selective purchasing for an older geezer

Howdy j,

Thanks and pretty much spot on. I've been collecting for 50 years. My 3rd grade teacher started us on cents - one a year. I was able to still pull indians out of change. Hot and cold over the years, but gotten active over the last 20 when I had more world and time. Retired with dos nietos and am busting my tail corrupting their little minds. Turning them into bleedin collectors, I am. But I've already got wifey schooled and living in central Michigan have been dealing with Liberty Coins and Pat Heller for some 30 years. Have to have an exit strategy.

thanks again,

rono

 

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Howdy folks,

My bad. Sorry that I didn't give you a little more to work with. I've been collecting for over 50 years. My focus has been cents and nickels going back, with all the modern series in albums taken from mint products and a bit of a thing for CC mint issues and whales. As I've gotten older, I've had more time and resources to explore the hobby in more debth and with an eye toward future appreciation. Mostly a collector with an investors heart, as it were. In this light, I've expanded into silver crowns and since 2002 have been actively riding the gold and silver bull. I've tried to temper my investments in bullion by doing it in a collectors manner. For example, I have a book of ASEs, but also of Leafs and Libertads. I'm acquiring modern day silver 'crowns' on a regular basis and love the pandas and koalas. My grandsons love the canadian wildlife series. Nothing drastic, just slow but sure.

As for investing, I lived through 1987 and rode it out. By the time the dot.com meltdown occurred, I was sufficiently schooled to bail out earlier on so that I didn't get completely hammered like so many. I'm a momentum investor with a small portion of our portfolios. Since 2001, the trend has been gold and silver. Stocks have come and gone and they've been a bloody rollercoaster. feh, you've got to have some dividend payers as they've been a recent trend in light of zero interest, but playing the stock market theses days is enough to drive you to drink.

So, my talking about $5K to spend on coins was taken out of a context that I failed to share with you good people and I am most sorry. I recently had the good fortune to come in to a small sum of money. Of that wee sum, I have earmarked $5K for coins.

My gut feeling is to finish the indians with a 1871 AU55 for around 600, get a 1909-S VDB MS64 RB for ~2500, a nice 14D in AU and enough few bucks left to work on upgrading my buffalos. My main Plan B is to finish my CC Mint type set in AU. I'm missing the .20, the trade and the double eagle. I mentioned in another postie, wouldn't it be delightful to crack them out and put them in a special Captiol black plastic holder and use it as a paper weight on your desk? Yeah, I know. Oh well . . .

Thanks again, and sorry for not being a bit more open,

peace,

rono

 

Hi GW,

My Grand father always had a silver dollar to give me. Mostly morgans, some peace. I'm 63 now and have two grandsons 8 and 6 and while I might stash all the sets from the mint away from them, I have started giving them an XF-AU Morgan or Peace every Christmas and Birthday. Gave them each a tube to keep them in and have showed them how to hold them and take care of them. And of course gave them the cautions and all. They are very aware of money and value. They collect Pokemon cards. I'm just making sure they like coins. They also have the wildlife series . . .they're boys.

Good luck with the hobby,

peace,

rono

 

I have to agree with Doug. Investing in collectible coins is "iffy" to say the least. My investments in the hobby tend more for a love to the series/issue and not for a monetary gain down the pike. My investment is the pleasure that I gain in obtaining a hard sought after coin at a reasonable price that I can afford. That's return enough for me. If the acquisition increases in price, all well and good. To date, this does not happen all that often for me.

 

Well Rono, thanks for clarifying things a bit. Your collecting style is almost identical to mine. My guess is you have been watching trends over the years, and noticed things such as the explosion of prices in the Lincoln cents a couple years back. What I usually try to do is either buy the coins I need in a series that is pretty quiet, or try to find the sleeper deals in a given series. For example, I feel that semi-key dated Morgan dollars in MS63 and higher right now seem to be an outstanding bargain right now. Now, people may not agree with me, but that is my focus right now.

