A saying in numismatics says that it takes a large fortune to make a small fortune. In my opinion this doesn’t have to be true. It depends much more on your starting points.
Ancient coins as an investment belong to the asset class of “alternative investments”. As such they can form a sensible diversification in an investment portfolio. If one complies to, amongst others, the conditons of quality and rarity, a good return is certainly feasible.
The advantages of ancient coins as an ivestment are:
- no correlation with regular investment products like stocks, real estate and hedge funds. When the financial markets crash, ancient coins remain relatively unaffected.
- coins are palpable and a collector has his coins in his possession. So, not like most financial products which only exist on paper and are being held by a financial institution, with all the risks attached.
However, ancient coins are a long term investment with a time scale of 10 years or longer. The composition of the collection and when to buy and to sell, and where, are very important. Here, a specialized dealer proves his worth. With his knowledge of ancient coins, his notion of the market and his worldwide connections, he can help the collector/investor achieve a good return on his investment.
And the nicest side of ancient coins is that they pay a dividend every time the collector looks at his collection.