Book Review: Making Money with Modern Coins and Bullion

I expected that I would not like this book, so much so that I almost didn't bother to read it. To my surprise, I found this to be well written, intelligent and informative.

There are times the author does become a bit pedantic. Do we really need several pages on how to properly seal a package, complete with pictures?

Well, perhaps some people do need that. Those of us with a bit more common sense can ignore things like that and concentrate on the rest of what truly is an excellent book on numismatic investment in modern coins and bullion.

Buy this book at Amazon and help me support this site!

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Book Review: The Collectors Handbook

The Collector's Handbook: Tax Planning, Strategy, and Estate Advice for Collectors and their Heirs 

This book is not focused on numismatic collections, although that subject is mentioned frequently. Nor is it strongly focused on the acquisition phase of your collection. Instead, it is advice for selling or giving way any sort of collection, be it art, stamps, paintings, coins or whatever.

This is mostly aimed at collections of higher value - say at least a few hundred thousand dollars - and much of the advice wouldn't really apply until much higher values. Still, there can be surprises and this book is interspersed with tales of collections not thought to be worth much (even by the appraisers) that ultimately sold for astonishing sums. The opposite is also true, of course.

It's that admixture of stories that turns what might otherwise be a dull (though useful) book into something actually interesting to read even if you don't need to worry about your heirs squabbling over your multi million dollar collection when you are gone.

Buy this book at Amazon and help support this site.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home.

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html

Book review of Screw the BS: How to Invest in gold and silver

This is a very short book - 76 pages.  Nevertheless, it contains good advice and background information on metal investing.

The author (Tony Chou) expects gold and silver to peak around 2017. For 99 cents (Kindle edition) you can find out why and what he thinks is the smart way to invest in metals.

By the way, he does mention numismatic coins - he doesn't recommend them, of course, but he does mention them.

What does he recommend? Physically backed ETF funds. I don't know that his 2017 peak prediction will be right, but I do agree with him on ETF stocks - if you want to invest in these metals, that's the way to go. Unless, of course, you think the world is going to collapse into chaos, in which case you should be buying junk silver coins and small denomination bullion gold coins - neither of which are recommended by Tony Chou, who suggests guns and food stockpiles instead if you really think that doomsday scenario is possible.  I agree with him on that, also. 

Buy this book at Amazon and help me support this site!

Clue for the second 2014 Silver Eagle Giveaway:  Goldine, Silver, or Brass:  a die gauge between the C and O in Continental identifies these.

Note:  All my coins are in a safe deposit box.  I keep nothing in my home. 

Contests and giveaways: http://coins.aplawrence.com/2014/05/contests-and-giveaways.html