Investing In Coins

February 6, 2012 1 Comment

wealthymatters.com 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. Read more of this post

Filed under Alternative Assets, Tool Kit Tagged with collecting coins, inheritance, investing in coins, postaday, proof coins, returns, uncirclulated coins UNC

Self-Acquired and Ancestral Property

August 30, 2011 503 Comments

wealthymatters.com After a person dies, there are often pretty big rifts in the family.Hidden stresses come out in the open and contesting claims to the deceased person’s property is fairly common.The problems are compounded by the fact that the law defines self acquired and ancestral property differently from common parlance.

According to the law for Hindus,self acquired property is any property purchased by an individual from his resources or any property he acquired as a part of the division of any Ancestral/Coparcenary property or acquired as a legal heir or by any Testamentary document such as ‘Will’ etc. Read more of this post

Filed under Theory, Tool Kit Tagged with ancestral property, coparcenary property, inheritance, postaday2011, RandomBlog2011, self acquired property

Collecting Gemstones

April 23, 2011 3 Comments

Collecting gemstones is a fantastic hobby.Observing the play of light in gems and taking in their myrid hues is really very soothing.It is astonishing just how beautiful some of nature’s creations can be.Gem collecting is a hobby almost anyone can indulge in for all gemstones are not expensive.In fact many semi-precious stones cost just a few rupees.

Gemstones selected carefully and bought at the source at wholesale prices and held passively for a couple of decades can be reasonably good investments. They definitely keep up with inflation.

Gemstones are collected for their beauty.So taking your time to select the most beautiful stones is essential.Also it’s important to read up on the different ways in which natural gemstones are treated.Read up on whether treatments affect their desirability for other collectors.By paying a little attention to other people’s preferences while still buying gemstones you find beautiful will ensure a greater liquidity in future.Avoid paying retail rates unless the stone is extraordinary and even then bargain.Otherwise you are unlikely to ever recover the money you sink into your collection.The average jeweler will sell you a stone for two or three times what he paid for it wholesale and he’ll buy a stone from you for half of wholesale.

If collecting loose gemstones is not so interesting maybe you can buy gemstones on wholesale and have them fashioned into jewellery? This is another way of investing in gemstones.If you can handle the cost and quality control issues you can acquire beautiful jewellery at a fraction of retail prices. Read more of this post

Filed under Alternative Assets, Tool Kit Tagged with collecting gemstones, gem valuation, gems, hobby, Inflation, inheritance, intrinsic value, investing in gemstones, jewellery, liquidity, online gem valuation, postaday2011, RandomBlog2011, roughs, semi-precious gems, semi-precious stones, speculation, wholesale prices

What To Do If There Is No Will?

April 14, 2011 20 Comments

I came across this in today’s Economic Times.It is a good article on what legal heirs need to do when a person dies intestate in India.

If there’s no will, there’s still a way

Sakina Babwani

The death of a loved one is the most dreaded thing that can happen to any family. It can get even more traumatic when the family realises that the deceased has not left a will behind. In such a situation, the family is usually left running from pillar to post, trying to gain access to the property which, in many cases, could be the only saviour from doom.

However, according to experts, the family can still get its due even in the absence of a will, provided it can get hold of a few documents. “A succession certificate and a copy of the death certificate should solve at least 95-96 % of your problem,” says Sivaramakrishnan, head of legacy planning, Altamount Capital Management . Read more of this post