Have Stamps Increased In Value Over The Last 15 Years?

Trying to decide if I need to buy more recent Scott catalogs. I'm not selling currently but I'm always interested in value. I don't care at all about all the modern stamps that have been issued. Has much new detail/ information been added about older stamps?

Classic era stamps many individual issues have gone up and down in value; modern era not so much. If you are not selling, I wouldn't spend the money on a current catalog, unless you are looking for details about recent issues, many of which can be very confusing thanks to the USPS.

For classic era stamps, if you just interested in value or bidding price, best bet is one of the on-line catalogs or stamp auctions.

It depends on what you collect. China has increased an insane amount in the last 15 years. So have U.S. revenues. I'm sure there are other areas as well.

Another possibility. Go to your local library and see if they have a Scott for this year. That way you can check the stamps you are interested in for yourself.

Peter

In Australia used stamp issues from 2000 to now are very interesting.

1. Self Adhesive letter rate sets have stayed even but with less buyers. Do the bulk of buyers have these sets? And these sets sell for about half face value which is below cat value.

2. Now letter rate sheet stamps or gum stamps set are harder to find and more popular. They sell for about double face. Cat value is way under this!

2. High denominations are in good demand and range from face value to triple face value.

3. International stamps come mostly as high demoninations with a few smaller make up stamps in the system. They are in short supply in Australia and most of them are hard to find in very good condition and continue to sell for prices way above cat value.

4. The stand out is international post self adhesives. Extremely scarce as a whole. Lots of these stamps are sold with paper thins and this issue is the number 1 question I get asked about our stamps. Most of these issues now sell for x3 & 4x face value.

Well that is how I see Australia used stamps from 2000 to now. We will continue to see higher prices as less letters are being sent through the mailing system. With more than 100% mail cost increase in Australia for a letter to be sent through the mail is going to stop a lot of the more budget minded buyers and create a backward trend in prices at the bottom end of our stamp sales which is about 50%. How long this will take to level out again we will just have to wait and see.

I disagree with what is posted above {all the long term posters and moderator here knew I would say that}. The China stuff is limited to a few over speculated items , the modern stuff of all countries are just a roll of the dice . If you want to know what has steadily been going up and fun to work on and can be purchase at a fraction of your sales cost . It is items that I called "researched studies " by this I mean you accumulate the material ,research it ,then lay it out and write it up on pages . It doesn't matter the country or the time period ,it is a study like I did on Austria postage due shades ,Heglioland reprints or the Blue Flea ,there is a certain satisfaction to putting it together and it is worth something more than the price of the stamps , I plan to do something next with U.S. coil plate numbers and actual usage of U.S. airmail rates on cover with the postcard rates included .
There are so many areas worldwide ,I will never run out of subjects. Working on a forgery collection with write ups right now and that could take awhile .

A majority of Scott CV's will have gone down in the last 15 years, if they had any significant value in the first place. I.e., stamps with a CV of under a dollar or two may not have changed much, but they certainly have not risen. Stamps with modest values, say under a few hundred dollars, are lucky to have there value about where it was 15 years ago. That may even be true for stamps worth several hundred dollars. The only place you find stamps appreciating significantly is where they are valued in the thousands, or tens of thousands of dollars (and on upwards). These stamps are very scarce, and there are always some deep pockets in each generation that just have to have them.

How many times do we have to say it? Don't consider stamp collections an investment!

For the most part,I agree with Floortrader. As a rule, most classics have remained stagnant or even gone down. Certain countries have gone up because of demand (China), but have leveled out and will likely go down in the near future. Certain classics have gone up due to actual(vs perceived) rarity.

Unless you're selling, don't bother with a new catalogue.

Yes and no. In the last 15 years the general trend has been down. Yet I have noticed in the last two or three years that the buying prices have risen significantly.


-IBFS

re.

" the China stuff is limited to a few over speculated items ".

Most probably the most incorrect statement that has ever been made on this chat.

