The Stock Market and Investing

berri

I lost my interest in casino slot machines when they went away from coins and pull levers. Ain't no thrills with a card, a push button and a cashier cage. But the first time I was in a casino in the old days, I was a bit amazed at just how filthy money is when you handle it.

Regarding insurance on coins, read your policy fine print. Some only cover to a certain value without an additional appraisal and policy rider.

fintail

I think gold coins tend to stay clean, but silver can sure get dirty. Several years ago when I hoarded some nicer "junk" silver, I would occasionally dump it out and look at it - it could really leave a mark on a light colored towel. I eventually soaked them and made them less gross.

I'll probably just hide my coins and hope for the best

houdini1

Lol, for some reason that reminds me of an old song. One of the lines was, "He drives a big Cadillac, and way in the back he's got money in a sack".

berri

I used to collect coins when I was a kid. I think the old coin design was much nicer than today's stuff. Of course the collection reflects me being a kid and I don't think there is much of monetary value. A few years ago I showed it to my now grown kids. From their reaction, I should have probably sold them during the silver jump a decade or so ago. Come to think about that, wasn't someone prosecuted for manipulation on that jump?

imidazol97

fintail said:

, but silver can sure get dirty. Several years ago when I hoarded some nicer "junk" silver, I would occasionally dump it out and look at it - it could really leave a mark on a light colored towel. I eventually soaked them and made them less gross.

Ag2S

fintail said:

I'll probably just hide my coins and hope for the best

Put the silver in ziplock bags to keep out the atmosphere that allows the tarnishing.

fintail

Wasn't the big silver jump in 1980, Hunt brothers I think? Before my time, but I know my grandfather bought some silver after the bubble burst, I think it might have been worth more then than now.

I keep my gold coins in airtites, and silver goes in plastic rolling tubes. Collectors like a little tarnish anyway, "toning" can add value if it isn't suspect.

kyfdx

fintail said:

Wasn't the big silver jump in 1980, Hunt brothers I think? Before my time, but I know my grandfather bought some silver after the bubble burst, I think it might have been worth more then than now.

I keep my gold coins in airtites, and silver goes in plastic rolling tubes. Collectors like a little tarnish anyway, "toning" can add value if it isn't suspect.

Silver really went up in the early part of this decade. 2011 or 2012? It was up around $35/oz. Sold off my mother's old silverware and paid off the new kitchen table and chairs.

berri

It was the Hunt brothers Fin. great memory! and yeah kyfdx there was a spike early this decade.

gagrice

fintail said:

Wasn't the big silver jump in 1980, Hunt brothers I think? Before my time, but I know my grandfather bought some silver after the bubble burst, I think it might have been worth more then than now.

I keep my gold coins in airtites, and silver goes in plastic rolling tubes. Collectors like a little tarnish anyway, "toning" can add value if it isn't suspect.

Silver peaked at about $50 per oz. I took the family and drove to CA where people were still buying as it was going down. I had several hundred silver dollars and found a guy in Orange county with lots of cash buying. If memory serves I got $38 an oz. It kept me going until I went back to work in Alaska. I had collected them since the 1950s. I remember working in a gas station while in High School. People would use silver dollars to buy gas. I would exchange for paper money. If I got to them before the boss. hehe I think Nixon kicked the market in gear with his going off the silver standard.

gagrice

Now for those that would like to avoid taxes, this article tells how one fat cat did it until his wife turned on him. The IRS is just not equipped to find these guys. Far too smart for anyone in the Federal government.

Fisher also obtained a 2012 tax return for the family’s holding company, RSOP. (The name is an anagram of Oesterlund and Pursglove’s initials.) The return showed that RSOP had grossed more than $73.5 million that year, an amount that Pursglove says she found astonishing. But when Fisher scrutinized the tax return, he found something even more shocking. Despite the impressive grosses, RSOP was reporting ordinary business income of just $12,284. Virtually all the revenue had somehow evaporated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-hide-400-million.html?smid=fb-share

berri

Gov workers - heck there are a lot of highly educated and paid CPA's that miss all kinds of stuff in the corporate world. Just think Enron for a starter!

gagrice

berri said:

Gov workers - heck there are a lot of highly educated and paid CPA's that miss all kinds of stuff in the corporate world. Just think Enron for a starter!

