| Author |
 Replies: 40 / Views: 4,180 |
Page 3 of 3
|
|
|
|
Moderator
 United States
189340 Posts |
Quote:
Better question......................should you even invest in coins? Best answer... no.  Of course, that is my best answer. The best answer to the topic is what SsDd has posted on this page.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
3486 Posts |
Re: 1935-D Nickel "I overheard from a dealer one time that these coins were getting harder and harder to find in choice problem free." eagle_eye_18, for the Buffalo nickel a strong strike should be added to the criteria. And bears testimony to the value of keeping in touch with what the dealers are seeing in the market place. A new collector today, who favors Buffalo nickels, will eventually want to upgrade today's low grade purchases. He or she is the likely buyer a decade from now for XF and AU examples. Where to begin? What coins do you LIKE? What coins will give you numismatic joy as you hold them over the years? Tell the members and they will be able to help with what they have seen during their years of collecting those coins. Buying coins should be viewed as an expenditure of discretionary income. One which will, if carefully approached, at least offer a modest assurance of holding value. Unlike a trip to Las Vegas or a weekly night out at the movies, coins are tangible. NOT an investment, but a hobby. One truth will stand the test of time: coins which are difficult to locate today will be harder to locate tomorrow. The 'hoards' of coins not-withstanding... |
|
Valued Member
United States
156 Posts |
The only investing advice I ever got when it came to coins was to buy key dates in the best condition you can afford.
As for coin collecting, the only advice I ever got was to collect what you like and forget the rest. If your collection looks "hodge-podge," that's your business. There's no rules when it comes to collecting coins.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1839 Posts |
Along the lines of what SD is suggesting by going to Heritage's archives to study historical sales, you can do so in even greater depth through the auction archives that PCGS posts. They post auction results for coins that have sold in the main 3rd party graders slabs, PCGS, NGC, ANACS and ICG. They show auction results for Heritage, Stack's Bowers, Great Collections, Legend Auctions and even ebay. Actually there's quite a few more that are surveyed, here's a link to the complete list. http://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/a...irmlist.aspxHere's a link to where to start a search: http://www.pcgs.com/auctionprices/And here's an example of a search result, you can filter in various ways. I happened to choose an 1832 Bust Half in AU53. But as I mentioned there is a filter and it's pretty powerful. Also, this is just a screen print but all of the text that is shown below in amber, those are hyper-linked and will take you to the actual past auction to find out more about the coin and perhaps give you an image. Oh, and all of this is free information to anyone. I'm not sure how far back their database goes, but I'm pretty sure it's at least back into the 1990s on many coins. I use this tool A LOT.  Edited by Tbone
04/14/2015 7:41 pm
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
11951 Posts |
As others have posted ... I agree coins as a good investment might
Not be a good idea.
Just to play the other side.
How would you like to advise someone on
- which stock to buy
- put your money in CD's
- which property/land to buy
What I am saying is right now there is no good investments.
Of course, that is just my opinion.
In today's world, I am thinking ...where can I put my money where
I won't lose any of it.
I lost more money in tech stocks I bought in the 90's than I have
in coins.
How do you make money in coins. You have to buy them at the
right price, and when you sell, sell at the right price.
I think to make good money in coins, you have to develop a good
reputation. If you can get enough people to recomend you to
buy private collection, that is where the money is.
When you buy private collection, you should be able to buy at
below wholesale, or broker coins for a percentage.
This is a very hard area to get into, and not steady.
Also ... What level to you hope to get. Over a lifetime it is
possible to accumulate a collection that could have a worth
of 50K to 100K. I know some that have much more, but then
they have the funds to put more into their collection.
Then how do you sell it with out taking a huge loss.
I help out in a coin shop four days a week. The customers that I see
making the most money are the ones who have collection that were
put together years ago.
Or the ones that put a lot a money into silver and gold bullion coins.
They bought when prices were low.
The problem we need to know now is ..where is the bottom.
When we find the bottom, buy as much as you can.
|
|
Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
Tbone, you just changed my whole research habit. I had no idea PCGS went that in-depth with things. They have Heritage's entire archive going back to 1990. 2 Billion dollars in sales, over half of all PCGS has listed. I would guess they have all of everyone else's too. That said, it's all numbers, no pics so you still have to schlep over to the actual auction to see the coin. But yeah, I bookmarked the living daylights out of that.  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1839 Posts |
Glad you like it. Yeah, it's really just a launching point to dig deeper, but thankfully there's a whole lot there to dig in.  |
|
Valued Member
 United States
449 Posts |
Thank you all for the great input. I love that PCGS feature thanks Tbone!
