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Message:: [QUOTE="benveniste, post: 26431624, member: 25547"]At least for my portfolio, I could not acquire enough "key dates" in MS65 and stay diversified.  Your investible assets, of course, are your own business. But in general, I agree with most of the other posters.  Collect for love, not to try to beat inflation. To illustrate this, consider one of the key date Mercury dimes, a 1921-D in MS65.  In 2000, PCGS claimed the retail value was $2850.  In 2020, it was only around $3500.  It's taken a bit of a jump recently and is now retailing for about $5000, but that's still not enough to keep up with CPI inflation. My MS-64 Lafayette Dollar has done considerably worse.  In 2000, it was selling for $2600.  Now it's $3250. In retrospect, you can find counterexamples, but the bid-ask spread on collectible or "investment" grade coins is also much higher than on fungible items.  Buyer and seller fees combined at auction are often in the 30% range.  So paper profits may prove illusionary. The "collectible" coins I made the highest percentage profit on were the initial release of the 5 ounce ATB "hockey pucks."  I reserved my sets early and resold them while the hype was at its peak.  In one of my eBay listings, I even wrote "I don't think these coins are worth my asking price."  The set sold within a half-hour.  But that was speculation, not investing.[/QUOTE]