Philippine Stamp Values - The Why Of It

Yes, that is the question - Why??

I was perusing recent postings and noticed several postings by member jhlovell with some neat pictures. I am actually going through a worldwide collection at the moment and happen to have just spent a morning working on the Philippines.

One thing jumped right out as I was cataloguing (using Scott's) and that was that values of all material was, in general, very low. If I compare other countries in the region the general impression that I get is that this country's material is quite a bit lower priced in all time frames.

Now, it seems like a fascinating country. Spanish colonial, independence, U.S. control including overprints of US stamps, Independence again, Japanese occupation - the whole works. And it does not seem to have an outrageous issuing policy nor are there any blocked or dubious issues that I could see. Topically interesting subject matter, historically interesting so why would prices be generally quite low? Scott does not list issued quantities but I don't imagine that they would be too out of line.

I know that markets dictate prices but occasionally you do run across a market that you do not understand and that can be exageration of prices in either direction, either up or down. Right now, from what I can see, I am very tempted to buy up a couple of collections to work with later.

Any thoughts on the Philippines specifically or catalogue pricing in general?

It's all about supply AND demand. In particular, how much supply is in dealer hands and how many collectors want it.

As a world-wide collector, I save a lot of money by buying stamps in areas when the demand is low. If I buy when the area is hot, I end up paying a lot more. So when the price is running up in a certain area, I quit buying and focus on other areas. That's why I've bought very very little China in the past decade. This is the 2nd run-up for Chinese stamps.

So enjoy your purchases of Philippine stamps while the prices are pretty low and stable.