No Longer A Collector

If I ever needed it, then I did all my other investing and financial planning wrong. Really, really wrong.

Well said.

Has it really beaten out inflation when you factor in transaction costs (fees) related to selling? If you did sell them prior to passing and used ebay as an example, you lose 15% right there. If you send through an auction house, I am guessing that's going to be even more costly at 20-25%.

Let's say all your coins/bullion have a Fair Market Value (FMV) of more than you paid for them.

If, on the day before you die, you sell your coins/bullion at FMV for a gain, the gain must be reported for income tax purposes (speaking of United States) leaving less money for your heirs.
If your heirs inherit the coins/bulliom, under current law, their basis becomes the FMV of the coins on the date of death. Thus, if they sold them that day for the FMV, there would be no taxable gain, and thus they would have more money.

I have probably been to several 100 estate sales. One thing that seems abundantly clear is that kids don't want their parents crap.

Ask any of your non PM friends what they would do if they inherited coins or PM. Dollar to donuts they haven't a clue as to how to sell it. Not that selling is that complicated but it does requires some knowledge.

We had to liquidate my father in laws assets and a lot of stuff was thrown out .No one wanted to take the time to market it properly .It was a very sobering experience . So I have sold off a lot of stuff that I believe I would not use as much anymore. I trimmed my collectables down to coins that still interested me and moved the money into bullion .With what is left we left papers giving values and where and how to market them for the best value . I also expressed our hope that they would keep some of the bullion for their own safety. (We have also listed all our assets ,subscriptions ,bank accounts and co-op equity so they have a list to work with.

I find historical coinage fascinating. I'm just learning some about it. I was a History major and its always been my passion tho somehow I never learned much about coins. And coinciding with the advances in the human timeline are the advances of economics and coinage.

Its as important as the development of agriculture and/or language.

This has been my experience with collectibles.  Long post so skip to the end for lessons I've learned or skip altogether if you have no interest.

Whether collectibles are a good idea is only clear in hindsight and only after a considerable amount of time.

I bought a lot of Pokemon cards in 2000 because my son played the game.  I avoided selling the cards until last year because it is actually work, and I decided to sell a lot of stuff to avoid saddling the kids with the chore.  Last year I sold almost $20k worth and have another 1/2 to go.  Good that I've waited all these years but bad now that ebay has reporting.  That Pokemon has done OK is only clear in hindsight.  I could have bought Beanie Babies.

I dabbled in art maybe 40-50 years ago.  Back then I bought a $5k Masami Teraoka watercolor.  A few years later I decided that was really stupid so I sold it and managed to break even.  Of course it is worth a lot more today. 

In hindsight I correctly pivoted to collecting a few photographs which at the time was just starting to bloom.  This was when Ansel Adam prints took off.  Couldn't afford one of those so I spent $1500 on an Irving Penn "Cuzco Children" print.  I bought it because I loved the image and it gave me joy every time I looked at it.   

Fast forward a few years, my MIL buys a triplex and my wife and I move into one of the units.  The kitchen needed a remodel so I sold the Cuzco for about $9k.  Today that print is worth over $250k.  Had I not sold it then, I'm sure there would have been a dozen times later that I might have wanted or needed to sell.  It is only in hindsight that it was originally $1.5k and today over $250k.

Picking up my check at the gallery that sold the Cuzco for me, was a show of a new photographer, Michael Kenna. Gallery owner said take a look. Most important was the price, about $90 per print.  I picked out one and my wife picked out another.  From time to time I would check the market for Kenna prints.  What concerned me was although most editions were limited to 45-90 prints, he had a LOT of images , and a lot of the images had a very similar feel to them.  Maybe 10 years later, I gave them to a gallery to sell and realized $5k for the one my wife picked, and $3.75k for the one I picked.  This past year, I happened to come across a Kenna print at an estate sale.  I bought it for $150.  I have no hopes of selling it for 1000s.  I just knew it would always be worth at least $150.  I still have 5 other various prints bought at the beginning but only one is worth a meaningful amount.

Lessons learned. 

Don't buy art as an investment.  In particular never buy anything from one of those resort city type galleries. If you do buy art you have to take care of it.  Selling is hard.  The sell commission is around 15-30%.  The tax rate is around 30%.