DESERT MOON NEWSLETTER, ISSUE 23, July 18, 2026

Good to Extra Fine, et Le Tour

Desertmoonnm.com

desertmoonnm@yahoo.com

Hi Folks,

I have been a been abit slow to put together this newsletter. We have been busy travelling, throwing a party for the neighbors on Bastille Day (my wife is french), and for the past 2 weeks, watching and following the Tour de France. As an avid cyclist, the TdF is epic, seeing many of the sites we love in France, and watching cyclists suffer. Some of the key passes we have made pilgrimages to, and I have suffered up them. This is what the worlds cyclists do, they come to France to experience the epic climbs of le Tour. Any time in the summer there will be several hundred cyclists going up each of L'Alpe d'Huez, Mont Ventoux, or the Tourmalet, daily. It is quite an experience to be with them. I remember the day I climbed the Ventoux a few summers ago, 22 km of steep grades coming out of the village Malaucene to the summit. On my journey of suffering, I climbed slowly up alongside a few German cyclists. We passed a group of hikers going up along the climb that were doing something for charity as their banners indicated. We caught other cyclists going up, we were passed by faster cyclists. On the last switchback before the summit, the gradient steepened. I was alone at that time, and there was a guy photographing everyone coming up. As you passed him at about 3 miles per hour, he adeptly dropped his buisness card in your back jersey pocket. On it was the website where you could find the images of you he took and of course, buy them. This guy probably spent the whole summer doing this, standing on this segment of the Ventoux climb, and getting a few of the hundreds to buy his images. Then you finally hit the summit, full of folks waiting for their cycling pals, of course a tourist shop to buy things Mont Ventoux (including 2 cycling jerseys, one each for my 2 successes), and all kinds of emotions when you finish - relief, joy, pain.............. I'd do this climb and suffer on it every day if I could.

I've only been to the Tour once. That was in 2006. We went to the finishing stage in Paris. The most famous avenue in the world, the Champs Elysees, closed down. For cyclists. And, several hundred thousand people along the route from the Arc d'Triomphe, past the Place de la Concorde, along the Seine next to the Louvre, and then back to the Champs via the Rue de Rivoli. That was something. And an American won the Tour that day, Floyd Landis. Then 3 days after he lost it once his drug screening results were out - yup he was caught for doping. But we still had a great time. Being on the Champs when something exciting like this is happening is good for the soul.

I still have around 60 more cool coins to list. I am slower than others because I want to provide the best images I can as noted in earlier posts, I carefully research out each coin I am offering, and of course my other activities. We are getting near the time of the Summer ANA convention in Pittsburgh in about a month. I will have a Newsletter a week before to discuss what will be at the Desert Moon table there.

In either case here are the G to XF newps we are offering pre-show. As usual, you can click on th e newps and it will take you to the listing.

Thanks for reading!

Best, DM