Investing In Coins

Collecting coins can be an engrossing and rewarding hobby.

I started collecting coins when I was about 2 years old.My dad worked in the airport then.Every few days he would bring me a few foreign coins and my mom used to tell me about these far away countries.My mom was also trying to prepare me to begin school and her way of teaching me about money and counting was to get me to play with the brass coins of those days.These were the earliest coins to make their way into my collection.

When I started collecting coins I didn’t have any focus nor did I care about the value of the coins might have in future.But years later I was pleasantly surprised to find out just how much my coins were worth.A brass 20 paisa with a lotus picture was a pretty common coin then and even now.Nevertheless it sells for no less than 8 rupees today.A compounded annual gain of close to 10% per year for 48 years.

So a person could put away loose change for a couple of decades and create a nice gift for a grand child!With a bit more care a person can put together sets ,look for errors , collect by themes,show one’s collection etc. to create value.Or if you are cash rich and time poor maybe investing in proof and UNC coins and sets is the way to go.Either way you could surprise yourself with just how much you manage to make.But be warned coin collections are not liquid investments so always be sure you don’t bank on them for the essentials and emergencies.

Take a look at the list here to see just how well coins have done over the years:http://www.sagarnotebhandar.com/files/2011/02/Shashikant_S.pdf.For example the 1964 Nehru set has given over 18% compounded annual returns over the last 48 years.BTW even if you account for inflation by using the calculator here https://wealthymatters.com/2011/01/22/inflation-calculator/ the returns still exceed 18%.