We review the long-term investment performance of three important categories of emotional assets — stamps, art, and musical instruments. The long-run returns on these collectibles have been superior to the total return from government bonds and Treasury bills (and gold), at least before taking...

The risk-return characteristics of art as an asset have previously been studied through aggregate price indexes. By contrast, we examine the long-run buy-and-hold performance of an actual portfolio, namely the collection of John Maynard Keynes. We find that its performance has substantially...