CBC:
Silver Superman coins prove to be kryptonite to Royal Canadian Mint's bottom line
tl;dr: The Royal Canadian Mint made some $20 silver coins a few years ago and sold them for $20 - now that the silver in them is worth $6, people are getting the coins' face value back from the Mint (and the Mint is taking a bath). And there were so many made that they're not going to be worth much on the collector market for a while.
(And, yes, Bob, that includes the Bugs Bunny silver coin I got for you at the time.)
Good thing I bought mine with money budgeted for entertainment, not for investments.
Feh. I care not. The BB coin is a keepsake, not an investment, and I'm sure the RCM will be happy that I'm not trading it back to them. (And in case I haven't thanked you recently, thanks again!)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Exactly. Investing in precious metals is a mug's game - even if the metal price doesn't drop, you aren't getting any return on your investment while you hold the item, the way you do with (most) mutual funds. These were for fun, not for profit.
(And you're welcome!)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Exactly. Investing in precious metals is a mug's game - even if the metal price doesn't drop, you aren't getting any return on your investment while you hold the item, the way you do with (most) mutual funds. These were for fun, not for profit.
Just like things like video games, pinball, Beanie Babies, or anything else that comes with the term "collectible" attached, either currently or in regards to vintage product that's survived to the modern day... if it's not company stock from a subset of publicly traded companies, it's always a mug's game to consider it an investment. Especially since it can be really hard to liquidate it in a short-notice fashion for anything like the potential full market value anyway.
Any of those things I do are in terms of "keepsake" and "enjoyment", not because I might be able to flip it inside of five years for any sort of profit.
--
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
If you have them, better hold on to them.
Stop me if I'm wrong here, but these coins are legal tender, right?
Which means that the coins that are getting traded back? They're probably getting melted down, maybe even as we type.
These guys may have invested in them for the silver value, but if the Superman Coins become rare enough, they're gonna be worth a lot more than $20 pretty soon.
They are legal tender, yes... but "everybody knows" that there's no such thing as a Canadian $20 coin (just like "everybody knows" there's no such thing as a US $2 bill), so nobody accepts them.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Do you know how much US$2 bills are worth? I'll totally take one at face value, thanks.
And if anybody wants to offer me CAD$20 coins for less that CAD$20, I'll take those too.
"Not
this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no
possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!" -
Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality, Chapter 84