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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Juan Blanco, post: 1560559, member: 41665&quot;]<span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">You domicile your 401k/IRA at Schwab, Fido, etc. they control your assets and may loan or borrow stock, mf shares, etc. from your account as needed. Most don&#039;t realize that&#039;s &#039;wealth&#039; (e-zeros) held by someone else. In a very real sense, it&#039;s not even yours - you just get a contract with lots of fine print terms per redemption in some equivalence ; all fine &amp; good now, but what happens in a bank holiday? And I&#039;ll spare you the studies of now-diminishing returns on stocks - the Little Guy just can&#039;t win for trying.</font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">Most importantly, PM bullion/coin<i> in your possession </i>is a hedge against that loss of control, in addition to paper-risk. That is the only rational justification for allocation to PMs, I think. As Gold, Silver, etc. aren&#039;t &quot;investments&quot; in the classical sense (no dividend, income, yield ; &#039;monetary alternatives&#039; have no presumed capital appreciation, etc.) and the negative carry-cost is well known too, desertgem&#039;s point that collections&#039; value will fall over time <i>for demographic reasons </i>is yet another negative against presumed coin-worth and low-end&nbsp; numismatic &quot;investing.&quot;</font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">Mass produced collectibles are still tanking. Maybe without precedent in recorded history, the book-collecting market has largely collapsed; people were collecting books for hundreds or years before stamps or comics. Used bookstores have shuttered in record numbers and won&#039;t &#039;reopen with the next generation&#039; as long as a falling literacy trend continues. This isn&#039;t just another recession for US collectibles: this is a sea-change or paradigm shift in the American consumerist society. I&#039;m certain junk hoarders won&#039;t be rewarded by ignoring the current demographic trend, the Beanie Baby &#039;investors&#039; taught us that.</font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">Globally, the next generation of <i>collectors </i>won&#039;t overvalue most of the (USA) &#039;junk Silver&#039; and &#039;junk Gold&#039; that a certain demograpic is actively bidding up now. For that, the &#039;race-to-Scrap&#039; (for most US coinage) should continue; and collapsing soft-values will punish sentimental hoarders paying higher premiums now. As with all bottoms, the US coin market will trough when the greatest number of US coin collections get liquidated en masse. When? Assume there&#039;s no catastrophic economic event in our near future, &#039;Happy Times Collecting&#039; with <i>relatively </i>falling prices ....for several decades. The bottom will be when the now Age 60 (2012) cohort born ~1952-4 gets packed off to the old folks&#039; home (at Age 80?) or when most grandpas&#039; junk finally gets liquidated... shouldn&#039;t that occur circa 2034? </font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">Today&#039;s site demographics: older white men.</font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><a href="http://www.quantcast.com/www.cointalk.com" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.quantcast.com/www.cointalk.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.quantcast.com/www.cointalk.com</a></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">This presupposes a supercycle collapse of &#039;US junk coin&#039; prices from Late 2008 reported peak values. In fact, the Key Dates &amp; Rarities Index peaked four years ago, down -12% since then, essentially flat/tepid since October 2009. It would be informative to see a price index of <i>the middle market </i>(exclud. coins over $ 250 in 2012 USD) - guess most US coin &quot;collectibles&quot; have fallen <i>even more (</i>net any Ag gain.) </font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana"><br /></font></font></span></p><p><span style="color: black"><font face="Verdana"><font face="Verdana">Fun to collect, sure. A good investment? Not so much. Three decades is a loooooong time to wait for a comeback in relative value.</font></font></span>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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