 

I'm in the same process. I just finished David Ganz's latest book. Working on Q. David Bowers' "The Expert's Guide ..." now. And I've been buying various Blue Books from the previous couple of decades to look at trends and looking at historical Heritage auctions.

I need to diversify my investments. I collected coins as a kid (still have them in their original Littleton packets) and I've always picked up a few here and there. I realize the majority of collectors say it's a bad investment, but I never listen to anyone anyway :smile. I always need to do my own analysis.

It is nice to gather the data and knowledge here and other places before doing my own due diligence. I'm interested in following what you find. So far, it seems like any other area of investment, where if you can find the sweet spot you can get good return on your money, but if you generalize it looks like it's not worthwhile.

 

If buying coins is just a hobby and for your own collecting desire, then don't let anyone, I MEAN ANYONE tell you how to enjoy YOUR hobby. If you're doing it for investment, well, that's a whole different story.

 

Yes, I certainly agree.

And it certainly isn't for short-term investing. I'm looking at this as a 10-20 year thing.

 

Well said.

 

Well there are lots worse things for the little ones to get into than coins. I have one, just one grandson. My brothers and sisters have scads of them, (do I sound bitter).

Last night the kids came over along with my grandson david, they dropped him off and after grandma had to rest for a bit I took david, (one year old) on my lap and handed him some rolled coins, I told him the minute they start going in your mouth we are done, he had lots of fun rolling them around on the table and setting them up on end and stacking them, but he just could not help it, one end started going in his mouth so we were done.

My sons and daughters and their spouses have zero interest in the hobby, I sure hope this grandson gets it.

 

sure coins make a good investment depending on what you buy.. if you get a bunch of 09s vdb and 55 ddos thats cool and your investing in ddo and high grade rarities, then its and investment..

 

Hi qt,

I've been watching the semi-keys in silver and gold, as with the skyrocketing bullion prices, the spread has narrowed between plain vanilla and semi-key. I haven't done anything here, but quite honestly, I've never collected these series. However, once I got back into more active collecting, I started by reading a lot of Travers and Bowers, and then hitting the semi and key coins in my series. I also am still working on some of my other series - mercs, wash quarters, and walkers. This has made it easier to go ahead and grab a nice priced 1932-S in MS64. And I really do have a special itch for CC stuff. This led to a couple of morgans -a 84-CC MS64 DMPL and an 85 MS65. Pretty much buying everything PCGS.

With earlier series, I'm pretty much sticking with AU as my target grade. This means I can buy raw stuff more often in the more common coins and feel more confident about my grading skills. It also helps to buy coins I'm familiar with. I've been collecting cents and nickels for so long I'm always cherrying picking for particularly strong strike coins. I'd rather check an AU liberty nickel for the strength of the stars than have to worry if it's a BU and been doctored. Trying to buy raw BU coins is hard work and a lot riskier.

It sounds like you're doing Morgans. Man, that's a job. What a glorious series, however.

Good luck,

peace,

rono

 

Hi smitty,

Also, check out the books by Scott Travers. Most excellent.

Hey, I'm not looking to make a lot of money on my coin collection. It's for enjoyment. That said, I'll go back some 50 years and repeat what I felt at the time about collecting coins vs. collecting other things . . . I knew I could always take those rascals and spend 'em. They were money. Cripes, if you're going to collect something, why not money.

That said, a coin collectioin can be worth a lot of money, particularly in relative terms, and it's real money. Every coin I acquire, I want to do so with an eye to the future. Does that make it investing? feh, who cares. I'm doing it because I love the coins, but I'm going to do it as prudently as I can.

good luck,

peace,

rono

 

It doesn't sound like the original poster needs any advice. Given all that has been written, I'd say look for opportunities on that short list and go for the best deal that shows up. Best in terms of quality for price ratio relative to current wholesale and retail market values.

 

If you are trying to prove that key date coin collecting is a lousy investment, well, quite frankly, that chart you provided is a lousy way of doing it.

Even with the spike in pricing from 82 to 94 and subsequent leveling off, you'll see nothing but solid gains and increases.