated (presumably from hand to hand and the quick sliding of a coin out of a till and the brief (but more gentle) rub received from being in pockets before getting spent once more. The result is a mushier appearance and since the smaller coins sometimes rotate to be edge-on with the larger coins, a bunch of pock marks are also noticed

     But without further ado, this is what my pocket coins look like as of May 2021. I hardly write on this blog anymore so finding the previous entry to this series should not be difficult. I don't think I need to link to it this time...

(click on photos to enlarge)

2007 Silver American Eagle: about 10-11 years wear

     The remnants of E PLURIBUS UNUM are just hanging on by a thread but the rims of this coin remain strong so the outer edges of the lettering, especially on the reverse, are in no danger of wear yet

1978-D Eisenhower Dollar: about 9 years wear

1978 Kennedy Half Dollar: 7-8 years wear

     I've noticed the wear on the larger coins tends to be much smoother than the wear on the smaller coins which have the aforementioned pock marks and often appear to be more mushed than smoothed by their artificial circulation and I'm not sure why that should be...

1999-P Susan B. Anthony Dollar: 11-12 years wear

     Poor Susie's face looks really beat up! Hopefully it'll smooth out over time rather than become even more exaggerated...

1999-P New Jersey State Quarter: about 11 years wear

     The hairlines on Washington are starting to blend and the reverse image is ever more silhouette-ish :-)

2017-P New Jersey America the Beautiful Quarter: 3½ years wear

     Washington here looks even worse than Susie B! Still kinda early, though, to get a sense of wear patterns. I mean, a bunch of my coins when I first started this had been circulating for almost 6 years before I first photographed them and they still looked pretty new

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [first issue]: 11-12 years wear

     The buffalo has gotten noticeably smoother but the horn is still plainly visible. I wonder how many years the real Buffalo Nickels had to circulate on average before that happened?

2005-P Jefferson Nickel [second issue]: 11-12 years wear

     Still waiting for the reverse image to smooth away the lettering...

2001-P Jefferson Nickel: 11-12 years wear

     Jefferson's got stubble he's been nicked so much!

2009-P Jefferson Nickel: about 9 years wear

     The steps of Monticello are disappearing and the obverse looks like I've been hacking at it with a pin

1974-S Lincoln Cent: 11-12 years wear

     The mintmark is completely unreadable which sucks but I like that the protected areas have this bluish patina to them. The wear on the memorial is enough now that the legs of the Lincoln statue within are taking wear. This coin is already more worn than any Memorial Cent I've ever encountered in circulation

2010 Lincoln Cent: 11 years wear

     I wonder how much longer the date will be readable? And I do like that the points of wear are clearly visible. I'm still waiting for ONE CENT to become obliterated but that's still gotta be like a decade off...

2009 Lincoln Cent [first issue]: about 9 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [second issue]: about 9 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [third issue]: about 9 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [fourth issue]: about 9 years wear

     As with the 2010 cent from before, you can clearly see the points of heavy wear and where the protected areas still are by color alone. The unfinished Capitol is well on its way to becoming a silhouette

Angel token: 8 years wear

     Once again, if I'm still alive and this website still exists (and ideally I'm still able to use the same camera for consistency's sake), I'll post updated photographs two years hence. I hope someone besides me is enjoying this bullshit I do

DELIBERATELY CIRCULATED: SIX YEARS LATER...

     Now six years ago, I started a series of entries showcasing some coins I had been carrying in my pocket for several years with the intent of slowly wearing them down because they were of designs that were almost certain never to be seen in heavily circulated grades. While I'm not happy with how the coins have started looking because the coins are only wearing from metal on metal contact rather than by passing from hand to hand so the wear looks mushy rather than polished.
     For instance, I have cents from the 1920s worn down to Good/About Good and the mintmark is still legible but the 1974-S Lincoln Cent I've been carrying around for over ten years now, the mintmark is an illegible mush and I'm not sure as the coin continues to wear if that will fix itself or just remain an indistinct mound.
     Once again I had to take my old digital camera out of retirement to get the necessary shots as my current camera can't get in close enough. And again I tried to recreate the magic of the 2015 shoot to no avail even though I had the metering and f-stop information. Oh well...

     So without further ado, let's get to this, my last real reason to keep signing into this blog-making site (for the 2017 entry, click here):

(click on photos to enlarge)

2007 Silver American Eagle: 8-9 years wear

      Once again, I cleaned off the accumulated gunk before photographing this coin. The lettering of E PLURIBUS UNUM is still hanging on and the rim remains strong but the rest of the coin continues its flattening...

1978 Eisenhower Dollar: about 7 years wear

1978 Kennedy Half Dollar: 5-6 years wear

1999 Susan B. Anthony Dollar: 9-10 years wear

     Although not visible in the picture, the SBA Dollar has been taking unusual wear lately. Her portrait shows many nicks and I'm not sure what caused them. The larger coins circulate more smoothly for some reason but all their reeded edges have been worn smooth, something not seen on the well-worn reeded coins of yesteryear.

1999 New Jersey State Quarter: about 9 years wear

2017 New Jersey America the Beautiful Quarter: 1½ years wear

     I'm still waiting for Washington's spaghetti hair on the State Quarter to smooth out and the Delaware crossing is practically a silhouette. The ATB quarter is starting to show signs of high surface wear and the restored obverse portrait I suspect will show indistinctness quickly as its relief is far too shallow...

2005 Jefferson Nickel [first issue]: 9-10 years wear

2005 Jefferson Nickel [second issue]: 9-10 years wear

      The exclamation points in the caption, "Ocean in View! O! The joy!" are not wholly absent but no longer photograph.

2001-P Jefferson Nickel: 9-10 years wear

      The FIVE CENTS and certain letters of UNITED STATES, like the 2005 Ocean in View nickel, are still visible by eye, but no longer easily photograph.

2009-P Jefferson Nickel: about 7 years wear

     The steps of Monticello are now being mushed out.

1974-S Lincoln Cent: 9-10 years wear

      The protected areas of the design still show a bluish tint and the details of the design are increasingly absent. The coin looks really beat up under magnification.

2010 Lincoln Cent: 9 years wear

      The Union Shield Cent doesn't seem as dark this year as it did in 2017. Wear points are evident as brighter areas (which is true for all the "Zincolns" in this patience project). Given how ONE CENT looks on the obverse, it is definitely a possibility that the denomination will wear off as the coin continues to wear. A modern-day Type I Buffalo Nickel...

2009 Lincoln Cent [first issue]: about 7 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [second issue]: about 7 years wear

2009 Lincoln Cent [third issue]: about 7 years

2009 Lincoln Cent [fourth issue]: about 7 years wear

      All these designs are very mushy and indistinct now

Angel token: 6 years wear

     Once again, if I'm still around in two more years, I'll post again with updated imagery. Here's to hoping I can recapture that 2015 lighting/metering magic...