Like that high powered attorney admitted, without the wife getting pertinent information, he would have never tracked it all down.

fintail

Oh that's right, right after the economy bottomed out, the PM markets spiked, I think gold was close to 2K. I sold off some silver bullion then, I think it paid for a trip to Europe

Nest eggs and hoards are fun, but living life is fun too.

kyfdx said:

Silver really went up in the early part of this decade. 2011 or 2012? It was up around $35/oz. Sold off my mother's old silverware and paid off the new kitchen table and chairs.

fintail

That's the kind of thing where life imprisonment and seizure of all assets should be a possibility, if not worse.

gagrice said:

Now for those that would like to avoid taxes, this article tells how one fat cat did it until his wife turned on him. The IRS is just not equipped to find these guys. Far too smart for anyone in the Federal government.

Fisher also obtained a 2012 tax return for the family’s holding company, RSOP. (The name is an anagram of Oesterlund and Pursglove’s initials.) The return showed that RSOP had grossed more than $73.5 million that year, an amount that Pursglove says she found astonishing. But when Fisher scrutinized the tax return, he found something even more shocking. Despite the impressive grosses, RSOP was reporting ordinary business income of just $12,284. Virtually all the revenue had somehow evaporated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/magazine/how-to-hide-400-million.html?smid=fb-share

fintail

Funny that even today you wouldn't be able to get half that for common date circulated dollars. Nice timing.

When I was younger, my mother worked in the cash office for a large retail chain, and every now and then they'd get a pile of coins to account for. She's pretty sharp, and would pick out the silver coins, exchange them for clad, and give them to me. Employer apparently didn't care.

gagrice said:

Silver peaked at about $50 per oz. I took the family and drove to CA where people were still buying as it was going down. I had several hundred silver dollars and found a guy in Orange county with lots of cash buying. If memory serves I got $38 an oz. It kept me going until I went back to work in Alaska. I had collected them since the 1950s. I remember working in a gas station while in High School. People would use silver dollars to buy gas. I would exchange for paper money. If I got to them before the boss. hehe I think Nixon kicked the market in gear with his going off the silver standard.

gagrice

I remember the spike around 2011. I sold a few rolls of quarters to a friend. I still got about 20lbs of silver quarters. I really expected silver to keep on going up. I bought a bag of coins from all over the World. They are from 10-25% silver content. I started going through the World Coin Catalog, and it was tedious. So I quit and have not messed with them since. Just dug them out. I bought them in 1999 when silver was at $5 an oz. I had them sitting on a shelf in the garage. Should put them in the gun safe. I was thinking about giving them to my grandsons. Maybe get them interested in coin collecting. Better see what some of the old ones are selling for on eBay. Several from the 1800s and early 1900s. I really need to start getting rid of STUFF.

fintail

They'd be a great gift to kids. The 90% will always have value, but the low content foreigns probably won't be worth a fortune, maybe let someone have fun with them, and possibly start a hobby that isn't the worst use of funds.

I don't collect actively other than looking for varieties for my gold set, but I was into it when I was in grade school. My dad was a metal detectorist and had a thing for silver, so I always saw his coins and went with him to coin shops, where he'd usually let me pick out a silver dime from a big bowl they had on display. When I was about 8, an old time collector friend of his gave me a small box full of wheat pennies, and that impressed me, I got into it for a few years, and had several friends my age who also collected. I sold off much of that stuff when I was in school and not into it, and it helped.

gagrice

You got me thinking about them and went onto eBay checking some like the Austrian and Early Chinese coins seem valuable. I bought them in 1999 so prices from a Numismatic price seem to have gone up. I Put them on a spreadsheet with the asking prices on eBay. Think I will take a few to the coin dealer and see if there is interest. I could also put them on eBay and see what buyers are paying.

fintail

I noticed the Indo-China one - yes, Chinese and Asian stuff is desirable now, some Russian material has also appreciated (I have some old Russian gold that was only worth bullion value maybe 20 years ago, and now goes for double or more). Check sold items on ebay for real world comparables, rather than asking prices. Maybe get a kid hooked with the cheaper material, then use a more valuable coin for a Christmas/birthday present

berri

All this coin talk and Christmas is getting here - got me thinking about Home Alone II and the Sticky Bandits

houdini1

It has been a year since anyone posted here. I hope everyone is doing well, and I wish a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone, including tagman !!

