More gold coins, or..........................? ***Updated with final decision***
gecko109
Posts: 8,231 ✭
Im in a mini dilema. I was planning on aggressively buying more gold pandas towards completing my 139 coin set. In fact, I have about $5,000 earmarked for newps for later this month. However, I have gotten the bad itch to buy my dream car. A local dealer has this 1987 Buick Grand National for sale. Car looks immaculate in and out and has just over 17,000 original miles, 1 owner. They are asking $21k which is a very reasonable price for a car like this. This car has risen in value while most other assets have fallen over the past few years. So its not gonna be just a "toy", but rather an investment I can actually enjoy.....much like my gold pandas. My choice is to get the car out of my head, and continue with the aggressive gold panda buying, or drop that $5,000 as a down payment, and cut my panda spending in half till the car is paid off. Tough choice!!!
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if the SHTF as so many say... you will have have a bad a.. car to flee with all your gold coins & toilet paper... in that car you will look like Mad Max!
go for it
-sm
The Maddy Rae Collection
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<< <i>You're young, go for the car, but only if it is a second car for you, IMO. If it's your main car, those low miles that help keep its value won't be low for long. Good luck on whatever you choose. >>
My wife and I each have daily drivers. A 2008 Jeep Wrangler (4 door) for me, and a 2004 Toyota RAV4 for her. This newp would just be a toy/hobby/investment car intended to be driven on some of the nicer summer days and nights here in the city. No winter driving, no long distance trips. Basically I wanna be like Cameron's dad from Ferris Bueller. "He doesnt even drive the thing, he just wipes it with a diaper".
Is it a GNX? if it is, it it would have some investment potential.
<< <i>Is it a GNX? if it is, it it would have some investment potential. >>
Not the GNX version. A GNX with those kinda miles would cost every bit of 50 large. I want a fun toy, but im not a rich man!!!
<< <i>
<< <i>Is it a GNX? if it is, it it would have some investment potential. >>
Not the GNX version. A GNX with those kinda miles would cost every bit of 50 large. I want a fun toy, but im not a rich man!!! >>
They only made 547 GNXs. If you ever find one for sale get it. The GN pictured looks like a good buy, too. 17K is low miles, assuming it's not 68,000 quarter mile runs which many of these cars are used for. Is it modded? If so I would probably pass as it has been pounded on at the strip. If it's stock i would get it.
Enjoy life, buy your dream car. I bought my sports car 3 years ago and smile every time I drive it. Happiness is not underrated! Go for it.
You could always sell the car down the road when gold tanks and purchase some panda's
but i can imagine in 20 years that falling right into the category i am
thinking of.
as long as you can keep it just as nice as it is now.. feel free to go for it.
good time to buy such toys as a lot of sellers are in bad shape and have
to let it go.
<< <i>no offense man but your dream car is a 1987 buick? Im no expert but I would think you could get something nicer for that kind of money. If its something you wanted for a while then go for it, the coins will always be there the car may not. That said I would probably hold out for something with a little more pizazz maybe something like this Mustang >>
But that's a FORD!
<< <i>no offense man but your dream car is a 1987 buick? Im no expert but I would think you could get something nicer for that kind of money. If its something you wanted for a while then go for it, the coins will always be there the car may not. That said I would probably hold out for something with a little more pizazz maybe something like this Mustang >>
That is a cool mustang, but it doesnt speak to me in the same way the sinister looking GN does. Plus, there have been over 40 years of mustangs, but just 4 years of the GN.....even though I really like the car for what it is anyway, that type of limited production is a nice feather in the cap. I go to test drive the car on Saturday with my wife.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Is it a GNX? if it is, it it would have some investment potential. >>
Not the GNX version. A GNX with those kinda miles would cost every bit of 50 large. I want a fun toy, but im not a rich man!!! >>
They only made 547 GNXs. If you ever find one for sale get it. The GN pictured looks like a good buy, too. 17K is low miles, assuming it's not 68,000 quarter mile runs which many of these cars are used for. Is it modded? If so I would probably pass as it has been pounded on at the strip. If it's stock i would get it. >>
Dealer says its completely stock with the exception of the injectors. I guess the car came with 28 psi injectors, but they were swapped out for 39 psi ones. Everything else, including the paint is factory original. Seems like one helluva nice toy/investment to have in my garage!
