I love gold coin collecting. I focus on Western Europe 1800-1930.
I think they will end up a good investment, but can be sure they’ll never really lose much value.
When you buy the etf you pay an annual fee to the sponsor of 0.4%. 20 years compounded that’s 8.3%! But banks will often give customers free safe deposit boxes.
I recently got a coin that fled the nazis from Norway to the USA and was returned when Norway paid back to the US its war loans. Despite the fun background, they aren’t rare and weren’t much more than spot price.
I also now have all four designs of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands 10 Gulden coin.
Gold coins were not circulated much because of their high value. The most
common size is nicknamed the Napoleon, is a bit bigger than a dime, but has about $380 in value. The smallest common American (the $5 half eagle) and British (sovereign) are a little bigger with about $470 of gold. So they’d be used for a real estate purchase, horse and carriage, high end furniture, a legal bill, or rent. But they mostly sat in bank vaults backing checks.
For this reason, a dime or penny in mint condition from say 1870 is very rare, but the vast majority of gold coins are near mint or mint, and the extra cost for a mint condition is negligible. Like $5 on a $450 coin.
