World Economics And Stamps

tonymacg - The high end stamps never seem to suffer recession as the mid range stamps. My thought about it is that these items attract investment money and not only collectors.

I agree with you, Seahorse. I think that's what's going on in the China market at present. A big speculative bubble has developed, and the 'investors' have moved in to join the genuine collectors. I have the impression that something similar, though to a much smaller extent, is happening in the modern India market, too.

The Indian States are such a specialised area that few investors are going to risk it. I think that, rather, we're seeing the effects of the shift in the global economy: more wealth in India itself, and an increasingly wealthy Indian diaspora buying back the farm. With the very limited printing numbers for many of these stamps, it takes very little increase in collector interest to kick prices along.

And then there's that interesting phenomenon, the investor-collector. I have really serious, seriously hobby, collections of several (of the 40-odd) Indian States that are as near to complete as I can easily get them. There are other States, like Cochin, that I quite like, although I know I'm never going to get them to completion - but where I can see stamps that I'd like, and that would also make good long-term investments. I was bidding, hard I thought, on some of the nice Cochin items at that auction for that reason. Obviously, though, there are other collectors even more anxious to fill those aching gaps.

(And just by way of comparison: The Cochin SG 92c, the 1 Anna 3 Pies surcharge on 1 Anna of 1943, which sold for £4700 at auction - there was probably no more than a single sheet of 48 printed, of which only a mere handful have survived. Compare that with the Inverted Jenny, of which the full sheet was preserved. Factor in the shifts in global economic strength, and you see why collectors, collector-investors and investors are scrambling to get on board.)