Wouldn't you rather own a 1965 Tuxedo Black Corvette Sting Ray ?
<< <i>Gecko;
Wouldn't you rather own a 1965 Tuxedo Black Corvette Sting Ray ? >>
For $21,000, sure....i'd take 2!
<< <i>Gecko;
Wouldn't you rather own a 1965 Tuxedo Black Corvette Sting Ray ? >>
Thanks for the link, Gonna buy some tickets lol. I've entered only one other car raffle and I won a new 05 Audi A4. I took the cash option however.
<< <i>Thanks for the link, Gonna buy some tickets lol. I've entered only one other car raffle and I won a new 05 Audi A4. I took the cash option however. >>
You're Welcome ! It's for a good cause & every year the RMcD House raffles off a "classic" car.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." -Luke 11:9
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." -Deut. 6:4-5
"For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He will save us." -Isaiah 33:22
My bias ... I'm not a car person. My better half, having traded her Audi for a Prius a little over a year ago, takes care of our being into cars. That said, I honestly think, in today's climate of who knows which way things will go, you would be flying blind in a big way if you go with the car. Where will the car be in 1,000 years? Where will the gold be? The car will be rust, if it's lucky. The gold will still be a store of value and wealth. It may be possible to buy the car much cheaper just a few years further down the road, if you still desire it. Which will be better to have in your estate, if something unexpected happens to you tomorrow? "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon. And, aother thing to consider, from Sri Yukteswar, "Attachment is blinding. It lends an imaginary halo to the object of desire." My family went thru this same type of thing many years ago when my mom and her sister both inherited a modest amount of money from their mother. My aunt bought new furniture she had wanted for some time. My mom bought mutual funds. The mutual funds ended up growing. The furniture was all eventually discarded. That's not too much different of a scenario from what you now face although the car may possibly have some investment value within a relatively small circle of car enthusiasts.
Only my personal .02¢ after readily admitting my bias.
I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it - Clint Eastwood
In any case many '87's were stored from day one and there will always be plenty of mint 5K to 45K versions to choose from. If you decide to go that way my word of caution is to buy one with nothing lacking. That means all orig paperwork (build sheet, window sticker, sales invoice, warranty, ID plate, etc, etc), 1 previous owner if possible, no under hood parts replaced other than maybe filters, few to none paint defects or touch ups (many cars have them and they are well hidden), no obvious dents, zero rust on the painted body, gleaming yet untouched chrome, orig and clean floor mats, original spare tire and jack, original windshield wipers, etc. etc. And you want all the accessories to be mint as well with decals, factory paint/inspection marks, etc. Be prepared to run around the car for at least 15-30 minutes with a paint depth gauge to check for repainting and bondo under the paint. If the car has the paint retouched in the lower rockers, or lower quarters for example, that's 5-10% hit imo.
I had a number of orig paint Mopars from the 1960's and many of them came with orig spark plugs, plug wires, engine decals, radiator cap, hood pads, etc. So for a 20 year old car that has been immaculately stored, orig everything is not asking too much. When it comes to sell someday all this will be critical as your car has to stand out from the hundreds or thousands just like it. If owners pulled this stuff hopefully they kept it to pass on to you. The more fastidious the owners were (ie true collectors) the better for you.
Dealer says its completely stock with the exception of the injectors. I guess the car came with 28 psi injectors, but they were swapped out for 39 psi ones. Everything else, including the paint is factory original. Seems like one helluva nice toy/investment to have in my garage!
