One Last Bit of Christmas: #secretsanta

Jovi, our dog, always gets a little excited when we get the first decent snow of the year. She loves to roll around in it and then come in the house all covered in snow. Even at fourteen years old, she still flops around like a puppy when we get our first significant accumulation.

Like Jovi, I always get a little excited as well anytime I get a new piece of silver for my collection. I don't flop around on the floor or ground of course, but it does give me a shot of energy and perhaps for a second reminds me that I am not quite as old as I think I am or feel at times.

This was my first year participating in the secret santa exchange as part of the silver and gold stackers community. I wasn't sure what to expect and honestly, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. It ended up becoming a pretty stressful ordeal thanks to my distracted mind and life stuff getting in the way.

I felt like I had a lot more time than I did, but before I knew it the deadline to get my stuff sent out was approaching and I was scrambling to get everything together. Like the rookie I am, I made some noob mistakes and ended up spending as much to ship the silver than the silver I actually gifted.

The person got it and wrote a post about it and they seem happy, so that makes me feel a little better.

On the flip side of things, there was a bit of trouble with my secret santa getting their package to me. It did finally show up a week or so ago only to find out the mailman needed a signature to be able to deliver it. Since @mrsbozz and I work a half hour away from where we work, it didn't seem possible that we would ever be around to sign for it.

So I had the post office hold it and I stopped to pick it up a couple days later.

As you can see from the photo, I clearly got it. A nice card and a cool little pouch hiding what special secrets for me?

I couldn't quite make out from the shipping envelope where the items originated from (well done hiding your identity secret santa!), but upon reading the card and looking at the silver rounds, I realized the person was mostly likely from the Czech Republic.

Given that fact, I was a bit surprised to see Queen Elizabeth on one of the rounds, but @dbooster and I had a good conversation the other day about "commonwealth" countries using the queen on many of their items. I had never heard those terms together before, so @dbooster had to explain it to me.

I got two pieces of silver from my secret santa and they explained that one of them is like "my country symbol" and the other "dollar name history".

On the other side of the queen is this nice engraving of a lion. It looks very regal with a crown on its head. Upon further research, I found this round on APMEX, but it is currently out of stock. They call it a 2021 Niue 1 oz Silver Czech Lion BU.

As most silver rounds go, it's 1 oz of .999 fine silver and the total mintage of the coins was 24,000.

Apparently, the lion is considered the coat of arms for the Czech republic and the crown is that of Saint Wenceslas with a linden branch at the base of the round. Best of luck to you not singing "Good King Wenceslas" the rest of the day now! I'm actually impressed that I remember as many words to the song as I do!

After a bit of research, I was able to track down the second round to a 2022 Joachimsthalers Dollar. I'm guessing this would be the round that is "dollar name history". It's pretty cool with a couple of seals and likenesses of a coin that I am guessing was originally minted in 1794.

The obverse has other similar seals, I am guessing the back side of those coins from 1794. This round was produced in 2022 and as you would expect is .999 silver. I appreciate that my secret santa included the rounds in the plastic cases. I am going to have to get my hands on some more of those.

I'm honestly super excited about this as much as I was fine getting any silver from anyone, I was really hoping someone from out of the country would get my name so that I could get something really unique and special that you probably wouldn't come across in the middle of Michigan.

This definitely fit the bill.

After all the hassle of getting my package sent out, I was questioning whether or not I would want to participate again next year. Knowing now what I didn't know then, I think I definitely will. With a little more planning and thought, I can likely skip a lot of the headaches I had this year.

I'm super excited about the nice little stack of silver that I am starting to acquire. So excited in fact that I might just go roll around in the snow for a bit!

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced