Opinion - Three Lies About Rare Coins

I agree that rare numismatic items takes longer to sale if the buyers aren't available.

I don't agree rare coins will not generate a better return, although there are some instances that rare coins actually suffer.

Some cases, like for the last 23 years?

From PCGS:

DATE      VALUE         CHANGE 
3/16/2012  $67,440.60   -0.22%â-¼ 
2/16/2012  $67,613.07   -0.47%â-¼ 
1/17/2012  $67,630.03   -0.49%â-¼ 
4/15/2011  $67,695.51   -0.59%â-¼ 
4/17/2009  $71,366.20   -5.70%â-¼ 
Dec 1994   $46,818.77  +43.74%â-² 
May 1989  $181,088.48  -62.84%â-¼ 

fools and their money ...

Coinwatch.

Too!

Actually, WS was lead by the nose by the slobbing services, who promised them that surf-and-tide (in and out, high and low) coins could be traded sight unseen (at 50-80% of bid), because we all know that a ms64 that is now in a ms65 holder after a half dozen crackouts and a ms66 that got put in a ms65 holder on a bad hair day are identical in value.

It didn't take much WS money to absorb $25 billion in rare coins (Apple trades that much in a single day), and the big coin brokers thot they had it made, they found the Holy Grail of coin buyers--people who were totally ignorant of the product who will listen to whatever line of BS you're handing out.

It worked, at least until those investors wanted to take their profit in the tiny, tiny world of coins.

1000 shares of AAPL doesn't cause a ripple on a slow day. Offer the biggest dealer you can find 1000 vf30 14d LWC and watch what happens! Back around 1970, Yurrupeon investors dumped around 20,000 Saints on he world market, and the price went from $60 to $50 literally overnight.

No real secret to it, Mac. I just worked hard, saved religiously, invested wisely, and spent carefully.

My folks were depression era people who knew that hard times can come into our lives and that it is up to each of us to do what we can to soften the blows from such an event or events. Savings can be a terrific cushion against hard times, so it is VERY important to save as much as you possibly can. I started saving 10% of my income. I soon realized that this was not enough to retire early, so I upped it to 20%. That was a strain at first but as I got raises and bonuses, I saved most of them too. It started adding up. For the last 5 years that I worked, my income was the highest in my life and I was saving about 40% of it.

I had tremendous good luck as well. I was saving and investing during the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s when US stocks were on a real tear. I had a number of years when my accounts were gaining 20-30% a year back then. Yes, there was a short but sharp recession in 2000-2001 but any paper losses I got then were more than recovered in the years after that. 2003-2007 were very good to most investors. 2008 was not but 2009-2010 replaced most of those losses, so little long term damage was done to my investments.

My wife is another aspect of my "secret". She did not understand investing and wasn't really interested in it but she trusted me and allowed me to invest for her too. By combining our resources, we were able to save about $1.3M for our retirement fund. On top of this, she has a state pension and I have a 50% health insurance benefit from my former company. She had a 403b plan, I had a 401k plan, and we both had traditional and Roth IRAs.

I did well with this but wish now that I had saved more in taxable accounts. While those do not give any tax break up front, they are great on the back end because they can be sold and are then taxed at a lower rate as long term capital gains. Untaxed retirement plan money is all taxed at regular income tax rates when it is withdrawn, so there is no cap gains benefit, even though most of the income from them really is via long term gains that should be considered as capital gains but are not. This is the government's way of giving with one hand (up front) but then taking back with the other (on the back end).

Another major success aspect of this is that I was able to convince my son to invest in his future. When he went into the Marine Corps in 1993, I offered to match dollar for dollar every dollar he put into an IRA. He agreed to that, so I opened an account for him and we both added $1000 per year to it for the 4 years that he was in the service. When he got out, he had nearly $10k in it and was definitely hooked on investing. Since then, he has gotten a good job at a major bank and is making good money. He feeds his 401k as much as he can and has over $60k in it now. He is doing the same for his wife, so they both have savings via retirement plans. Not at all bad considering the crummy economy and the fact that he is only 37 years old. This does not count his IRA that we converted to a Roth in 2000. It is doing well too and that adds another $20k or so.

Sadly, I made this same offer to my daughter but she declined to participate. He will be retiring early but she will probably have to work until she is at least 65. An optimist would say that I am batting .500 but it sure would have been nice to have both of our kids on board the savings and investing train.

The bottom line is... when someone offers you FREE money, TAKE IT!

Kudos to you Ed_B,

I was doing similar practices but having two kids in college one right after another one was tough, my savings went part way this several years, and am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel maybe in another few years, but it sure feels like it never ends. I wish my wife have the health to work, and health insurance that I have doesn't have the same premium that which what it was before.