My grandfather, now pushing 90, is one of those people, I guess.

In his case, I attribute it to he and my grandmother being scarred by the Depression, and feeling more comfortable with investing in tangible things than financial instruments. Back in the 60s and 70s he invested a significant fraction of his retirement money in collectibles -- antiques, crystal and dishes, coins, stamps, etc. What didn't go into collectables went into US savings bonds -- only no-risk, FDIC backed stuff, absolutely no stocks or bonds (and not via a pension either, he owned his own small business).

He wasn't crazy, and he absolutely was not lazy -- on the contrary, it was a labor of love and he put huge amounts of time into the activity. In terms of taste, he did a truly excellent job. Even did quite a bit of research before buying things, read trade maganizes about market trends, etc. -- and in fact, collectibles did well for those high inflation years when he was making the bulk of the investments. Certainly he got decent prices when he bought. But in the end, they performed pretty disasterously. Collectable plates in particular fared poorly -- in general they sell for a bit less in nominal terms today than the original price in 1970 (i.e., a substantial loss after inflation). Stamps are virtually worthless (though he always did see that as more hobby than investment).

A few lessons:

1. Things vs paper: conservative and rational as my grandparents were, they were totally spooked by financial instruments, and felt comfortable with things. I can't even imagine feeling safer having an attic stuffed full of old china than a mutual account with Vanguard, but many of the depression generation did. And so do many today (I see tons and tons of gold ads on FreeRepublic and WorldNetDaily and other sites that cater to the "black helicopter" crowd). Historically, that's a fear that'll keep you poor.

2. Separate investments and interests. My grandfather didn't equate "pretty" with "good investment", but his own love of antiques and collectibles made it easy to buy into it as an investment strategy. I think it made it especially hard to see lifestyle trends that hurt the value of such investments. This applies to stocks, too of course -- any HZer should ask themselves if they're investing with their head or their heart before putting $$$ into aerospace.

3. For collectibles, the rich get richer. Though grandpa diversified among many types of collectibles, where he wasn't diversified was among price categories. The most rare and expensive antiques have done far, far better than mundane things like 1970 Wedgewood limited edition plates, or mass produced 19th century grandfather clocks. Had he invested in half a dozen super-expensive items instead of an attic full of stuff, he'd have done much better -- on average. He'd also have been at far more risk if any of those half dozen items had fared poorly, or been damaged, etc. This makes collectibles a very, very dangerous game to play unless you're already rich -- stuff you can buy in quantity is junk, stuff that appreciates is too expensive to allow diversification.

4. Rates of return don't matter if you don't save enough. The good news in this story is that despite such awful choices, my grandparents had a pretty decent retirement, simply because they saved such a collossal fraction of their income over the years. I'm sure I'm making much wiser investments, but between the financial catastrophe of having earned a PhD plus my unwillingness to live on tunafish and WalMart, I'm likely to have a much tougher time in retirment.