Retirement......numismatic coins saved....

People were saying that even more loudly in 2011. I bought a good bit of silver coinage when silver was above $40/oz. I'm glad I didn't count on it as an "investment" that I could draw on now.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

True...buy why do they say it is better to have numismatic gold and silver coins instead of bullion coins or "junk" gold and silver coins? There must be some reason as to why experts in finances feel that purchasing rare numismatic coins is better?

 

What is a good, safe investment vehicle nowadays? US Savings Bonds?

 

They have short memories and/or lucrative commission structures.

Here's PCGS's index of a basket of rare coins, starting in 1970:



That huge spike in the late 80s represents a flurry of wealthy people buying coins as an investment. Here's an article touching on that time that's extremely relevant to your question.

 

Mattresses, with lots of space inside for stacks of greenbacks.

 

[QUOTE="-jeffB, post: 2412362, member: Here's an article touching on that time that's extremely relevant to your question.[/QUOTE]

Required reading, +1000

 

Because if you know what you're doing, you can acquire coins which have a reasonable expectation of remaining in demand into the future, subject to the vagaries of interest demographics and the economy. Unfortunately, the overwhelming percentage of coins which qualify for those conditions tend to be pretty darned expensive to begin with. And it doesn't matter of you've a large holding of ridiculously in-demand coins if the economy is in the dumps and the wealthy are not buying.

 

IMHO, you are totally focused on extremes: savings bonds, which pay virtually no interest, and highly questionable gold, silver and coin investments. There is a world of investor options out there. And the only ''financial experts" recommending rare numismatic coins are those who have a financial interest in selling them to you. Same thing with the "gold IRA" salesmen.

 

Well...Savings bonds are like putting money away under mattress. Seems like that is the safest way to go if one doesn't want to waste a lot of money on coins. I'm not into coin collecting. I have the few coins I do have for the future. I was told that if I were purchasing junk coins for the future...they would be good for just buying a loaf of bread ...put gas in the car, do small stuff with...so I just purchased a few numismatic coins thinking that would be better....now I'm not going to purchase anymore for the future because what is being said is that it's not a good investment at all.

 

Savings bonds are safe, but have very little growth potential. A good financial adviser and mutual funds would probably be better. A little riskier but there are many different funds and you can research their past performance to find ones that have consistently shown good returns. You can also diversify into more than one fund. (The funds will be invested in different things and that helps protect you because it is rare for everything to go down at the same time.)

 

Interesting topic. Personally, I have to agree with Conder101, in that a good financial advisor is key. There is nothing wrong with coins as an investment, but like any long-term investment plan, diversity in your holdings/portfolio is critical. There are more deterministic factors in getting a return from coins than there are in more traditional holdings, such as mutual funds or managed investment plans. I spent years working for a combination of stockbrokers and hedge funds, writing software to manage the various aspects of their businesses. There is so much minutia that goes into their decision-making, and expressing that in code was always a challenge.

Personally, I find the "value" of coins to be best used for insurance valuations for a replacement value. Regardless of value, there has to be a market for them when the time comes to sell them. That market is going to be driven both by the economy and the state of the hobby, itself. Ultimately, you will be selling to collectors, dealers, or others who are investing. But sometimes, markets change or the bottom falls out completely. Look at the sports card market, especially baseball cards. Back into the late 80s, it was not uncommon to see dealers selling for full value, and easily getting it. Today, well, not so much. For multiple reasons, that same market just still is not there. What is there now, can be had at a sizable "discount" from book value.

I do not have nearly the collection that a lot of people on here have, but it is growing. While I do have a targeted area that I am collecting, I consider myself a "bargain hunter", where I constantly try to get the best deal that I can, even if that means passing up a good deal while I wait for a better one. The market really dictates that I can do this today, as it is not uncommon for me to pick things up for between 15% to 30% of value. Even then, I see the same exact coin, with the same exact grade, that a dealer has for 60% of value and it will not move for months and months. That is going to be another consideration. Regardless of what the actual value is, and even if you can get a decent enough margin to make it worth it, you have to consider whether you are going to be looking to unload them rapidly, or if you will have the time (and resources) to wait for the right buyers to come along.

