She came home one day to find Van and a friend trying to get a stuffed, 10-foot Bengal tiger through the front door.

You see, Van bought the tiger earlier that day for $2,000 from a southern California museum owner's trophy room.

It's not that Van needed a stuffed tiger. It's just... well... he couldn't help himself. Bengal tigers are extremely rare (it's now illegal to hunt them), and he got a great deal on it. When Van finds those two things together, he gets excited.

Van's wife is a nice woman. But she didn't want a 10-foot tiger in her living room. So Van sold the stuffed tiger – for $10,000. Around a year later, he saw the same stuffed tiger sell at auction for $50,000.

I get a kick out of that story... It's so Van. Van Simmons is a bit of a mentor to me. I've learned a lot from him about making money in collectibles and in life.

It turns out, there are a lot of similarities between what Van does and what I do... He has spent his career buying things of value when nobody wants them – whether it's real estate, antique guns, or whatever – and then selling them when they're popular again.

The values of collectibles go in cycles, like stocks. Van is opportunistic. When Civil War guns or old American Indian rugs are ignored for a while by collectors, he is a buyer.

"I started buying any old coins in the early 1970s. Over time, I figured out what works. I realized that, for example, beachfront property is more desirable and in more limited supply than desert property. So I started buying better coins. I've made money by understanding if you have something more desirable, then someone else will pay you more for it eventually. It works across just about everything you buy."

In other words, you must buy the best you can afford... and buy it in the best condition you can afford. At first, I didn't believe him. After all, he sells "beachfront property" coins. So I thought he was just recommending that I buy what he had to sell.

But over the course of a few years, I've seen that he's right. Where I live in Florida, for example, the beachfront properties have basically held their values as the real estate market has weakened. But the properties a few blocks back from the beach (as well as all the new construction around I-95), have suffered. You can't sell some of that stuff at any price.

It just so happens that rare coins are cheap, ignored, and in an uptrend now. And that the prices of "beachfront" coins haven't soared, yet... The prices are up of course, but the price of gold in recent years has risen more than average rare gold coin. I first recommended rare gold coins in June 2003, with gold around $350 an ounce. The high-end MS65 Saints I recommended have just about doubled since then. But the price of gold is up more than 150% in that time...

Right now, rare coins are cheap relative to the price of gold, they're hated (ignored, really), and they're in an uptrend. That's what I like to see. Readers who took my advice just a few years ago are already sitting on triple-digit gains... and we're just getting started.

The secret to buying right in collectibles and investments is to buy the "beachfront property" when nobody is paying attention. If you buy beachfront property coins from a guy like Van, you should do pretty darn well in the coming years... Triple-digit gains are possible, once again.

Good investing (and collecting!),

Steve

Editor's note: Steve Sjuggerud is a regular contributor to DailyWealth, a free investment newsletter focused on the world's best contrarian opportunities. We write with a simple belief in mind: You don't have to take big risks to make big money with your investments.