Don't trust the dealers. I've had owners tell me the same story and yet I found replaced engines and transmissions on many cars I inspected. Cars that were offered orig paint and rust free had 20% of the body redone. One turd even told me the car was matching numbers yet he had no factory build spec, nor a VIN or ID tag on his car. Check body seams or putty seals for signs of major panels having been removed or replaced from the car. It's not unusual for a mint 20K mile car to have had a dent to a door or something, and had the entire item replaced. Check the windows for the PPG glass codes that should match the build date of your car. You want all the orig glass incl the windshield. If the dealer cannot point out to you items on the car that have been replaced (and there are more than one - ie the injectors) then he is either lying or is not well versed on the GN. More than likely he knows little about the model unless he's a collector buff as well. He should be able to point to where the engine ID numbers are so you can check them. If he can't, he's no expert. A replaced engine will lower the value of the car by $4-5K. Lack of orig paperwork is a 10% deduction imo. Collectors are fussy, and so should you. Spend as much time looking at undercarriage condition as you would any other part of the car. For what it's worth, I bought an "original" 22,000 mile 60's Mopar from one of the most knowledgeable Mopar restorers in the country. It had traded hands 8 times prior to me. Since I had little owner history back to 1969 I started digging and traced my way back to the original owner who had sold the car back in 1986 to a Mopar salvage yard in Missouri. Turns out the car had 75,000 miles on it when the owner sold it! And the next time the title was re-issued in 1988 when the salvage yard owner sold it, it re-appeared with 16,000 miles. The orig owner had turned over a blank title with no mileage filled in. The dealer filled it out 3 yrs later after rolling back the odometer. And no one until me had been able to figure it out. Ironically, it only dropped the value of the car 5% since it was not a mint orig paint car. But it was a valuable lesson learned about how expert any dealer is. These guys want to sell cars and the less they know about what they are selling, the better their conscience.
Again, if you can't decipher engine numbers and other mechanical codes to know for sure if they have ever been replaced, do some research or get some help from a local Buick/GN club member. Turbos were a weak link on these cars and often blew up early on. The swap in injectors is not a good sign imo. What other engine hop-ups have previous owners done to make this less stock, and therefore less valuable? Less stock = less valuable for low mileage originals like this car. How has this car been laid up over the years? If it has not been run every month or few months over those years the mechanical systems (esp engine and trans) will have a far shorter life imo. Who fastidious were previous owners to taking those extra steps of care? Or did they just park it, cover it, and forget it? Having immaculate paint but an abused drive train is a problem. These cars don't handle like a last model LS-1 Camaro/Firebird or a Vette. I still have my daily driver 1998 LS-1 Camaro with 115,000 miles.
Now for the economics. The car market is probably tanking and has been since 2004-2006. I sold my last collector muscle car (69 Roadrunner Convertible) back in 2004. I knew that tougher times were coming and I didn't want to be saddled with a car sitting in the gargage for months of the year, plus after 10 years of working the car show circuit it just got to be boring. Driving the cars a couple of times of year rather than every weekend became the norm. I also didn't feel that prices would continue to escalate which was one of the reasons I got into this orig back in 1993...priced doubled and tripled from 1996-2006 on prime collector 60's and 70's muscle cars. The 80's cars didn't see that. Maybe they are late bloomers though.
But with the economy only getting tighter I see only more GN's coming on to the market and prices falling....at least until inflation turns their prices back.
Owning a low milege orig always means the fear of "adding" miles works against you. You get afraid to put on the miles and devalue the car. The paranoia will only increase unless you just want to enjoy the car and drive forever until you reach your first engine or transmission change at 75-100K miles. Parts for these cars are probably pricey and getting pricier. At some point you may wonder why not just have 24 ounces of gold in a SDB rather than a $21K car taking up a lot of space and time in the garage. It looks like great fun when your buddies are driving their old muscle cars but there is a ton of work behind the scenes that eats into your week. At the peak of my craze I was spending 30-40 hours a week on my Mopars, whether networking, writing letters, researching, or hitting cruise nights or shows. It was an all-encompassing hobby and addiction for quite some time...just like coins. But I did love doing it.
If you can't buy the car with cash I wouldn't even consider it. Just remember that muscle cars are less liquid than coins. If you can't find a collector with $20K in cash when it comes time to sell you'll have to work with a dealer who will take his 15-20%. It took me up to 18 months in down markets to sell 2 of my cars and I was advertising them nationally. One of the problems was that they did not have bullet proof documentation and enough originality. Never skimp on that stuff as it comes back to haunt you. It's like settling for a coin with a scratch. Go on line to collectorcartraderonline or Hemmings to see what comparable GN's are fetching, understanding that "ask" prices always start much higher. I haven't played with these cars for 5 years now but $21K sounds like a lot to me, more than they were bringing in 2001-2004. In the mid to later 1990's you could find mint 20K miles GN's in the $12K to $18K range. So worst case there is no reason they cannot fall back to the $12K to $15K range again. There are also on-line GN clubs that you can probably PM with to gain more knowledge on the model.