In all truthfulness, I do look at trends of the coins that I am purchasing quite often, but that is more out of curiosity than for investment potential. More often than not, I find that I kick myself for taking the hiatus from the hobby that I did, because I could have picked a lot of this stuff up at a fraction of the cost that I am today. At the same time, I am still seeing things that have been flat so long that inflation has made them a wash, at best.

tl;dr; Diversify, diversify, seek the sound advice of a financial planner, and then diversify some more. That way, if any one of your investment strategies falls flat, you can absorb the hit in the other portions of your portfolio.

 

Bingo!

 

Junkbondsare right

 

(This is not to you personally, just my thoughts in general)

It all pretty much sucks today. I'm sure we both remember when savings accounts, CD's, Mutual Funds, etc; were paying 14%-18%.

Look at dollar cost averaging. Pay yourself first. Save 15% of your income, put it away and don't touch it! Live within your means. Rental property would be nice, assuming it's paid for and you have good/long term renters....just sit back and let the money roll in. Don't trade your car in for a new one every 2 or 3 years.

If you're an older guy like me and thinking about retirement/investing/saving now.....it's probably to late. True, anytime is a good time to save or invest for retirement and your future. Better late then never.

Starting this 40 years ago would have been great. Remember, it's hard to save and easy to piss it way. Bottom-line: For all you young folks out there, if you haven't won a lottery or daddy isn't a millionaire....start young! I'll give you my financial advise free and in only three words: Get Debt Free. No credit card bills, no mortgage and no car payments. It will not happen over night. Make it a long term goal. Live long and prosper!

Sorry if I sound a little upset. I addition to what I wrote above, the Islanders lost tonight in overtime!

 

Oh, sorry. BTW: If after all this you have time and money for collecting coins? Enjoy that as well, as I do.

 

You will get a lot of differing views on junk or less than investment grade bonds. At best they should be a very small part of a diversified portfolio. In the worst case, they are a bomb waiting to go off.

 

The only guarantees in life are death and taxes. Every investment is pretty much a gamble.

Sent from my XT1093 using Tapatalk

 

I don't consider coins "investments". Same applies to stocks, bonds and commodities. All of them are a form of speculation. It is possible to realize a gain from the change in value but there is no distinctive difference between them. No value is created and even in the case of stocks, its actually a piece of paper with little (and in some instances no) connection to a real underlying business.

If you are not interested in coin collecting, you shouldn't buy coins. Like other speculative assets, its possible to make a profit by trading them but most aren't widgets which means that its easy to find out you didn't buy what you thought you did and lose money, even if prices aren't otherwise declining. Very few have any liquidity which means that transactions costs are high and so are buy-sell spreads.

The other general comment I will add is that practically all asset classes today are either historically absurdly overpriced or not remotely cheap. Stocks, bonds, real estate and presumably the most widely bought collectible fields have been vastly inflated by the current asset, credit and debt mania which is the greatest in the history of human civilization. Ultimately, I expect all of them in the aggregate to be huge financial losers.

Some commodities are relatively cheap (since most have crashed subsequent to 2011) but its impractical to own most of them except in "paper" form which still makes the holder subject to counterparty risk.

To my knowledge, the US coin market is bifurcated where a low percentage of the most expensive coins have done reasonably well but most have been "dead money" since at least 2008. A disproportionate percentage of coin "investment" funds seem to be and have been put into the highest TPG graded and expensive coins and I doubt there is even one I would buy as a speculation because the risk-reward trade off is unlikely to justify it. I would still buy it as a collectible if I wanted it, could afford it, didn't mind holding it indefinitely and didn't potentially mind losing some or much of my outlay but this is a different consideration entirely.

Coins are ultimately a luxury item and since I expect most people to become poorer or a lot poorer over the indefinite future, longer term I concurrently expect most of them to lose value, at least measured in constant value.

 

Roth IRA or Roth 401k.

Steve

 

Being a numismatic is an enjoyment, period.