Regrettable Collectibles

This is embarrassing, because I am a retired financial journalist. In 1977 I was posted to London. With each paycheck, I bought silver coins commemorating Queen Elizabeth. I accumulated about 100 and put them away, hoping to reap a tidy profit from them in the future. I used to gamble in casinos there too and kept one 50-pence chip from the Playboy casino as a souvenir. I recently found the coins in my closet and took them to a dealer. Turns out they were just silver-clad, and besides, silver prices are lower now than they were in 1977. In addition, the coins aren’t valuable as collectibles. I probably lost 80% of the coins’ value by inflation alone. Meanwhile, I checked a Web site for casino-chip collectors and sold my single Playboy chip for $150. If only I had collected more souvenirs and not bothered with the coins!

--Tony Licata, via e-mail

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The Fool Responds: You demonstrate effectively how unpredictable collectibles can be. Unless you’re very familiar with a kind of collectible, it’s probably best to collect simply for pleasure, not profit.