Resale Value

In the November American Philatelist a letter from a member states "When boys and girls are introduced to stamp collectingas described by Ken Martin in his September column(Our hobby has a future page 855) I hope these youngsters are warned about the real negative in stamp collecting. When I drive a car out of the dealers showroom I lose 10-30 percent of its purchase price,depending on the make and model. When I purchase a stamp from a dealer according to its catalog price i'd lose 60-80 percent of its value if I immediately sold it to another dealer." Why would he buy a stamp and immediately sell it to another dealer ?? When I buy a car I dont take it to another dealer...i keep it long enough so that trade in value is acceptable to me...should we really explain the economics of stamp collecting to young kids who want to collect ???

Phil.....


I say it's not the reason for collecting....so unless they ask I'd refrain from discussing it. Investing is quite different from collecting.

My grandfather g1, and my father g2 always told me that a fool collects stamps for an investment

I agree. I really don't think beginning collectors, at least youth, are coming to the hobby with the economic aspects in mind. They will certainly be exposed to that aspect soon enough.

About the only thing I really have concern for is what is to happen to my collections (stamp and coin) when I die. They certainly aren't for sale now.

Back to the original question, I don't think youngsters have any immediate interest in resale value. In my case, I wasn't interested in selling, but acquiring.

I think that rather than focusing on the value, or lack thereof, of stamps we need to teach kids of the real value of stamps collecting. Learning about interesting people, places and things, the fun of the hunt, making friends that share a common interest, etc.
Most of the kids that I have had in the scout stamp collecting class got a sense of satisfaction knowing that they "completed" a collection and yet knew that they can go so much further if they wish.

Kids are already pretty aware of the concept of "depreciation" even if they don't know the definition. They know that once they use their new video game the most they can hope to get for it is 50% at the local Game Stop.

Richard

My daughter joined our local stamp club when she was about 6 years old. She was the only junior member. It was a small group so she was in on everything that we all talked about, so she listened and learned.
I was really surprised and pleased with everything she learned. One day when she was around 10 years old, we were at a stamp show. By then she was known to all the local dealers, and she could wander the show on her own and buy what she pleased. I had given her $20.00 and told her to have fun. It was her collection so she was free to buy whatever she liked.
I found her a little later at a table looking though one book going back and forth between two stamps. I forget what they were now, she has so much stuff, but I know they were priced up in the dollar figure instead of the usual 10 and 25 cent stuff.
Anyhow, she said that she had decided to spend half of her money to buy one good stamp every time that we went to a show. Her comment was, "I know my stamps won't ever be worth as much as I put into the collection, but it won't really be worth anything if I don't add a few good things." She bought a $10.00 stamp and the dealer gave her a dollar off. Then she spent the rest of her money on her 10 cent topicals. She always had fun.

It's funny now, 23 years later, and we go to a stamp show, she heads right for the one dealer that has dozens of stockbooks full of 10 and 25 cent stuff. hehehe! That's mostly because she bought most of the more expensive Canadian stamps that we both could afford, when she was a kid. She even checked and a lot of the dealers are pricing them about twice what she paid for them then. So she did the right thing.

Stamps can be bought for investment but you are looking at big money and rare stamps - out of my league!

When I first started collecting I bought stamps on ebay and thought that I was getting a bargain at 20% of catalogue value - until I took then to be valued for insurance purposes and their value was about what I paid for them.

Kids need to know the value of their stamps.

I think that for the most part kids get in to stamp collecting more for the enjoyment of it than hopes of future investment opportunities.

There are a few guys in our club that are definitely into stamps as a way to make money. They don't seem to get the enjoyment out of it that I do or some of the other that collect stamp for just that purpose "collecting".

Dianne

I think kids and adults should buy what they want when they want. If they are having fun and enjoying the hobby that's all that matters.
When my daughter was spending the money when she was a kid, even though she said they wouldn't be worth that much if she didn't put something into it, she still had fun being a kid and on the same level as some of the adult collectors. She knew she wanted a decent Canadian collection, so she bought something good at every show that we went to. Then she bought her "fun" stuff.

We had one man who brought his grandson to the club. I felt so sorry for the kid. He was looking at boats and planes and all the, "cool!" stuff. His grandfather told him it was a waste of money. His grandfather told him he couldn't have anything that wasn't in perfect mint condition, properly centered, and a choice of Canada, Germany, or USA. He was allowed to pick from a dozen or so stamps that his grandfather thought were suitable, and that was it. Then they were put into a stockbook right away, and that was the end of his stamp buying for the evening. Then the kid just had to sit there for the rest of the meeting doing nothing while the grandfather looked for stamps. He didn't buy much, because nothing came up to his expectations. He wouldn't even allow anyone to give the kids a handful of stamps for fun. It was a waste of time and effort to collect junk.
They only came to the meetings a couple more times. We weren't good enough for them. Well for the grandfather anyhow. I'm sure that his grandson would have had a great time.

The joy of collecting stamps is not the buying and selling, it is the enjoyment of working with and viewing of the stamps.

Well said Zaro. And I might add getting more and more.

Everyone is absolutely right in what they are saying.

To illustrate, let me give the following example: If you spend $400 for two good seats at a 10-0 New Orleans Saints game, pay $25 for parking, buy two dogs, two popcorns and two drinks for $40, plop down $180 to spend the night in a nearby hotel so you don't have to drive home in the middle of the night, then drop a final $25 for breakfast you've invested some $650 to $700 in a night's entertainment.

If the Saints lose you don't get an refund. You've had the fun and excitement, but all you have left are ticket stubs and heartburn from the reheated dogs.

Is that better or worse than spending money on a stamp collection that you can look at and play with every day the rest of your life? Only the individual can answer that.

What...no tail-gate party ????

More random thoughts:

A true investor should probably not have over 100 or so stamps in his or her portfolio. Think about it, of the true blue chip investment stamps, only a handful are affordable to anyone other than T. Boone Pickens or the Prince of Whales.

Most investors I've read about don't even look at their stamps. They have them purchased at auction or private sale by a proxy and then keep them locked away in a vault.

Collections and accumulations are living, breathing entities (maybe alien life forces for all I know). Investments are stale, dead entities.

There are obviously some people who sit in the middle - like Bobgggg and his $1M collection - but most of us "invest" in the enjoyment, stress relief, and education we receive from "playing with our little pieces of paper."

I agree with you las in a lot of ways. I do my collection as a mixture. Some are definetly higher ticket items than others, but these are all items I want to collect and have enjoyed accumalating.