Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/02/15
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One must be careful to use the word "investment". An investment is made with
the following in mind:
Reason for investment - what do you plan to do with the proceeds.
Expectations - what do you expect the return to be.
Horizon - when do you expect or need to be liquid.
Whenever I hear people buying collectables - art, antiques, cameras,
whathaveyou - and using the word investment, I cringe. Speculating in the
collectables markets it is almost impossible to succeed at making a profit.
This is because of the huge dealer/buyer spreads that exist, and the
tendency of these "bubbles" to burst rather suddenly. Finding examples
worthy of collecting never seems to be a problem - reselling at or above
your cost basis is. The exception to this is of course when one is fortunate
enough to unearth a fine example and buy it on the cheap. The odds of this
happening as collector interest increases, of course, become less and less
likely.
Buy your Leicas to make pictures, buy IPOs and the like to make money. Or,
make pictures WITH your Leicas to make money. Now, that's an investment.
Regards,
Ben W. Holmes
Boulder, CO
USA
bholmes@frii.com