Are rare coins a good investment? It certainly looks that way if you consider the past 10 years of the PCGS 3000, a price benchmark for a variety of rare coins that’s exploded skyward. But for newcomers, investing in rare coins can be tricky, not to mention dangerous to one’s net worth. That’s true of any asset class, and doubly so for rare coins and other collectibles. Nonetheless, the stellar returns in recent years have attracted growing interest in coins. In our “day job,” we recently interviewed an expert on the subject. Robert Brown, chief investment officer of Genworth Financial, has studied rare coins as an asset class and written several papers on the subject. In the September issue of Wealth Manager, your editor asked him to share some of his findings. For the details, read on. To find the article (“Minting Money,” Sep 2006), scroll down to the bottom of the WM archive page.