Sandman6472

Want to add a Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanza and Happy Holidays to the above wishes. Hope 2018 proves to be a very prosperous year for us all!
Live long and prosper!!

The Sandman

cdnpinhead

It lives!

I'll add my holiday wishes to the others.

The stock market is at all-time highs, unemployment is down, GDP is high, and yet it's necessary to dig to learn any of it. Gotta love today's political/media situation, but if you're invested, you do love the outcome.

isellhondas

Funny how topics slowly die....

cdnpinhead

Hundreds of topics have died on Edmunds. This was just one of the last.

isellhondas

Speaking of coins....when I was about 13 years old I took half of my profit from my paper route and I bought the rarest of all Jefferson nickels. It was a 1950-D. I walked into the local coin shop and plunked down 12.50 and I left with an uncirculated 1950-D that I still have.

They can be bought on Ebay and elsewhere today for less than I paid over 50 years ago!

What an investment THAT was!

isellhondas

cdnpinhead said:

Hundreds of topics have died on Edmunds. This was just one of the last.

cdnpinhead said:

Hundreds of topics have died on Edmunds. This was just one of the last.

Oh, I know including all of the ones I started!

fintail

Yep not much to say when everyone's portfolio has been up up and away. I've hit new milestones with my little nest egg, no effort required. I hope this isn't September, 1929.

However, one maybe shouldn't confuse healthy investment performance with overall prosperity, or the still massive socio-economic gap of pre-depression proportions. Still a lot of work to be done out there, and I suspect Reganomics Part Deux won't fix it.

Funny thing about the coins - I suspect post-1964 mint and proof sets have also performed poorly, investment wise.

houdini1

fintail said:

Still a lot of work to be done out there, and I suspect Reganomics Part Deux won't fix it.

Yeah, but if you want everyone except those in charge to be equally poor and miserable, you would have to move to some place like Cuba or Russia.

houdini1

isellhondas said:

Speaking of coins....when I was about 13 years old I took half of my profit from my paper route and I bought the rarest of all Jefferson nickels. It was a 1950-D. I walked into the local coin shop and plunked down 12.50 and I left with an uncirculated 1950-D that I still have.

They can be bought on Ebay and elsewhere today for less than I paid over 50 years ago!

What an investment THAT was!

That ranks right up there with an investment in a fast food franchise selling frozen spinach on a stick !

fintail

Not sure how that kind of Randian tangent supports yet another foray into the trickle down con.

houdini1 said:

Yeah, but if you want everyone except those in charge to be equally poor and miserable, you would have to move to some place like Cuba or Russia.

isellhondas

Proof sets have gone nowhere. Even the early ones. I knew a guy who was so desperate for a pack of smokes that he broke up one of his proof sets to raise the money!

Mr_Shiftright

isellhondas said:

Speaking of coins....when I was about 13 years old I took half of my profit from my paper route and I bought the rarest of all Jefferson nickels. It was a 1950-D. I walked into the local coin shop and plunked down 12.50 and I left with an uncirculated 1950-D that I still have.

They can be bought on Ebay and elsewhere today for less than I paid over 50 years ago!

What an investment THAT was!

That's the scary thing about investing in anything. One day, the world can wake up and say: "You know, we don't want what you have anymore". (gold, silver, bitcoin, house, tulips, Tesla stock, etc.)

fintail

I think only the earliest proof sets, like WW2 era and before (I think 1936-37 was the first year sold to the public), have real value - no doubt due to the beautiful classic coins like the Mercury Dime and Walking Liberty Half. I've found modern proofs in my change before - and didn't care outside of it being a curiosity.

