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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gboulton, post: 1294844, member: 27043&quot;]I&#039;m inclined to disagree here, but more from a perspective of personal finance than one of numismatic.</p><p><br /></p><p>Without a doubt, the way to make a LIVING in numismatics is to do exactly as you say.&nbsp; But we&#039;re not trying to make a living here...we&#039;re (hopefully) simply adding one more investment to a large basket of investments, all (or at least most) of which we hope to contribute SOME small amount over a great many years.</p><p><br /></p><p>That said, there are a great many coins that come to mind as suitable investments.&nbsp; Let&#039;s consider, just as an example, the 1916-D Mercury Dime in higher grades.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.ngccoin.com/poplookup/NumismediaPrice-Trends.aspx?c=14906&amp;g=65" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.ngccoin.com/poplookup/NumismediaPrice-Trends.aspx?c=14906&amp;g=65" rel="nofollow">NGC says</a> an MS65 16-D Merc has gone from $20,000 to $27,000+ in the last 5 years, for example.&nbsp; More intensive research...the type one might do if considering a retirement investment...suggests that the 30% or so rate of return, every 5-10 years, is not unusual for this coin.&nbsp; Its track record since the 30&#039;s is exceptional.&nbsp; While it has, indeed, lost value the last 2-3 years, remember we&#039;re talking about 15-20-30 or more year track records.</p><p><br /></p><p>Certainly, one might expect to take a bit of a hit off retail if one found it necessary to sell the coin quickly...but over a holding period of 20 or more years, as we&#039;re talking about here, we can reasonably expect to cover that loss, EVEN if we paid retail for the coin today, and, knowing NOTHING about grading, simply looked for an example in a top tier TPG holder graded at MS65.</p><p><br /></p><p>Admittedly, it&#039;s ALWAYS possible that the track record of the last 70 years no longer holds, and the next 20 years see the coin plummet in value.&nbsp; It happens.&nbsp; This, of course, is PRECISELY why we don&#039;t sink any significant part of our portfolio into a single investment.</p><p><br /></p><p>==============</p><p><br /></p><p>Clearly, any given investor, like the OP or anyone else, may or may not be in a position to through $25k at a single coin, nor do I mean to offer the 16-D Merc as &quot;my suggestion of a good retirement purchase&quot;.&nbsp; Rather, merely to have an example to illustrate the thinking.</p><p><br /></p><p>Put another way, investing in Ford doesn&#039;t necessarily mean one has to know how they make cars,&nbsp; how to determine whether any given model is of high quality, nor how to buy their stock at less than current market value.</p><p><br /></p><p>One simply has to select a company with a reasonable expectation of steady growth over a long term.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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