My Review Of "Profitable Coin Collecting" By David Ganz

Just finished reading this book and thought I might offer my impressions. For those of you who don't know, David Ganz is an attorney by profession and a long time collector and advisor in the numismatic world. He is the President of the ANA. Having an MBA myself, I often felt like the first few chapters were an economic textbook. Lot of charts and graphs whereby Mr. Ganz adjusts for CPI and than compares investment performance of rare coin investments, like the 1804 Dollar and a whole portfolio of notable US rarities, against alternatives like stocks, bonds, and farmland over the past century.

The last few chapters are devoted to the investment performance of certain ultra rarities, like the 1913 nickel, 1933 Saint Gaudens 20 dollar, and the 1946-P silver Jefferson each get a chapter. Other than the chapter on 1909-S VDB, and the Thomas Jefferson Commemorative, there is not much that a collector could ever hope to acquire.

In my opinion this book is not for the average collector. It is at times a very dry read. Many of the coins covered are beyond the pale of my collecting budget. I purchased this book hoping to get some insight on strategies for making my collecting bug more profitable. I can only surmise that the targeted audience for this book are the ultra wealthy investor who need to be convinced that adding coins to their portfolio is a wise strategy. It is not written for the vast majority of numismatists. I have read many interesting articles by David Ganz and I am aware that he is one of the most knowledgeable around. That said, I was somewhat disappointed in this read.