Investments?

ammarabdulfattah, I see you are new here so consider this post a public service. Being rude and insulting on not tolerated on these forums. The moderators are good at keeping it down. You see have justcarl has over 9600 posts. Yeah, he would not have lasted that long if he was insulting you.
I don't know if English is your primary language or how well you speak it, but justcarl was joking with you (I know that humor is harder to get when a language isn't your primary language). It is called deadpan humor. He does it with a lot of people.

Here is my point, you complain he doesn't know you. Before you go off next time think about how you don't know the people here either. He was just being friendly. People from all over the world use this forum so you will have to get used to different personalities and cultures.

Now, as for your post. You say you know it is a hobby, but then go on the say that you are collecting information for your dad to invest. Tell your dad it is a hobby.

Some people make money with coins but a lot of people loose money.

If you are worried about inflation you can always go with gold or silver. The U.S. mints silver 1 oz. eagles and different fractional amounts of gold. There is also U.S. "junk silver" that is old circulated silver coins.

If you want to take a chance many of the older classic U.S. coins have slowly increased in value over the years. Some of them are heavily counterfeited so watch out. You can get buy them certified though. General rule is that rare coins are going to stay rare, and as long as there is market demand they will hold their value. The thing to understand is that you are at the whims of collectors though. A series could become unpopular and neglected in a short time.

I don't look at investing in coins as get rich quick scheme, because it is not. You invest money in nice items with the hope that when you sell you receive more than what you put in, and at a higher return than what inflation has been. It should also be considered as a long term, 5 years or more.

Like every investment, it goes through cycles. Items get hot and increase, then cool off and decrease but usually not as far as down as the start of the increase. Quality and rarity are the key.

If coins were not considered good investments, you would not have major auction houses like Heritage, Stack's Bowers, and a boat load of others still doing business. They only handle investment grade coins.

ammarabdulfattah, just carl's sense of humour is one that you will get used to and I hope that it will not scare you away from here.

As an aside:

IMO, most of us on this Forum are not investors so we may be the wrong ones to ask your question. I, for one, quickly realized a long time ago I will never make money from this hobby. I just love old coins and have found I like old coin collectors, so this Forum works out GREAT for me!! Plus I learn something numismatically new almost every day!

just carl, it's fine. I'm not upset at all right now, thanks for replying. Also like jbuck said you're special sense of humor will take time to get used to :P You are one of the most informed numismatists I have ever had the pleasure to learn from, and I have a huge amount of respect for you. I'm also sorry if I said something that upset you. I'm sure if I do stick around I will learn more and more by the hour :)

ammarabdulfattah, excuse my ignorance here but I am not very familiar with Saudi Arabia or the culture. Is there just no coin collecting or no interest in collecing or what? Is it a cultural thing? I thought that Saudi Arabia was wealthly enough to support coin collecting.
Also, way were you looking for specifically American coinage? Is that easier to get in SA? Or is it a preference? Just curiosity on my part, feel free to ignore the question.

allranger, thanks for asking :) First of all as you might have noticed, I'm Egyptian but I do live in Saudi Arabia. Yes you are right, Saudi is a very wealthy country, but at the same time, most of the people here are ignorant of many civilized ways and hobbies. I mean they have the money to buy Ferrari's and Lambo's but they won't appreciate the engineering. Get what I mean? Many are like this here but many others are well educated and much more civilized. I live in a city called Taif, if you want to google it. This is probably the city where all nomads and Bedouins originated from. Most of the Saudis here don't appreciate things like hobbies, except soccer or doing crazy stunts with expensive cars, let alone collecting coins. As a result, Not much interest is paid to coin collectors or anything related to that. I live in a compound of about 500 people at least, and I think I'm one of 5 that collect coins :P I'm the odd one out. There are other cities which are much more civilized. Such as Jeddah it lies on the coast of the Red Sea and has a large population of many nationalities and different backgrounds from all over the world. You can find specific coin shops there, but yet a few of them only. About American coinage,I love them. I love how they look and how they are organized. And I love their legacies too. They aren't found here at all and so I have to buy them online. Which as you might figure out, REALLY EXPENSIVE. Anyway that is it I hope this long reply answers you. Sorry if I went a few times off topic :P Also thanks for asking. I like that we can share our backgrounds and cultures over here :)