If you can live with the upside vs. the downside, ok. The generation of people that bought GN's new is probably approaching 40-60. The lower half of that range might consider a purchase once they are cash-rich again. The upper end of that range will probably pass or has already done their thing 10 years ago. This market reminds me a lot of 1992-1996 when cars were dirt cheap and kept getting cheaper. Prices turned up in late 1996 following the FED pumping up the money supply to a higher level of +10%/yr.
Buying a collector car and not getting ripped off for 10-30% is harder than it sounds. The GN's being newer, more rust resistant, and less screwed with than the rusting 1960's and 1970's cars is a big plus.
One word of caution. I bought my first "dream car" in 1993 for $22K. I thought that the market had fallen enough since 1990 when this was probably a $30-35K car. Wrong. By 1996 it had fallen to $16K and I had become disenchanted with the numerous things wrong with this "fully original" car. I learned a lot in those 3 years on what I should have been looking for from day one. Ironically, when I sold my last muscle car in 2004 I lost money on that one too because I settled for something less than I should have. But I used that money to buy gold. Remember how cheap coin prices looked in 1993? Well, they got a lot cheaper by 1996. Collector car prices peaked in 1989-90 just like coins, and then crashed for 6 years. Even the best cars were affected. Mint Superbirds fell from $100K to $35K. And by 2006 they were back to $100-$120K again for the base models! The GN's have a broader appeal that appeals more to the buyer/collector than to speculators which is good. But with that same reasoning is also why GN's didn't double or triple in price from 1996-2006 as most mint 60's and early 70's muscle did.
roadrunner
Far be it for me to offer advice on cars. Although I have taken best of show at the now defunct Chevy Vettefest four times in the last 12 years including last Thanksgiving with a red/adobe biege 1955 convertible-while that car(the Buick) is not for me--you cannot view it both as an investment and as a fair weather driver. Maybe 10-25 years ago but not now.
It's either/or pal and roadrunners advice is on the mark and shows his battle scars. 17k for a used hardtop that is 25 years old is a a lot of dough. 17k for an investment, on the other hand, is not much. For my money, INVESTMENT WISE,the only two types of cars to consider are ultra race cars and big engine convertibles both with documentation.
If you are a fan of General Motors products, one thing you might want to keep in mind is that with the probable paring down of product lines at the General, Buick probably will go the same way as Olds and have a Diminishing following over the years. Think Studebaker. Think AMC. Then contrast the continued following to that of the CORVETTE and it's tremendous rise in valuation.
Only to be replaced with a serious OCD issue about constantly keeping the car in pristine condition.
I finally decided to sell it when my daughter came into the garage looking for me.. She found me under
the car wiping the fuel tank down with Armor All...
the leather on a weekly basis and detailed the engine compartment after every weekend of driving it..
I guess you need to find out what the insurance would pay off in case of a house fire or theft...
GAP insurance might be needed. You could probably get collectors insurance since it's older than 20 yrs..
I would go for the gold.. But then again I have done this and been there.. It sure felt good sitting in the garage
drinking a beer and waiting for the wax to dry every sunday night...
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
<< <i>Do you realize that $21K can buy you 10 new Tata Nanos?
Tata Nanos? I thought for a second you were talking about some kind of food
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." -Luke 11:9
"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." -Deut. 6:4-5
"For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He will save us." -Isaiah 33:22
<< <i>Saw and drove the car today. WOW!!!!
but did you follow any of roadrunner's advice? it seems difficult to get
all your ducks in a row in this short amount of time!
at the end of the night....
Congrats Phil... Enjoy it for years to come. Post some more pics when you bring your baby home...
<< <i>Ok....I flip flopped, and decided it was more important to keep stacking metals than to get into payments on a 22 yr old automobile...no matter how cool or nice it is. The journey towards the complete gold panda set continues in full stride.
Good choice.
Well done Sailor.
Keep the Panda Pics coming...........
Miles
> Ok....I flip flopped, and decided it was more important to keep stacking metal
Don't ever regret it. That was your best choice
as they have ever been congrat
on your insight
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/gold/liberty-head-2-1-gold-major-sets/liberty-head-2-1-gold-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1840-1907-cac/alltimeset/268163
<< <i>Wise choice, me thinks. >>
Me too.
I knew it would happen.