Coin collecting once was a very popular personal hobby for millions of people. I even collected coins and dollar bills when I was a kid. But although I was thrilled to have a coin collection I could talk about with my friends it was never worth very much and I eventually traded all my collectibles away for other things.
Collecting only pays off for a very small number of people. It requires patience, dedication, and a love for the art of collecting. You need to do a lot of research so that you can recognize real value when you see it and know when to walk away from a deal.
Sure, a lot of hobbyist collectors sell their collections at shows; some even become successful business dealers. But to really make a profit at coin collecting you’ll have to educate yourself on the coins most likely to accumulate in value that you will have an opportunity to collect.
Otherwise you have to wait 40 years for every coin you acquire to become rare. And in some cases you may have to wait longer.
More importantly, you want to save coin that are as close to mint condition as possible. They must be unscratched, unfaded, untarnished, virtually unused. And you have to protect them. So during those 40+ years that you are saving your coins you’ll need to invest in equipment to hold and protect the coins, environmental controls, and other resources to ensure that — when the time comes — you’re holding on to something of value.
Unless you just love collecting coins, this is really not a good investment strategy. It takes too long and requires too much effort to be a justifiable investment option for most people. Coins can be beautiful works of art and we can all enjoy a few of them for that purpose alone. But there are better choices you can make for building wealth.