Can investing and collecting go hand-in-hand? Yes -- especially if you are collecting coins, stock certificates, bank notes, or other rare items of value. Larry Schutts, an expert in investment-related collectibles, will periodically review items of interest from his collection and answer your questions here.

By 1862, rising Civil War costs prompted the U.S. Congress to levy taxes on use of a broad range of public and private documents. Most of the charges were rescinded ten years later, but a two cent tax on bank checks persisted until 1883. Citizens met the banking requirement by purchasing adhesive revenue stamps and applying them to blank areas on the faces of their checks. The law initially excluded transactions valued at less than $20, but Congress soon extended the tax to all sums and that led many businesses and individuals to order checks with government-approved tax stamp designs already printed on them. Fifteen general designs and more than one-hundred individual varieties were ultimately used. An active collector community now keeps high quality revenue stamped checks in demand and many have become solid long-term investments. Compare 30-year price gains of the specimens discussed below with three decade improvements in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+833%) and the S&P 500 Index (+743%).