It is not a few, it is most probably a few thousand and it is not over speculated, it is the huge demand,

Pagoda

Agreed. As so-called third world countries progress into second and first-world status, as the populace gains discretionary income, collecting is one of the areas that money goes into. The reason that the prices of Chinese (and more recently Indian) stamps have gone up is not due to speculation by first-world collectors, but rather more of the material is going back to its country of origin... increased demand.

I have nearly 11,000 worldwide stamps catalogued (1840-1950/1960). Their 2012 Scott cv is, well, let's say many tens of thousands. Between 2005 and 2012 their cv increased 18%.

Although probably 9,500 of those stamps catalogue $.20-$.50, hundreds catalogue between $.50 and $75 and perhaps 150 catalogue from $100.00-500.00. A handful catalogue between $500 and about $1300. (Condition is another matter, though overall the average condition is, well, average, about 45-50% of cv.) Most all of the $100-500 and all of the few $500-1300 stamps are US and Great Britain.

In other words, this collection includes some "betters" but mostly consists of $.20-$.50 common stuff.

In some cases I was using 1999 values as my comparison, but mostly my comparison is Scott 2005.

Now, the 11,000 I've catalogued are not uniformly from around the world. I've done Germany, Austria, France, Great Britain, US, Canada, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Vatican City in Europe, about 2/3 of the British Commonwealth and about half of the French colonies. Almost no Portuguese, Spanish, or Italian colonies. I have done Argentina, Chile, Brazil in Latin America but no Asia at all. But if you look at that list, I think you see a decent representation of worldwide, from the "cheap" countries like Austria and Hungary and Germany to some of the more expensive French or British colonies, US and Canada.

So the 18% increase between 2005 and 2012, it seems to me, should be reasonably indicative of trends for a very short seven years' time period.

Incidentally, between 2005 and 2012, the US that I own have increased only 3% on a total cv of, well, several tens of thousands of dollars (many individual higher value US stamps have declined from 2005 to 2012 but others have increased, enough to end up on the plus side for the mix I own--98% complete 1922-1960, mixed used and mint, 75% complete 1893-1922, mostly used, 50% complete face different before 1893). The 18% is NOT coming from US.

And I've catalogued no China at all, so it can't be coming from China.

It's coming from British Commonwealth, French Colonies, Great Britain and German States (Great Britain and German States each increased 26%; I haven't run the numbers for the colonies, but my impression is that there were significant increases there, unlike US). And in the above-mentioned countries, the increase is coming from the "betters," from the $20.00-$500.00 stamps, not from the $.20-$.50 stamps.

And what the trend since 2012 is, I have no idea.

It's possible that 2005 represented enough of a decline from 2000 that the 15-year trend is flat--the increase I can document (18%) since 2005 might be an upswing after years of downturn.

"MOST INCORRECT STATEMENT ON THIS CHAT " most humble apology for my statement, I would of posted a few hours ago but it would of been before I won at auction a few hundred dollars worth of China People Republic ,Japanese Occupation of Kwangtung and Shansi , and mostly sets of the China Liberated Areas stamps tonight. My purchase price was less than half catalog of Scott's {and we all know how outrageous low their prices are for China }. So I added to my collection because of a lack of interest for some very hard to get China .....again most humble apology ,I don't know what I was talking about concerning CHINA .

It is some of both. There is certainly some speculation going on (especially on the monkey), but there is also some low supply (collecting was considered selfish and not in line with the values being promoted during Mao's reign) and there is now greater demand from a larger middle and upper class.

Floortrader,

you bought one of the most unpopular areas of China, Japanese Occupation and comparing them with the hot areas, such as Classical China, PRC, 1950 to about 1985 and calling them all speculative and making absurd statements such as,

" The China stuff is limited to a few over speculated items ",

I suggest you try to buy the better material at percentages of catalog value,

Pagoda

To get the real catalogue value just contact floortrader.






I needed a good laugh. Thank you floortrader!