New Stamps Or Used Stamps?

Hello everybody!
Last sunday I had a conversation with a local dealer here in Spain.
He has a little shop and he only sells spanish stamps.
He told me that in his opinion, the issues in MNH, with facial value in euros will in the future (ten years, twenty years) have a very high value, more than the MNH stamps issued in the 80, 90.
My experience is that you can find MNH at facial value...
On the other hand, I'm noticing that here in Spain people are buying new stamps and they send them in an envelope to themselves, as they say used stamps will revaluate in the future due to the low number, and very low use of the stamps (A normal issue here is now in 200.000.
What do you think is a better option for the future, buy MNH, or used?
I´m talking about recent issues, from 2000, and "normal" countries, like Spain, France, UK, USA... I´m not talking about Faroe, Isle of Man and so on.
I would appreciate very much your point of view, as I don´t know the better option. I think it´s crazy to obliterate a new stamp, just to have it in used condition, but....

I am of the opinion that modern postally used stamps are/will be worth more in the future than MNH because it is getting harder to find people you will use snail mail and put stamps on the items.

There are several things working to make modern used stamps scarce:
1) Fewer people sending snail mail
2) People sending snail mail not using stamps, but settling for the post office machine label
3) People sending snail mail settling for coil or booklet definitive instead of getting commemoratives
4) Post Office processing frequent failure to cancel stamps that are postally used
5) Most likely a preponderance of stamped items sent by people going to a business (bill payments) and being trashed rather than being used for personal correspondence and passed on to collectors (the decline of hand written correspondence)

Commercial covers used in period. They are rare. Specially specialist material like EFO. Then, used stamps.

In any case, it doesn't make much financial sense to invest in current mint stamps. All dealers have plenty.

Paco wrote: "it doesn't make much financial sense to invest in current mint stamps. All dealers have plenty." People in the US should have learned Paco's basic fact after buying mint sheets in the 1950s and 1960s. With a few exceptions, the value of those sheets today is to be used as postage.

I think commercial covers from today's era will be very hard to find in the future, particularly with some of the commemoratives. I don't think there's going to be that much demand for them in 10 years, though. I'm thinking more like 20, 30 or more years. Most collectors aren't all that enamoured with very recent stamps and postal history, even if they are somewhat scarce.

In 10 or 20 years, if people are still sending snail mail with stamps, Euro values will probably still be valid for postage, so there's somewhat of a floor under those issues. Unused stamps that aren't valid for postage will probably drop in value. The only thing propping them up is their demand as collectibles, and that demand is unlikely to increase dramatically anytime soon.

I'd try not to focus on what will be more valuable in the future, however, as it's mostly a guessing game with a lot of variables. It's unlikely you'll actually come out ahead in the end, monetarily. If you buy stamps that you enjoy having for their own sake, you'll get enough non-monetary value out of them to make up for any lack of financial gain.

This is probably true with regards to the major countries of the world. I don't think many stamps from the US, UK, France, Germany, etc will ever be worth much over face value. Most dealers can't or won't stock every new stamp issued globally, however, and many issues of smaller countries could become very hard to find, in either mint or used condition.

The US prints way too many stamps for the most part, thus the high demand for the die cut stuff

In 10 to 20 years you will have only few rare people's collecting stamps.

Oldguy said:
I am of the opinion that modern postally used stamps are/will be worth more in the future than MNH because it is getting harder to find people you will use snail mail and put stamps on the items.

There are several things working to make modern used stamps scarce:
1) Fewer people sending snail mail
2) People sending snail mail not using stamps, but settling for the post office machine label
3) People sending snail mail settling for coil or booklet definitive instead of getting commemoratives
4) Post Office processing frequent failure to cancel stamps that are postally used
5) Most likely a preponderance of stamped items sent by people going to a business (bill payments) and being trashed rather than being used for personal correspondence and passed on to collectors (the decline of hand written correspondence.


OK, but the auctions in ebay make great differences between new and used. People dont seem to appreciate the scarceness of the recent used stamps. Why? I dont know. In this momento is possible to find issues from 2003 with a discount of 10% 20% from facial value.
Pre euro are below that (in new).
In used, excepting some issues, the prices have drop dramatically.
Another question is that countries like France, Japan, are issuing more than 300-400 stamps a year.
I remember when I was a child that countries issuing more than 100 a year weren't considered serious countries.
And the other question as area 66 quoted is that demand is as well falling, so both demmand and supply fall and the princes remain in the same point.

Another question:
You should not ever soak a recent envelope with hard to find recent commemoratives?

Artfull said:
This is probably true with regards to the major countries of the world. I don't think many stamps from the US, UK, France, Germany, etc will ever be worth much over face value. Most dealers can't or won't stock every new stamp issued globally, however, and many issues of smaller countries could become very hard to find, in either mint or used condition.

In my opinion small countries won´t never have a demand as USA, UK, or Germany will have, so, those stamps will be probably more valuable, but virtually iliquid, and thus you will have to accept hard discounts to sell them.

Those who collected stamps as investment will loose big time . You collect stamps because you like them.

To reply to the question .... Mint classic stamps. Modern stamps are just sticker

Many people tried to make money with mint stamps in Spain a few decades ago. It didn't work. It's true that prints now are low, but not that low, and number of collectors is also low, and I don't see a drastic change in the near future. Average age is going up.

I also have doubts about future demand for current stickers issued for collectors.

I collect postally used US stamps, including modern issues. It always rubs me wrong when others denigrate the modern stamps. Mint classics are fine if your wallet is your primary collecting tool. I prefer hunting for all the issues and filling album spots by opening my mail, not my wallet. If you just want shelf queens - buy those mint, perfectly centered, undisturbed gummed scraps of fine paper and get them encased in plastic mounts. I prefer the stamps that worked for a living, and honor them with a hinge in their retirement.

It's what I like. So there. :)

Depending on how they are done, not all collectors will recognize these "[sent] in an envelope to themselves" as commercially used covers, but as philatelic, thus diminishing their value. I only collect a few modern stamps, but have no problem finding used versions of the stamps, and usually for a pittance. Finding them commercially used can be more of a challenge. But as others have said, it will be a long time before these are valued the way classic postal history covers are valued. Think generations, not just years.

So in essence, stamp collecting ended circa 1920's if you are a "value" collector. It never ends if you just love collecting stamps, but postally used stamps my be a winning combination post-1920's strategy.

I started collecting in the '50 as a world geography/history interest and education, that still holds somewhat true today.

These days, however, I have more narrowly focused my collection on used US. No longer the starry eyed kid wondering about the big wide world.