Storing Wealth: Physical Coins or Crypto Coins?
Today I wanted to make a post to reflect on how we store wealth. For me, that has been in coins. At my core, I love numbers - and numismatics is all about numbers; from mintage figures to sales data and books which give you sale prices for different gradings. Speaking of grading - it also gives you a new skill and you learn the tricks of the trade on how to evaluate a circulated coin. When I got into collecting coins and banknotes about 15 years ago, I was completely swept up and built a significant collection.
I guess it is kind of like HIVE - you get in and have an investment, but it's more than that - you need to do the learning or you're missing out.
But then I had another idea of investing: my coin collection had developed to such a point, and prices had appreciated - especially when I had found bargains from overseas - that I actually looked in my collection room, and realised I had a house deposit. For a young fellow - I don't know if I would have had the will power to save a cash deposit up - and I'd recommend this as a good way to get that deposit together while having an awful lot of fun.
And so, I liquidated most of my collection and watched the dollars roll in, and not long after, I purchased my first house. On reflection, you could argue that I should have kept my coins - as their value has only gone up! But, so have the value of houses - recognising that both asset classes are viable ways to store wealth.
What made me have these musings? Well, in my garage I have a number of storage crates, and some still have some coins in them! It took me back down a pathway which was really special, as I remembered acquiring some of these gems.
Let me share one of my favourite coins with you, it's the little known 1972 5 cent piece. This coin is still in circulation, and if you happen to find one, you'd sell it for $5. If you happened to want to buy an uncirculated one, you'd be looking at $75! The reason is because it is low mintage, with the first mintage occurring in 1966 - and over the next few years, millions and millions and millions were minted, and many hoarded. By 1972 - the fad of the new decimal currency was over, and because there were so many in circulation, the new mintage was to become something special!
One of my favourite little gems then, is the 1972 5 cent proof. This is a shiney little guy, and came out of a Royal Australian Mint coin set. As it turns out, it'll be sold off soon - I would have purchased this a long time ago, and that purchase is now gone - I could have wasted that money on chocolate or drinks, but instead, I wasted it on a few grams of a highly polished coin - and no, it's not really silver, but certainly looks like it.
Here's the 1972 proof, it's under a plastic protective sheet.
I also have the coin in an absolutely amazing condition Uncirculated. That will be a harder coin to part with. Unless I know I can swap it for HIVE!
So there you have it. Investing in coins: sometimes real circulating currency, other times crypto coins.
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Wait, you put a down payment on a house with your coin collection? That's freaking awesome. I suppose my Hive collecting is my virtual coin collection, I really don't know enough about coins to do it in real life but have a lot of respect for those that do.
I see the new silver coins that get minted and always think that they are beautiful, especially those with art nouveau ladies, but I've never found one here. Our Kruger Rands are pretty boring in comparison to be honest.
Hope you are having a wonderful weekend Tim.
First of all, numismatics is a hobby, and it doesn't matter what coins in your collection are silver, gold, or copper. As a rule, when purchasing coins made of precious metals, we overpay for the metal, receiving the finished product. In times of crisis, it seems to me that if you want to sell a coin, it will be difficult to focus on hobbists, but if you sell it as metal, this is a big loss in price. It turns out that numismatics goes into the category of excesses, when the collector can afford to wait for a better time. But this coin is awesome!
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For you both the physical coin and the crypto brought you good returns.
At a certain point holding metals is better than crypto because you have the safest value, but also the market price can fall and become worthless, we have seen it before and we will see it later. But they are very nice, I also collect some, do you have or did you have any from Venezuela?
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Hi Fabian; never had any Venezeulan coins - being from Australia, I was a bit more localised. I have some rare coins from New Zealand and Fiji left in my collection.