Peter Temple - The Handbook of Alternative Assets: Making Money from Art, Rare Books, Coins and Banknotes, Forestry, Gold and Precious Metals, Stamps, Wine and Other Alternative Assets

I started out writing the original version of this book knowing a little about some of the areas that I planned to cover, but with huge areas of ignorance about the detail of many of them. Fortunately I have been able to call on several experts, collectors and experienced alternative investors for guidance. I have picked their brains, gone to them for tips about research angles, and in some cases they have been good enough to check the chapter that covered their particular area of interest and alert me to any nuances I had failed to pick up, or to the more obvious mistakes I had made. I have called on many of them again, and also a number of newer contacts.

In no particular order of precedence, therefore, I would like to thank the following for their help, patience and forbearance: Barry Townsley; Val Porter-Godman; Peter Holland; Philip Athill at Abbott and Holder; Peter Blaskett of Signature Gallery in Kendal; Martin and Pat Masters of Thomond Antiques in Kendal; staff at Sothebys; Bruce and Kim Stanfield, who auction art for P&O Cruises; Barnaby Faull at Spink; Peter Duppa-Miller at the International Bond and Share Society; Keith Hollender; Colin Steele; Julian Roberts; Christopher Proudlove, Simon Roberts and Tim Schofield at Bonhams; Dave Selby; staff at Spinks coin department; staff at Coincraft; Ian Goldbart, Dimitri Loulakakis, Seth Freeman and Stephen Hill of Noble Investments (UK) plc and Baldwins; Rick Warren and colleagues at Apex Philatelics; Alan Kelly at Mannin Collections; Cathy Roberts at Petra Diamonds; Tim Kirk, Simon Hart and Ruth Roy at UPM Tilhill; Robert Weinberg and Rhona OConnell; Laurence Chard; Michael Hall, Richard Purkis and Geoff Anandappa at Stanley Gibbons; Adrian Roose; Colin Harding at Scotia Philately; Richard Watkins at Spink; Jim Budd; James Sherry at Vineyards of Bordeaux; and Anthony Foster at Bonhote Foster.

Various publications I write for regularly have allowed me to use their columns to explore some of the ideas contained in both the original version of this book and this new edition. In this respect I must thank Simon London, Kevin Brown and Matthew Vincent at the Financial Times, Rosie Carr at the Investors Chronicle, Richard Beddard and Steve McDowell at Interactive Investor, Andrew Pitts at Money Observer, and Frank Hemsley and Andrew Vaughan at Fleet Street Publications for their help. I first got interested in the tangible assets scene through writing articles about scripophily and gold for Accountancy magazine in the late 1980s.

At Harriman House, thanks go to Philip Jenks, Myles Hunt, Nick Read and Stephen Eckett for embracing the original idea of this book so enthusiastically and for the subsequent proposal to convert it into a handbook, and for editing, designing and producing the finished products at a speed that puts most traditional publishers to shame.

Last but not least, my wife Lynn Temple, whose idea this book originally was, has contributed to it in many ways. She conducted or sat in on most of the interviews we had with experts in many fields, attended auctions, researched particular topics in depth for me, and compiled and maintained the database relevant websites and information sources on which a number of the tables in this book and its predecessor are based, wrote some of the text, and proofread the finished version of the manuscripts. Completing the books would have been a much lengthier task without her help and she has, as always, my grateful thanks for her diligence and support.

Peter Temple

March 2010