If one is going to invest or speculate, do it in something you like, so you will at least have fun with it. Socking away some of these coins to lose money decades later is kind of sad, unless you love the coins. Cars should be treated similarly.

isellhondas said:

Proof sets have gone nowhere. Even the early ones. I knew a guy who was so desperate for a pack of smokes that he broke up one of his proof sets to raise the money!

isellhondas

I found an 1852 Large Cent in a drawer recently that I forgot I even had. It may be worth 25.00. Pretty cool to think it predates the Civil War! If it could only talk!

fintail

Those coins were probably a better use of money back in the day - probably cheaper than the 1950 nickel back in the day. When I was a kid, I had an 1820 half cent I bought from a dealer for little money, the age fascinated me. Not sure what became of it. I was interested in silver coins when I was that age, my dad dabbled in silver and metal detecting, I also had some buffalo nickels and Indian cents. Only have a few of those now, as things get lost when you leave home.

isellhondas

I used to buy rolls of pennies and nickels from a nearby B of A and go through them looking for good dates. Then I would exchange them for paper money only to buy more rolls the following week. Years later I found out that the Bank's Manager was my best friends dad and he would do the same thing! I would buy the rolls they had already poured through! The old man is now 101 and he has a couple of large coffee cans filled with Indian head pennies. I don't know if they have ever been searched through. With that quantity there must be some good dates in there!

fintail

I used to do that when I was a kid, too - especially with nickels, as it was easier to find "old" coins. When I was a kid, a friend of my dad gave me a box of wheat pennies, maybe 20 rolls worth, that really got me going. My great-grandfather put away a couple coffee cans of silver coins back in the day, hoarding dollars, and then getting into it more when silver was phased out. However, these were sold off around Y2K, when my great-grandmother passed, the house was sold, and nobody had interest in the coins.

The Indian head pennies would definitely have value, people still seem to be interested in the coin, likely because of the cool design.

berri

Isell, I think when we were kids most of our friends (and some our dad's as well) had either a coin or stamp collection. I still have a box of old coins. Thought about selling them when silver went sky high years ago with the speculation by the Hunt brothers I believe, but I found I'm still attached to the suckers. My kids will probably have to deal with them after I'm "cashed" in

gagrice

isellhondas said:

Speaking of coins....when I was about 13 years old I took half of my profit from my paper route and I bought the rarest of all Jefferson nickels. It was a 1950-D. I walked into the local coin shop and plunked down 12.50 and I left with an uncirculated 1950-D that I still have.

They can be bought on Ebay and elsewhere today for less than I paid over 50 years ago!

What an investment THAT was!

No surprise, I bought a lot of antique glass in the 1970s and early 80s. None of it has gained, some has lost value. Probably sell for pennies on the dollar at an estate sale when I kick off. I would sell it now if it was not such a lousy market for antiques. So many people are minimalizing their lives. Nick Knacks just don't have the appeal anymore.

gagrice

fintail said:

Yep not much to say when everyone's portfolio has been up up and away. I've hit new milestones with my little nest egg, no effort required. I hope this isn't September, 1929.

However, one maybe shouldn't confuse healthy investment performance with overall prosperity, or the still massive socio-economic gap of pre-depression proportions. Still a lot of work to be done out there, and I suspect Reganomics Part Deux won't fix it.

Funny thing about the coins - I suspect post-1964 mint and proof sets have also performed poorly, investment wise.

I was offered less than face value for Postage stamp sheets. I will use them for mailing before I sell below face value. The silver and gold content is about all that has gone up in the last 30 years.

gagrice

Mr_Shiftright said:

isellhondas said:

Speaking of coins....when I was about 13 years old I took half of my profit from my paper route and I bought the rarest of all Jefferson nickels. It was a 1950-D. I walked into the local coin shop and plunked down 12.50 and I left with an uncirculated 1950-D that I still have.

