What If Stamps Had No Value

If stamps had no significant value would you collect them anyway? Or is one of the reasons to be able to say "well I got this stamp for 1 tenth of the Scott value," an economic thing.

I can say that I don't care what the value of my collection is at all and when I pass away I don't care what my daughter does with it. I especially enjoy my FDC's and as an example am looking forward to the Ingrid Bergman release. I'll have one with Spellbound (Hitchcock and Peck), another with Bogart and Max Steiner) and some interesting combinations with the Swedish release. I know going in that they are worthless and don't care.

What are your thoughts and ideas?

sdtom...I collect them for the enjoyment...the thrill of the chase...I don't sell stamps..i just collect them...Maybe pass down to kids, grand kids, etc..some day some one will be happy..

Robert

I also collect stamps for the enjoyment. They lead me to investigate history, postal history, technology and many other things. And, the aesthetics/lack of aesthetics is another big attraction. If there ever was a time in my life when I thought there was some worthwhile residual financial value in what I was collecting, that time has LONG since passed.

I couldn't care less what they are worth. I have a world collection which consists purely of stamp sets I like the look of, mostly older ones with the same engraving in multiple colours - they aren't worth much, but to me, they are of great value.

I am a proud bottom-feeder.

I count the hours spent pawing thru the bargain boxes, learning something new, etc ... and divide that into what I spent ... and compare that $/hr to other forms of entertainment, including movies & dining-out ... and usually come to an hourly rate that is low enough that I could walk out of a bourse and dump my goodies in the trash and still think that I got a good deal.

Life In The Bargain Box spares me worrying about insurance, forgeries, mis-identifications, and fashion trends.

If I went back to Serious Collecting, I'd be a wreck.

YMMV,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Well, most of them don't.

Cynicism aside, I too collect for the enjoyment. The hunt, organizing, research, postal history etc. But admittedly I've been lately looking for better examples. Probably because my wife keeps asking me what to do with them after I'm gone.

Hmmm. I wonder if she's planning something?

Then I'd have a lot more of them! Like most here, I don't collect for resale, but the thrill of the hunt. Aquiring a scarce or hard to find stamp is an imediate reward for me, not because I can resell it for a profit, but because it is one less avaible, and I am closer to being complete.

For the price of a four hour round of golf, I can have months of enjoyment sorting through a lot of stamps.

On the other hand, with golf I do usually get to take 120+ shots in a round

My world-wide Big Blue collection is my 'fun'. But my US collection has been assembled with a bit more of an eye towards potential value in the future. So for me it is a bit of both; parts of my collecting is based upon intrinsic value and part of it is based upon investment value.
Don

If stamps had no value, then I'd enjoy collecting even more, because my pocketbook would then be limitless!

But more realistically, I think there is a fly in the ointment. As long as there are people like me, and like the others here who say they just collect for enjoyment, stamps will have value. That's because the supply is finite, and now we are the la la land of Econ 101, aka supply and demand. If there is a stamp you want, and I want it to, it will have value.

The more common, and meaningful, variation of this discussion is over whether stamps have, or will continue to have, investment value. And most stamps do not have any "investment value." But they still have a "market value" because of the enjoyment factors that have been mentioned. Stamps with "investment value" tend to have values that preclude most of us from enjoying an opportunity to own them. You know, the stamps that make the front page of Linn's week after week (and the corresponding articles about the hundreds of thousands of dollars brought in by the big auction houses).

Then there is a middle ground, maybe where a lot of more experienced collectors, but with limited means, find ourselves. We look for "quality" that may mean that a particular stamp or cover at has a chance of holding its value against inflation. I guess this is similar to the situation described by Don. The bulk of my collection is covers, not stamps. I would guesstimate that 50% are worth less than $5, another 25% as much as $10, and the final 25% anywhere from $10 to $500. And those are not "CV" so much as "EBV" -- " ebay" value, i.e. what I think they'd bring sold on ebay.

I'll wait for others to contribute but so far we're much more into the collecting as opposed to the "investment value."

Well, to be fair to us, the premise is "What if stamps had no value".

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I concur with the previous posts. I collect stamps for fun, not profit. In fact, a fair majority of stamps that I have are of minimal "value" but by the same token those thousands of stamps in glassine envelopes were given to me (I didn't buy them ... or if I did it was via the "Bargain Box".) I can get just as much enjoyment (if not more) by looking through hundreds of "cheap" stamps than I can if I were to just focus on one or two "better" stamps at high catalog value.

As others have said, if you are looking for profit there are many better things to invest in than stamps. On the other hand, if you're looking for fun, satisfaction and a few history lessons thrown into the mix, in my opinion there are few hobbies as gratifying as stamp collecting and you can fit a collection into almost any budget, too.

To quote blcjr - "EBV" -- " ebay" value, i.e. what I think they'd bring sold on ebay.
That's my way of thinking. Catalogue value means nothing to me, apart from as a very rough guide. What you can reasonably expect someone to actually pay for a stamp is more relevant. I collect for myself, but I am also noting what the 'better' items are, what ebay averages for it, and where they are in the collection, so that when I am no longer the custodian then hopefully the value of the collection is realised by the family. Wouldn't like to think the better things would go to a dealer for pennies!
DavidR

I didn't begin collecting stamps as an investment, and still don't collect as an investment, but for many other reasons and passions.

As a 9 year old, investment was not a consideration. I collected stamps because it opened the world to me. My first Harris Statesmen Album showed me countries I never heard and they of came to life. Geography came to life. History came to life.

I began collecting as a way of exploring the world. While I no longer actively pursue Worldwide, I still occasionally bid on and buy worldwide "hordes", "collections", "albums", etc. just to trip through history and geography, then pass them on to the APS Stamps Teach program.

I suspect that the #ppl who collect stamps as in investment are few and far between. For investments, I would rather spend a week in Las Vegas than pick stamps I can afford to invest in.

I don't sell stamps but I must admit, when I look up a new stamp in the catalog and find a value of say $50.00, I smile more than if it said 50 cents.