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50% Return
and No Risk
How
would you like an investment that's providing a 50% return,
is backed by the U.S. government against any loss of capital,
can solve some of your gift giving problems for the holidays,
and can be purchased commission free? Does it sound too good
to be true? It's not. You probably already hold a small position
in this investment. What is it? It's the new commemorative
state quarters. There are coin dealers selling rolls of the
new quarters for $15 each, a 50% gain over the $10 face value
of the coins. The coins are backed by the U.S. government
by definition being the legal currency of the United States.
Short of the virtually non-existent risk of the devaluation
of our currency, you simply can't lose your capital. The coins
also make a great gift at the holidays, and for children's
birthdays, births, graduations, and many other events. Each
of the new 50 state quarters is only being minted for a 10-week
period and then they will never be minted again. So the quarters
fit the limited supply requirement that helps an item increase
in value. Demand for the quarters is so high they have increased
production after minting the first six coins.
Now the
way not to invest in these coins is to buy one of those maps
of the U.S. with a slot next to each state to push that states'
coin into. For that matter the act of pushing the coin into
the map reduces the potential value of the coin. That's also
why you don't want to pick the new quarters out of your pocket
change and store them up in a jar. The most valuable coins,
whether the commemorative quarters or any coin, are those
that are kept in uncirculated condition. The simple act
of someone touching the face of a coin shifts its condition
from being uncirculated to very fine. When you touch the face
of a coin the oils from your skin are deposited on its surface.
Over time these oils will cause the bright polished finish
of the coin to oxidize, degrading its value. Unless you have
a very scarce coin, the shift from uncirculated condition
down to very fine condition can reduce a coins value from
a high premium to just above face value. A $10 roll of
commemorative quarters may be worth $15 in some circles if
they're in uncirculated condition, but in very fine condition
they're probably only worth a couple of cents above their
$10 face value. The easiest way to accumulate these quarters
is to ask for them when you make a trip to the bank. What
you want are machine rolled rolls of quarters, not hand rolled
rolls deposited by another customer. Some of the machine rolled
rolls are conveniently stamped with the words "U.S. Mint"
on the side. One of the coins exposed at the end of the roll
needs to be faced with the head of the coin facing outward
or you won't know what you have. You want a roll where no
one has touched either of the exposed quarters. Ideally you
don't want to open the rolls, and in most cases you won't
need to. In less populated areas investors can't find rolls
straight from the mint and are opening the rolls they get
to put together a collection of coins. If you open a roll,
only handle the quarters by the edges. Some investors are
actually showing up at the bank on a regular basis and asking
for $500 boxes of quarters, returning the next day with the
ones they don't want to keep.
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