Many of the companies that flourished in 1980 no longer exist. Stocks that were one hundred seventy dollars per share in March 2000, are four dollars today. I recall a holder of certain junk bonds who ultimately used them as wallpaper in his den. As a gold dealer who also has handled numismatics for forty years, I can attest, with absolute certainty, that collector coin prices have never come close to matching 1980 levels. My stamp dealer friends say it is pretty much the same in their world, and I would warrant comic books, toys, and manuscripts are similarly checkered in their performance.
Real estate is the king of all investments, but bitterly disappointing to some.
It s the sorry saga of the New York City boy, educated at Harvard, who becomes interested in gold, and makes a killing selling gold mining shares. As the price of gold tumbles, then stagnates, Levinson loses his money, and is now the tragic figure, broke, a pariah to his customers but clinging to a belief system that is obsolete and irrelevant. Which now brings us to the real question. The commodity is certainly not in the news, and could never earn any space in a current issue of Time magazine. I ve got the answer.