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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;FlyingMoose, post: 160755, member: 6572&quot;]Cloudsweeper,</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s how I see it from an investment point of view...</p><p><br /></p><p>First of all, I already have some bullion.&nbsp; But I don&#039;t consider it an investment.&nbsp; It is only a store of value.&nbsp; If a dime-worth of silver would buy a loaf of bread 100 years ago, and still buy a loaf of bread today, it didn&#039;t gain any value, only kept it the same.&nbsp; The precious metals market is quite volatile, with pretty much no potential gain (unless you listen to the goldbugs).&nbsp; It&#039;s a good diversifier if you use it to rebalance, but that&#039;s difficult because the transaction costs are high (for physical gold).</p><p><br /></p><p>Second, I see a gold numismatic coin as very well diversified.&nbsp; If the economy goes down, it stores its value in the form of gold.&nbsp; If the economy goes up, it will increase in value, since collectors will have more money to buy coins with.&nbsp; The same thing could be accomplished by buying some of each (that is, buying some gold bullion, and also buying some numismatic coins without metal value).&nbsp; Again, to be diversified, I&#039;ll probly do some of each.&nbsp; I already have some bullion, and I&#039;d like to buy some numismatic-only coins (such as Morgan dollars, and various other rare coins), as well as some combined (St Gaudens) type of coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Third, the PCGX CU3000 index has gained an average of over 12% per year since inception, which would be considered quite good for a mutual fund or similar investment.&nbsp; It also looks weakly correlated to the market, especially the more numismatic investments such as Morgan dollars.&nbsp; Those also appear to be weakly correlated with the price of precious metals.&nbsp; Less correlation is good from a diversification point of view, even if the volatility of the investment you&#039;re looking at is fairly high.</p><p><br /></p><p>However, I am concerned about the lack of commoditization that Speedy points out, such as inconsistancy in grading, and lack of consistant pricing.&nbsp; The spreads also seem to be rather high.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is another reason I like APMEX, they seem like they&#039;ll do a better job at these two things than my local coin shop.&nbsp; I&#039;d think it would also help to buy some more common coins (such as Morgans and St Gaudens) with a large, liquid market, rather than more rare or obscure coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>I will also use eBay to check prices, but it&#039;s a pain to buy larger quantities (dealing with all different sellers).</p><p><br /></p><p>Learning to grade, and buying coins at prices not consistant with the grade on the slab seems more speculative to me, since I&#039;m basically trying to have more knowledge than people who have been in this business for years and know all the tricks.&nbsp; It seems unlikely that I&#039;d find an underpriced coin which the dealer, who has been looking at coins for decades, missed.&nbsp; I&#039;m not really looking to become a dealer, or buy raw coins at shows, or out-guess people on ebay, or that type of thing.&nbsp; Looking at an MS64 nickel, I can&#039;t see any imperfections at all, even with a 10X loupe...</p><p><br /></p><p>Maybe I&#039;m barking up the wrong tree, but I always wanted to get some collectible coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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