Buying low and selling high is just trying to be contrarian. But if "buy low and sell high" is a crowd mantra--(*and it is*) how can it be contrarian? Most "contrarians" lose because they don't really buy low and sell high; they buy low and sell lower.
If you really want to be a contrarian investor don't invest at all. Simply collect what you *really* like and you'll be living the world of other coin collectors who at the end of the day are the real buyers. And who one day *with luck* might want to buy what you have.
Speculators aren't real! There are 30,000 stunned mullets in Miami holding condos with no one left to flip to and no end buyers in sight. This is the other half of "investing"---the hard part. There has to be a buyer to sell to or your dead. We don't get bailouts from the gobblement.
In coins, speculators tend to buy the easy way; the way that doesn't take up a lot of a "mover and shakers" time. This is why the slab was invented--throw some money on the desk and walk out with a brief case full of slabs. Hold them for a month or two and when all the collectors start banging on your door, walla! your a millionaire. Their "investment advisor" should toss a hookah pipe in that briefcase before they leave. Or a genie in a bottle.
It's a hobby for collectors and we don't consider that our time is "being consumed" or "wasted" with the details. We don't have "time horizions" but we do have dozens of collecting options. In topical collecting we probably have thousands of options. It's hopeless for a speculator or even a collector to think that he is going to foresee where any of it's going in the long term. But at least the collector might collect today what will be popular tomorrow. If a collector makes money, it's a gift. Collecting coins gives us pleasure. They don't owe anything else--they never did.
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Posted 10/15/2007 4:20 pm
