Is coin collecting an investment?

Do you consider your coin collection an investment? A fun hobby? An aid and inspiration for learning history? A combination of the aforementioned? Or possibly something else?

 

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A fun hobby. I don't want to get into the intricacies of investing as pretty much everything I buy loses value.......

 

I collect stories. If my coins appreciate significantly in value, then those are accidental investments. However, I always buy at prices where I will not lose money.

 

In general coin collecting should not be viewed as an investment.
Much of the older material will increase somewhat in value.
BUT
Generally not enough to beat inflation.

 

I love the hobby for the fun and for the connection with history. Holding a coin from the Roman empire or an early American copper, or any coin for that matter, that circulated, one cannot help but wonder about who spent the coin and what was purchased with it.

 

Not an investment vehicle at all. I am like @TypeCoin971793 and connect with history through my coins. I was fortunate in the 1990’s and purchased a fair amount of gold. By pure dumb luck, I could sell that gold today and realize a tidy profit. All the silver I been buying the last fifteen years I could sell and I would realize a loss...... To me coins are a way to store wealth. If I have a twenty in my wallet when I wake up, I can pretty much bet it will be spent by the end of the day. If I use that twenty to buy an ASE, that will go in my safe and be with me for a while. Coins are NOT and investment vehicle to me.

 

Most of my activity is for fun and relaxation. I have kept many extra for grandkids. Occasionally I will buy for an investment. An example was the ASE 2011 5 coin set. I bought 5 from the mint and immediately sold 4 of them. Made back more than enough to pay for my set.

 

I have Edward Jones for investing. Coins are just a fun and interesting hobby to learn history, and pass time during the winter time. Motorcycling is just a hobby/ activity to get outdoors and have fun, in the short summer time.
They both cost money that I will not get back, But I can retain the memory of what I see and learn. For now.

 

Here is an old thought about coin collecting with a grain of truth.

"What is the best way to make a small fortune in coins?

"Start with a large fortune."

Your reward is enjoyment and learning. If you make money, you will be in a small subset of collectors. However, collecting preserves money a lot better than most other hobbies, say golf or drinking or eating at fine restaurants.

 

Do you ever watch those guys on TV selling coins?
They sell them for massive amounts of $$$ and tell you that you can make double your money immediately compared to some piece of paper they're looking at.

There are dealers and other non-dealers here who can tell stories of ppl bringing in those "tv" coins to Cash them in and retire, only to find out they are worth only a fraction of what they paid.

That is overpaying for coins. As good of an investment as a boat in the middle of a desert. You'll be waiting a long time to for that investment to pay off.

If you are lucky you can break even on purchases.
Or you can be a rough one and try to underpay for purchases, in which case if the "market" is a steady increase (ha ha ha ha) then you can make money at some point in the future.

But even with good purchases, if the market itself for a particular coin, etc. may dissolve. Just think of 2008 where no one was buying anything. Which may make certain investments worthless.

Another example, look into the price of Gold or Silver in 2011. Then compare it today. If you bought in 2011 how was the investment today? Although, if you bought in 2000 how is it today ?

You'll find few will think of coins as an investment. As you buy better and better examples they can be an investment as those markets are strong.

But then you'll read the articles of how the hobby is dying as fewer are interested in coins. So how is that going to affect the "coin market" in 20 years?

That's the problem .... you have to know when to sell to get your cash out just in case. Or hold and ride out bad times. Or just know that you coin collection is a good hobby and not think of it as an investment.

 

Coin Collecting is a pure hobby for me. I collect Eisenhower Dollars and inexpensive Morgans. I expect to take a loss and so far that looks to be the case when I appraise my collection currently. I enjoy being on this site and going to coin club once a month. Gold and Silver coins that are more bullion than collectible are a totally different ball game for me. I keep bullion and coin collecting separate.

 

I don't consider it an investment. It's more of a case of "time travel" and a chance to own little bits of history. I started collecting at a very early age and was fortunate enough to have a large number of relatives and family friends that were happy to donate to my "collection". That collection pushed me to learn more about geography and history than any teacher or text book would ever do for a kid in grade school. That interest never went away continues to grow to this day.

 

Sure it is. an investment of time. and investment of interest. ohhh wait, you mean like to make money? probably not. You will have to ask my kids after I'm gone how well my 'investment' did.

 

I have two coin collections. One is my hobby/fun collection. The other is my investment collection. I keep them separate and don’t expect to make any money off either. If it came down to it, I would sell both collections to feed my family.

 

The difference between an investment (stocks) and this hobby (coins), is that only one of them can go to zero. Anyone have any GM stock from the 90's?

 

With the amount I spend on it, there is definitely a financial consideration to this hobby for me. I do consider my collection an investment, although it is an extremely long-term one. I have to consider the value of what I'm buying.

If you're talking about filling holes in an album from coin roll hunting.... that's definitely not an investment. If you're talking about buying coins in the $10 - $100 range, that's probably not an investment either. But if I'm buying coins in the $3000 - $5000 range, I have to at least consider the financial/investment aspect of this hobby.

 

NO!

 

I collect for the history more than anything else and as a hobby as even the us mint issued ones in there original packs loose value in a lot of cases I also collect for sentimental value as some of the tokens and coins were given to me by family and friends for over 50 years there is no money value for investment to me . My grandkids also enjoy them so they will get it all .at that point maybe they can make something off of it I hope they keep them but they make out no matter what as I give them free to them

 

I treat my coin collecting as a hobby. When the time comes to liquidate the collection I expect to get at least some or most of my monetary investment back; most other hobbies can't make that claim. However, the entertainment value to me is priceless.

 

I mostly collect rare coins hoping for a profit. By rare, I mean less than 15,000 exists. That said, I have way more tokens than coins. Almost everything I buy I hope to sell at a profit, I think many coin collectors think that way. Sometimes I win but mostly I don't. An investment? No, it simply helps to keep me outta trouble. Oh, I just remembered, I'm too old to get into trouble.