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
509 Posts |
Just my 2 cents- as in any investing "buy low, sell high" is the key.. Doesn't matter if it's key date or high grade, but if you don't be patient and wait until right coin/deal magically appears then you could be eating away at any potential future gains by overpaying. I've also considered "investing" in keys, more so think it would be cool to own some rare coins for a bit and by thinking it's an investment (not every investment has gains) then I could justify buying some 4 figure+ coins. Coins are a gamble with plenty of unknowns, if stock market drops and recession hits and you need $$ you can instantly sell for loss, if recession hits then the luxury coin market drops and it could take years for you to find a buyer to purchase your rare key at a significant loss. But coins also have pros- you "invest" significant dough in your collection and no one knows what's the worth of what you are putting into that safety deposit box for all these years.
Also as I believe Ssuperdave mentioned remember when you go to sell your investment you'll likely be taking a 15% hit at auction, so factor that in when looking at past returns. I'm not sure if auction houses report for tax filings (?).
And lastly for the frequent posts of "what are your plans for your coins for after your demise?"- you better educate your spouse/heirs on what to do in case you aren't the one selling. Ie: don't just run to first dealer for offer - and make sure they are aware of the mystery box under your bed.
|
|
Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
CLS12, I think they'd be legally bound to give a 1099 or something over a certain sales level, most certainly the known $10k transaction limit.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
 United States
18687 Posts |
I can tell you from personal experience that the coins I have purchased in the past that have gained the most were keys. Especially the ones that people know off by heart...everyone would love to have an 09SVDB. I bought mine in the early 70's in EF40 for $125. Now its worth about $1000. . Was that good investment? Well...I've had it for 45 years and gained about 900%. My comment would be if you want to invest for the long haul buy keys only in the highest grade you can afford. There will almost always be a demand for them
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
3163 Posts |
I bought a 1893S Morgan VF25 about 3 years ago for $4900. Thought if I held on to it for 20 or 30 years it should appreciate in value. So far that has not happened yet. If I tried to sell it today I would not get back what I paid. Same scenario with 1909SVDB penny.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
18687 Posts |
Jerry...come back in 30 years and tell us if it was a good buy  |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
632 Posts |
Original poster mentioned he has time for investing strategies because he's 25. I am 26 and been collecting for eight years and have also dabbled with what might be the easy way to make money off of doing what I love. Long story short: Haven't really found any definitive answers that everyone here hasn't already brought up. Key dates and high grade rarities always seem to hold their value and appreciate, but I don't have the money to buy up multi-thousand dollar coins. Anything that you buy for less than hundreds of dollars really seems kind of like a gamble if their going to appreciate.
For example, I live in Maine and would love to get an America the Beautiful 5 oz bullion coin of Acadia National Park. I wish I had bought a dozen of them when they came out 3 years ago because now they sell for like $300 over spot. If I had gambled then then I could have made a killing now, but it would have been a gamble. Same thing with the 2001 Silver Buffalo Commemorative. Coin now retails for like $160 when the original price was $35. %450 percent return on your money in 14 years? Not a bad investment, but who could have predicted to buy those coins up 15 years ago?
And you also have plenty of examples of the inverse reaction happening like the 1950-D nickel. It was widely publicized that it was going to be a low mintage year so many people bought up high grades of these coins 60 years ago at huge premiums and never got their money back. So many high grade examples where saved and now its easy to find an MS example for under $20. I found a coin order form in an 1970 national geographic that listed a BU 1950-D for $14.50. That's like $80 today adjusting for inflation.
I would say right now the best investment you could do that kinda keeps you grounded in numismatics is bullion investing. Silver if cheap right now. Save up your money, buy the biggest quantities as you can for cash and make sure you get free shipping and the best price you can find. Silver will eventually go up again (probably when the next recession hits) and that will be the time to cash in and buy up cheap stocks and mutual funds.
Now I'll just wait for somebody to come up behind me and tell me how flawed my logic is.
|
|
Moderator
United States
23522 Posts |
There's a way to make quite consistent money in numismatics, but it's not easy and in no way will the manhours be appropriately compensated.
Become good enough to snap up others' missed varieties and undergraded coins, and flip them for profit. You only need to be very, very good in half a dozen unrelated areas of expertise. I never got rich, but I don't think I sold one coin in a hundred at a loss and most went for at least double my investment and sometimes multiples, including quite a few with single-digit buy tags and 3-digit sell tags.
That's how (and why) I became good at attribution and photography.
|
|
Page 3 of 3
|
Replies: 40 / Views: 4,180 |
Page 3 of 3
|
First Page
Previous Page
Posted 04/14/2015 4:31 pm
