A BRIEF HISTORY OF RARE COINS IN RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS AND CREATION OF ICTA

BY DONALD H. KAGIN, PH.D.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) is a federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established pension and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans. Pension fund and other money managers dubbed such standards as “the prudent man” rule.

In 1979, the U.S. Labor Department liberalized the ERISA regulations on determining which investment vehicles were prudent for retirement fund investment portfolios. In a major boon to the collectibles industry, the department ruled that non-income producing items could be considered as prudent investments in retirement plans. As a result, the use of precious metals and rare coins and currency by portfolio managers, bank trust ocers,brokerage firms , and insurance companies were greatly enhanced. The following year, Kagin’s Numismatic Services was chartered by the State of Iowa and became the first and, to my knowledge, only firm to receive Internal Revenue Service approval to act as a non-bank custodian/trustee for numismatics in Individual Retirement Accounts, Keogh HR-10 Plans, corporate retirement programs, and qualified profit-sharing plans including roll-overs. These important investment programs involved the establishment and documentation of personal pension plans with potential consequences that were 10, 20, or more years in the future.