The Roman Emperors collected coins and medallions of Emperors and Empires past. The Doges of Venice and the Medicis in Florence collected coins of the Emperors of Rome and had medallions struck by contemporary artists to commemorate their own conquests. The Kings of England collected coins of past Emperors and the medallions of the great families of the Italian Renaissance, and had contemporary artists strike medallions in Gold commemorating their own conquests.
Coin and especially medals were a vital part of the wealth of great families throughout history.
And then tne world came off the gold standard in 1971 and the subsequent world became obsessed with the financialization of paper/electronic gambling systems. Stocks, bonds, options, futures, forex derivatives, swaps, crypto currencies, fintech instruments etc etc
All this was supported by the unchecked unlimited printing of quadrillions of theoretcial cheap dollars. To make money cheap to fuel financializations real rates were kept deeply negative. The trouble is, now, finally, we've reached a limit on the system that has seemed limitless to some. The limit is inlation. Rent, home ownership, food, energy, education, health care has all become too expensive for the average human being. This makes people angry. And the Fed/Government has only one remedy in the age of financialization: print more money. But that is the cause of the inflation. Oops. So maybe they try to stop printing for a while and raise rates a tad as economies melt down and the next crisis provokes - lower rates and more printing.
That's where we are
So we've come back to Hard Assets. The wealthy are moving into hard assets in droves. It's been a boom market for close to a decade but it is picking up steam.
One area that is finally coming back into vogue after decades in the wilderness is the Hobby of Kings and Emperors: Coins and Medals.
This investment has three things going for it:
1) Precious metal - especially gold. Gold has captured the imagination of the wealthy for over 5000 years now. It is an easy sell because of its intrinsic value - as established over 5000 years.
2) History. There's nothing like a track record of value liniked to objects of historical interest and import dating back nearly three thousand years to the first gold coins struck under Kroisos of Lydia back in 540BC.
3) Artisitry. Many coins and medals were engraved by the greatest artists of their periods.
But don't take my word for it.
Consider: Blackstone has bought Collector's Universe which inlcudes NGC which grades coins. They didn't do it to get a piece of the grading business. Other hedge fund billionairs like Steve Cohen and Ted Turner and Dan Sondheim have invested heavily in the coins and colectible certification business. Again, not because they love the profits associated with certification. They, lilke many others are diversifying into Hard Assets because they see what is happening in the world of financialization.
Hard Assets have just entered the infancy of the Hard Asset Boom. As financialization becomes more and more problematc due to a world awash in inflation and debt - with trend growth below 1 percent -Hard Assets will eventually become the Asset of choice.
It's happening even as I write.
And coins and medals of high quality exist in such tiny numbers compared to say, cars, or watches, or most paintings (not Vermeer, but you know what I mean), or memorabilia etc etc.
Rising demand, Small asset population = Sustainable Growth.
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