U.S. Collector Coins as a good Investment???

Not fellow red book coins just GOOD LUCK auction or ebay winner is

 

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Fair enough.

IF we restrict ourselves to moderns.

But why would we do that ? The OP didn't say "only moderns". It was more open.

Everyone is different. Personally, I tend to think of 1793-1839 time period mostly, then add in a fair amount of Seated Liberty time period and even a few Barbers (particularly halves). And gold.

So the observed reality is this - the coin "hobby" is also an industry, and many people do, in fact, make a living at it.

There are many ways to win; in general, they don't do it by investing, which connotes buying and holding. One way they make money is buying and flipping ASAP - the opposite of holding.

 

The people who make the most money holding coins are holding truly exceptional coins - the sort of coins which don't come up for auction every day. Either they are very rare or they are conditional rarities.

 

I think that money can be made in the short-term if you know what you are doing and have the capital to purchase specific coins and then turn them around quickly when they are hot. A good example of this might be the LP1 rolls from the US Mint or the Lincoln Coin & Chronicles set (LN6) released last year. As far as long-term investment goes, I am skeptical unless you happen to own the more elite, popular key coins (1916D Mercury Dime, 1909S VDB Lincoln, etc.). TC

 

Will collector coins increase in value when measured against their initial purchase?
Yes.
EXCEPT for the ones that created a feeding frenzy. This applies mostly to modern issues that are common but people thought were rare.

Will collector coins increase in value faster than inflation?
Nope.
At least not at this time and not for the foreseeable future.

 

Originally Posted by Ahab
Sorry Cringely, I don't know where you got your info from but the S&P has done considerably better than 7.8%. See:
http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/...al-returns.htm

Not wanting to get into a nitpicking war, but I chose a time period commensurate with the identical 60 year time period used in Dave Bower's A Guide Book of United States Type Coins (1st ed.).

In response to picking the start and stop points, if they are more than a decade or two apart, I doubt that you'll see huge (much more than a few %) differences in the S&P 500 or any index that truly reflects the "market mix" (theoretically one share of every stock traded).

I chose the 1946-2005 time period because I was lazy and Bowers had done the hard work:hammer: of determining pricing of US Type Coins with a start date of 1946, the (actual) year that the 1st edition of the Redbook was published.

Now that there is a 2nd edition of A Guide Book of United States Type Coins, any CoinTalk member is more than welcome to repeat my calculations over a different time period.