They can be bought on Ebay and elsewhere today for less than I paid over 50 years ago!

What an investment THAT was!

That's the scary thing about investing in anything. One day, the world can wake up and say: "You know, we don't want what you have anymore". (gold, silver, bitcoin, house, tulips, Tesla stock, etc.)

I would say that is true for many things. It looks like Musk's carnival days are getting long in the tooth. His TSLA stock is down 21% since June. Cars that go 0-60 in 1.9 seconds are carnival attractions. He is so far behind on his EV for the Masses he will likely not deliver. He needs money and thinks his little side shows will get investors willing to risk money on him. Don't forget his solar roof scam that only the very rich can afford. Who is going to pay 10 times more for a roof because it is solar? It would cost me $85,000 to put his solar roof on my home. That would take about 71 years of electric bills to recoup.

gagrice

We had 30 video games in the camps of Prudhoe Bay. You would be amazed how many pre 1964 quarters we would find. We also collected all the pay phones back in the 1980s and went through looking for silver. Got more worthless Canadian coins than silver. Banks would not take Canadian coins. So whoever was going down the Alcan would take a few hundred dollars with them. Businesses along the highway loved getting them. As the charge to mail coins is very high.

isellhondas

Not too many years ago I got a shiny silver quarter out of a slot machine! It was a 1953 and it looked uncirculated. I put in a different pocket but, alas somehow it ended up in another slot machine before the night was over!

fintail

I bought and sold stamp collections and a few other items on the side when I was a student and for a few years after I graduated, as kind of a hobby busines.s I bought a gigantic estate collection locally when I was in my 20s - spent several grand on it, and it was 2 car loads in my old W126. I saw profit in the flip. It took me a year of constant selling to finally get rid of it all, and by then, I was exhausted and said "never again". I underestimated the labor involved. I had maybe 3-4K face in sheets and plate blocks, some of them going back to early in the 20th century. Only the prewar material had any value, later material would only hit face at best, even less than face most of it, even stuff from the 40s. But some stuff did well - duck stamps, Hawaii and Alaska material, early stamps. The high end material is still strong, but the hobby has faded a bit in the US, less demand for common material. A lot of my sales were to Europe and Asia. Many stamp dealers use old stamps bought at half face to send orders to customers.

Definitely, precious metals were a good move, unless you bought around 1980

gagrice said:

I was offered less than face value for Postage stamp sheets. I will use them for mailing before I sell below face value. The silver and gold content is about all that has gone up in the last 30 years.

fintail

I bet slot machines and video games are mines for silver coins - and especially were in the not too distant past, when silver was cheaper.

isellhondas said:

Not too many years ago I got a shiny silver quarter out of a slot machine! It was a 1953 and it looked uncirculated. I put in a different pocket but, alas somehow it ended up in another slot machine before the night was over!

berri

those machines are magnets for coins no matter what

houdini1

If you handle some or all of your own investments, this time of year is a good time to go thru your portfolio, see what your realized gains are (it's been a good year) and see if you have some losers you can sell before end of year to lessen your tax impact, etc.

kyfdx

Recent trades..

Sold some CSCO, replaced with MRK (IRA.. no taxes)
Sold BBT preferred stock. I was in it for the 5.65% dividend. Bought it at par, a year ago. But, it's up 9% since then. Didn't make sense to hold it, and watch it drop back down to par at first call in 3.5 years. 14.7% return in one year.. on an income stock. (yay)

Nothing much else lately, but with the big run-up, I've got an itchy trigger finger.

houdini1

kyfdx said:

Recent trades..

Sold some CSCO, replaced with MRK (IRA.. no taxes)
Sold BBT preferred stock. I was in it for the 5.65% dividend. Bought it at par, a year ago. But, it's up 9% since then. Didn't make sense to hold it, and watch it drop back down to par at first call in 3.5 years. 14.7% return in one year.. on an income stock. (yay)

Nothing much else lately, but with the big run-up, I've got an itchy trigger finger.

Be patient and save that itchy trigger finger for the next "correction".