Confessions Of A Coin Junkie - Roi

Wow, that's certainly a very revealing analysis, D0ubl3Eagle!

So, in no category did gains outweigh losses. Also, since you were not able to include selling fees and taxes, the actual numbers may be shifted even more toward the negative.

Fortunately, I'm not in that market.

I love keeping track of my purchaces, but I do not look at my hobby as an investment. In fact I think I own only exactly two coins that are worth more than 100€. I just like to keep a good record of how much I spent, where, when and for what (I suspect I have a slight case of OCD ).
But as others noted before, I agree that many hobbies and activities have a return of zero. My girlfriend's father is really into fish and aquariums. He's conastantly buying new equipment and fish. I admit - it's pretty to look at all those fishes, but - to me - that's all there is to it. (But on the other hand, he sees my coin collecting in the same way, so )

I believe timing is everything, including all type or form of investments, depending when and where you bought your investments, no one is better than another. Stocks are better choice for quick return. However; coins will at least maintain some value if the stock goes to $0.

I didn't calculate the average annual out performance or under performance but for the non gold and patterns, it wasn't clear cut whether those that outperformed did so at a larger annual percentage than the percentage of underperformance of those that did not beat. For gold, it was clear that those that did not beat did so at a larger margin than those that did beat. I hope I am making sense.

I do think if some of the other costs were included, the numbers would be less favorable towards coins but probably not as much as you might think. Stocks have costs that were not factored in like mutual fund sales loads, brokerage commissions, and income tax on dividends. Coins have selling fees, capital gains tax disadvantage, and possibly insurance premiums that were not included. Those to some degree offset one another.
Just to see the effects of one of these costs, I did tried adding a 10% selling fee to a few coins and found it only lowered the annual return by a few tenths of a percent at most which may be enough to shift a few from the tie to the underperform category. Many of these costs are one time and their effects on annual returns decrease as the holding period increases.

I think most of those that can afford these ultra rarities derive their wealth directly or indirectly from business whether it be an entrepreneur, senior management, money managers, etc. The returns of the stock market act as sort of a proxy for the fortunes of the very rich and thus their ability to pay for rare coins. I don't think it would be unreasonable to say the returns of ultra rarities in aggregate and over the long term will do no better than the returns in the stock market.

Try this - tell yourself you're just spending the money that you didn't spend on that boat.

Oh, wait - you say you have a boat too?