The well of creativity is barely a trickle at this point. Our muse went to St. Tropez with someone younger and better-looking, and that was months ago. Is she ever coming back? We’ll leave a light on. Spend more time at the gym. Buy more flattering clothes. Vacuum the house once in a while. Damn, it would have been so easy to keep her. Cinderella were right, you don’t know what you got (till it’s gone).

So here’s the latest in what’s become a weekly series, our recycled Investopedia pieces. We still write for them, by the way. In fact, here’s our latest, give or take. But here’s a piece from many months ago. Still timely, mind you. Much like the nightly sports highlights can show only still photos from pay-per-view events, we’re allowed to show you no more than a sample paragraph from our vintage, nay classic, post. Here’s one that comes complete with a 96-year-old pop culture reference:

With an IRA, the world is your investment oyster. You can invest in just about any security or financial instrument whose value can be measured precisely and daily. What it doesn’t include is things like collectibles. Your mint-condition Inverted Jenny 24¢ stamp might be worth $925,000, but that’s only an estimate based on the price the most recent profligate rich person paid. It could take years to find a comparable rich person. One hundred shares of a stock, however, carry a value that you can calculate to the penny.

Here’s the original in its entirety. (We can’t explain the low-resolution stock photo. That’s Investopedia’s deal, not ours.) Enjoy.