LogFAQs > #944484446

CarefreeDude posted...

You're thousands of dollars of collectibles can be burned overnight and good luck getting insurance to pay their "value".

That's true of literally any physical investment, not just collectibles. Art? You're going to want to insure it because it can be destroyed. Real estate? You're going to want to insure it because it can be destroyed. A million other things? You're going to want to insure it because it can be destroyed. And pretty much ANYTHING you invest that has a monetary value like that needs to be specifically evaluated and properly insured. If you own paintings by famous artists, you're going to get next to nothing unless they're properly evaluated and your insurance policy specifically covers them.

The bigger issue with collectibles is that not everything substantially increases with value. Rare coins or stamps might stay the same value so you're not gaining anything.

CarefreeDude posted...

You're much better off doing stocks for investment

Well, those can be stolen as well (and it's harder to insure against theft in that case) or the stock can tank or the company go out of business. There's no such thing as a completely safe investment.

CarefreeDude posted...

They can recover. Your burned up comic collection won't. (Not saying you have one just using as an example)

No, they often can't recover. A lot of major stocks that became penny stocks remained penny stocks and any stock where the company closes is generally worthless thereafter, which is worse than a fire because you fucking get nothing. And at least with a fire where you've properly insured your collection, you're getting close to the right amount of money in return.

The biggest problem with collectibles isn't "fires" or theft -- because insurance can specifically be bought for that -- but simply that the value doesn't increase or actually decreases, which is especially the case when it comes to mass-market pop culture items. However, broadly speaking, if you sit on most things for long enough, they'll go up in value. But even if something triples in price over time, you won't necessarily make as much as you might have if the money was otherwise invested.

CarefreeDude posted...

I'm not saying you shouldn't have collectibles, I'm saying you shouldnt buy collectibles for the purpose of selling them later

Or be smarted about what you buy. Beanie Babies were a new market. Something like comics have been popular for close to a hundred years now. If you bought a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1963, that 12-cents could net you $800k to $1.4m today (and even copies in terrible condition have sold for a far less impressive $8k, which is still many times over inflation). Where else are you going to get that kind of return?

https://comics.gocollect.com/guide/view/123567

However, you'd have to be savvy enough to see the investment opportunity and, more importantly, the odds of making that kind of money again are greatly diminished by the fact that the conditions that enabled that value -- such as comics not being viewed as being all that collectible so people weren't taking care of them -- have changed.

In general, all investment is gambling. Stocks certainly aren't safe. There are some safer options for stocks (like mutual funds), but even then we've seen that they can take hits. Even bonds aren't safe, as we've seen with irresponsible places like Puerto Rico:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/09/puerto-rico-bondholders-strike-35-billion-debt-restructuring-deal.html

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