Today Is Silver and Art Day ..

I also threw in a few shots of Molly, which you may or may not have already seen. These Molly shots are a week old now, but I felt bad leaving her out of yet another post. Shame on me. I will have to do a Molly only post very soon.

The Art ..

The art really started off as a photograph. I found an oak leaf that had partially stopped photosynthesis and began to turn yellow and reddish brown. I thought it was very cool because the Venetian in the leaf was bright yellow while the rest of the body of the leaf was a brownish red. It’s sort of stands out and looks electric I guess you could say. I came across that lying in the grass as I was taking some glamour shots of Molly. She paid no mind to the leaf as long as it didn’t move and as long as it wasn’t near her. LOL.

Around the leaf was bits of grass green and brown, and clover. It made for a nice dark backdrop to the lighter colored leaf. I ran this photograph after tweaking it, through an AI program and came up with this rendition of the autumn leaf.

I liked the autumn feel to the whole piece, so I decided to use it with and for displaying this new piece of silver. The silver has a springbok antelope on the reverse of the coin, so I thought nature and nature go great hand-in-hand. Perfect! After all antelope are found in nature, so are leaves.. do you see where I’m going with this? OK I think it's starting to get weird so I’m going to stop and get right to the silver coin.

The Silver ..

A 2021 1 oz South African Silver Krugerrand Coin

I picked this coin up in the last batch of silver bullion that I purchased from JM Bullion. I wasn’t very happy with the piece due to the fact it had two large milk spots on both the obverse and reverse. For those of you that may not know, milk spots or result of cleaning the planchets (unstamped discs) before they get stamped. It’s part of the process and most mints will tell you that these are bullion coins and not made for collection purposes. So what that says is that they don’t care. JM bullion gave me a discount on my next purchase because of this spot. It wasn’t much just a couple of dollars, but hey better than nothing.

If I’m not mistaken this is the fourth available coin in the series since they started producing these Krugerrand Coins (2017). They contain one troy ounce of .999 pure silver, and have a face value of one Rand which is backed by the South African government. I have no clue how many of these coins they minted, but I’m sure if you search online you may be able to find that out. I know there were 20,000 proofs minted, but that's about all I remember.

The design isn’t anything super exciting, but I kind of like the Springbok running through the South African wilderness. I’m not one that needs to have several of these in my collection, but it is nice to have a few.

Paul Kruger’s bust can be found on the obverse face of the coin. Mr. Krueger can be found on countless coins of silver, gold and other. Look close.. Not a bad looking beard, and he keeps his hair very neat and tidy. hehe.

The edge of the coin is very sharp. Nicely stamped in a reeded fashion. It's nice and wide so it stands up by itself on end.

Molly! ..

Like I mentioned above, these photos have been used before, but they don’t seem to be getting old for me. It’s nice to include them here just in case you missed them the last time I posted a week or so ago. I’m proven wrong as well, now that I look at this first photograph and see Molly is sitting right next to a large brown oak leaf.

One of Molly‘s happiest places out in the yard is way at the back away from the house. She has a great view of the neighbors and everything else going on around her. She also likes to hang out way back here if there’s something going on in the house or outside the house that’s making a lot of noise. She doesn’t care for the noise and us get scared and runs all the way to the back of the yard awaiting us to come and fetch her. LOL.

This is often the shadiest part of the yard as well, so when those hot summer days arrive, you are sure to find her hanging out here where it’s nice and cool. I can’t blame her though, I like to hang out here too when it’s hot out. There’s a nice breeze that comes off the lake and sometimes you can only feel it back here and not up near the house.

Her hair is looking a little long in these shots, but she does go for a haircut at the puppy spa tomorrow morning. I will drop her off and she will get a nice bath, cut, and me time before she heads home and sleeps the rest of the afternoon. I want to say she enjoys it but she probably doesn’t. She probably just sucks it up knowing that she will get home, get treats, and be comfortable for another month before she has to go through it all again. She needs it though. She starting to look like a ragamuffin.

Thanks again for checking out my blog, for the support and the comments. I hope you enjoyed the art, the silver, and a little bit of rerun Molly. Have a great night!

“Water was how the desert would bring everyone together. The antelope's daily prayer, weighing the mortal need of water with the mortal danger of obtaining it.”
― Mike Bond, The Last Savanna

Thank you for swinging by my blog and checking out the post. Have a great day!

All words, pictures and art pieces are the sole property of B D Miller Gallery, unless otherwise noted and credited, and are not to be reproduced or copied without the prior written consent of B D Miller Gallery.

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