KEY POINTS:
Hunting for that perfect Christmas gift for someone who has everything? Well, why not give your loved ones something that indulges their passions and could also net them a tidy profit?
Alternative investments are big business, and are no longer the preserve of the super-rich. While most people will have heard of investment in art and antiques, there is a myriad of other items - coins, royal and sporting memorabilia, fine wines - that can be invested in for less outlay.
Britain's over-50s are becoming serial collectors, and have spent 2.5 billion pounds ($6.57 billion) on collectibles in the past five years, research from Direct Line shows.
Top items to collect include out-of-circulation money, commemorative royal memorabilia, pop memorabilia, advertising merchandise from the 1950s and 60s, antique glass and toys.
A third of collectors sees their stash as an investment to hand down to younger generations, while a quarter believe they are hoarding tomorrow's antiques.
"We're starting to see the new generation of antiques emerge in the form of comics and pop memorabilia from the 60s, which many people may have lying around in their attics gathering dust," says Jamie Breese, a collectables expert for ITV.
Returns can prove lucrative. A tenth of those polled by Direct Line said they consider alternative assets to be more worthwhile than shares, and the average collector has seen the value of their investment rise four-fold in the past five years.
Owners of coins from the early 20th century can expect to receive up to 150 pounds ($394) for a five-pound note from 1907, according to Millers Collectibles Price Guide 2007, while royal memorabilia, such as plates or mugs from the Queen's coronation in 1953, can fetch more than 200 pounds ($525).
Some early Beatles records are estimated to be worth over 4,000 pounds ($10,506), while signatures, programmes and posters from sports stars and events can prove a good bet.
"I've seen items people thought were old junk fetch hundreds, even thousands of pounds," says Dave Davies, an expert in sports memorabilia, which he sells through his website soccerbid.co.uk.
"Sometimes it's even stuff that someone has retrieved from a bin or from a skip."
Items unearthed in lofts or at car boot sales often wind up being sold at big auction houses, such as Bonhams, or via specialist websites.
Davies' top five of "gifts that keep on giving" include items signed by Argentine football great Diego Maradona, Brazilian legend Pele, the England World Cup winning team of 1966, golf star Tiger Woods and boxer Muhammad Ali.
"Sporting legends don't come any bigger than the greatest fighter of all time," he says.
"Sadly, he (Ali) has suffered with Parkinson's disease and is no longer signing autographs. If you get the chance to buy one don't pass it up."
In time, items signed by British boxer Ricky Hatton, defeated last weekend by America's Floyd Mayweather, could rival Ali memorabilia.
"Look for signed boxing gloves and shorts - massive potential for the future," says Davies.
For those with more of a penchant for booze than boxing, a case of fine wine under the tree could be more appropriate.
Refrain from drinking it and you could stave off a hangover and net a profit.
As an investment, wine is an easily transferable asset with an established broking and auction market.
There are no limits to investing: you can put in 250 or 250,000 pounds ($656 - $656,593). But, for a serious return, 5,000 pounds ($13,131) is the minimum realistic starting point, according to fine wine merchant Berry Brothers & Rudd.
It opened its first shop on London's St James's Street, opposite St James's Palace, more than 300 years ago.
The outlet, frequented by famous writers, princes, lords and ladies over the centuries, still stands there today.
Berry Brothers has a 2,500-strong range of wines, from every-day drinking wine at 4.25 pounds ($11) per bottle to some of the finest and rarest worth more than 4,000 pounds ($10,506).
"Wine has been collected since the late 17th century by everyone from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Lloyd Webber, but any suggestion that it would be sold on for a profit - effectively creating a wine stock market - would, in days gone by, have made any gentleman choke on his venison steak," says sales director Simon Staples.
"But nothing has changed really. The most important considerations for buying wine are the same as ever - to know what to buy, who to buy it from, when to buy it, and how much to pay for it."
Buying "en primeur" (or "wine futures", as they are sometimes known) - after the harvest, but before the wine is bottled and released for general sale - is the most common type of investment.
Wine almost always appreciates in value over this 18-month period, with the upward price curve being steepest during the first five years of a wine's life.
So, what to buy? "The adage of buying the best wines from the best vintages is still a reliable one," says Staples.
"Burgundy and the Rhône Valley, along with Italy, Spain and California all contain wines that can fetch prices as high as the top Bordeaux, but Bordeaux is still by far the most important, and most reliable, area in the market."
Other than blips in the early 1990s and at the end of 1997, fine wine prices have risen impressively over the last 20 years.
But be warned - price movements, whether for an individual wine or whole vintage from a particular region, are capricious and can be sudden.
So, like the stock market, wine should be viewed as a medium to long-term investment.
A quick gain is possible - the price of Chateau Montrose 2003 soared 50 per cent in a single day - but the average portfolio of wine returns around 15 per cent per year over a five-year period.
Buying a good vintage before it reaches maturity typically yields 50-100 per cent, but the crème de la crème from any top vintage can bring healthier profits.
Chateau Latour, from Bordeaux, sold in 1990 at 450 pounds ($1,181) per case, now fetches 3,600 pounds ($9,461) - a return of 800 per cent.
As an added bonus, fine wines are classed as "wasting assets", so proceeds are not liable to capital gains tax.
"Even in a worst case scenario you can drink your investment - far preferable to dining on a share certificate," adds Staples.
- REUTERS
