So They Tell Me The Stamp Market Is Crashing?

Columbians are a popular set, so the prices reflect that. But if someone needed 1000 MNH in a short time, they could get them without a problem. They might have to spread the requests around a bit, but they would get them in a very reasonable time.

You folks evidently have not seen how a true and serious stamp investor operates. The grading services are particularly useful for establishing the viability of a stamp as an investment vehicle. In a large percentage of the cases these stamps are bought on the speculation that they are bonafide condition rarities and thus worthy of consideration for a portfolio. Please don't remind me of the mantra that stamps should be collected and not treated as investment vehicles. That wisdom is intended for those who do not float in these circles. I don't, but I used to know a man who made graphs and charts for material in his portfolio. That was his thing while he was still alive.

Essayk - Look at any given graph on Siegel and you will find that the returns have been abysmal. Look at a US Scott 9 graded 98J for example. There are thousands of simliar outcomes. Investment vehicles they are not. Not even remotely close unless your plan is to lose money or maintain the status quo.

I agree with essay. I collect stamps but also consider it an investment vehicle. It's like my house. Where I live, the return on a real estate investment in a personal home is horrible over last 15 years...after all the money, time, and taxes... I should have just rented. But I love my house. I enjoy improving it. I enjoy coming home from work and seeing my kids play in it. I enjoy wasting money on it (not really) But I also consider it a savings investment. I watch real estate prices in my neighborhood, discuss housing in my community with my friends, because one day I will likely sell the house. It is the largest investment I ever made. You make think comparing my house to stamps as an investment is like comparing apples and oranges but I truthfully they are similar in the emotional way that I spend money.

The data does not lie as far as ROI for high grade stamps. It is a losing proposition.

Additionally, third party grading enables noncollector investors to buy stamps without having a whit of philatelic knowledge or experience.

It turns stamps into commodity "widgets" that can be traded sight unseen. The third party grade allows it to be looked up on weekly/monthly SMQ value charts like the daily NYSE/NASDAQ stock prices.

This has been the case for decades now in coin collecting. The weekly, monthly, and quarterly published CDN "Graysheet", "Bluesheet", and "Greensheet" are staples for coin dealers listing coins, TPG graded coins, and currency respectively. Online dealer networks like CoinNet trade regularly not only in bulk wholesale coins, but PCGS and NGC graded coins.

It's an attempt to standardize something that doesn't naturally lend itself to being standardized, as a way for stamps/coins to be bought and sold more easily and reliably, and bring noncollector investor dollars into the market.

You might be able to compare a house to a stamp or other collectible as far as emotional rewards but that seems like an odd comparison to me--a house serves a functional role regardless to it's ROI--a collectible does not.

I would be interested in hearing from the collectors of this thread, not only how many graded certificates they have but how many certificates of any kind and from any of the big 3 organizations (PF,PSE, APEX) they have? I would bet that would be an infinitesimal number compared to the number of stamps in their collection.

I'll start--I am a collector, nof an investor and have tens of thousands of stamps both US and worldide. I am interested in Classic era only. To give you an idea, the worldwide collection includes all Rhodesia admirals unused OG, all of the Rhodesia double heads unused g except fr a used pound example and the US contains all of the 24 cent 1861 shades, except for 78c which is used , as well as all of the no grill pictorials. I only mention this for illustrative purposes to say that even in a collection like this I may have 250 total certificates---only one of which is grade and that one came graded--Scott 78b unused PSE XF 90.

The purpose of telling you any of this is to emphasize that the people paying 600 dollars or more for a #557 are such a tiny segment of the US market whose significance as a barometer of the overall health of the hobby is blown out of proportion because that's where the publicity is.

My own thoughts are that I would much rather have a VF unused 70b, 70c, or 70d than a graded #557 even though the market for the former is going down and the current market for the latter is going up. Seems kinda crazy to me but in the end I don't think it will ultimately matter because I don't think the vast majority of the younger generation is going to be interested in either.

I have a US collection of about 6,000 used stamps. Yeah, I really enjoy minor varieties.

I probably have about a dozen certificates that came with the stamps I bought. I do like them for stamps that are forged a lot, or are so uncommon that I don't have good comparisons, eg early Hawaii stamps. But I also have two shelves of reference books, and lots of stamps to compare a new stamp with.

I pass on graded stamps. I do like well centered stamps,and upgrade to better centering when possible. If I can have a stamp that would grade 85 for $5 or a grade 98 for $500, I'm happy with the former. Maybe I have stamps that would grade 100, maybe they are 90's, but if I have to measure the difference with a micrometer, it is irrelevant to me.

Investments are normally supposed to increase in value over time, hopefully at a rate greater than inflation. Of course, not all of them work out that way, but that's the general idea. Hardly any stamps are going to meet this criteria. Some will, but those will be cancelled out by the 99%+ of stamps that will languish or outright decline. I do look at my collection as a store of value (i.e. I'll be able to sell it someday for a significant sum of money), but even that is kind of a misnonmer as the collection is probably not going to hold its own vs. inflation.

Stamps are a lousy investment as a pure investment. As a hobby, it's actually a pretty good investment. What I mean by that is if we compare it vs. other hobbies and diversions - golfing, traveling, boating and other forms of recreation - we do get something back from our stamps. The ROI on greens fees at golf courses is a negative 100%, for example. I'm not knocking those other diversions, just saying that they're what we should compare the stamp hobby to when we talk about return on investment.

Gee,

Does anybody remember when they used to say that stamp values ALWAYS increased year to year. That was a long time ago. A long time, indeed.

Jack Kelley

Stamps are a lousy investment - - -

If one agrees that buying (say, stamps) low and selling high is sound investment advice, then hasn't that boat already sailed?

The stamps I have that might grade high were collected before the grading craze and if I knew they would be worth what they are today, sure, I would have bought more. Too late now. But I can and do still collect for enjoyment.

C13-C15 Zeppelin Catalog Trends - tracks Zep catalog prices over the years; basically shows that after you account for inflation a set of Zeps is worth almost exactly the same today as in 1945.
http://www.stampsmarter.com/learnin...gTrends.html
Don

Thanks Studebaker for posting that. The Zepps were, as for many, the last big unfilled hole in my U.S. Air collection. I finally bit the bullet and bought them just before retirement at about 2/3 catalogue which didn't seem too bad, so it is good to know that at least they shouldn't loose value in the future although that wasn't the reason I bought them.

The only cert I got myself is a PF cert needed to get a previously unlisted bisect into the catalog. I also have one for a fake roulette that a dealer gave to me as a gift when I was about 18. But I don't normally need certs for my collecting interests.

There is an interesting parallel thread on this forum purporting to discuss the relative merits of PF vs PSE grading that has veered slightly into the realm of what stamps are worthy of getting graded. As I understand it, if you have a stamp, even a relatively rare or costly stamp, that it makes no sense to get a graded cert unless you think you will achieve greater than a 90.

By inference, a person adopting this mindset would consider classics such as unused 1861;s, unused pictorials, etc in the former VF category (grade 80) as garbage, even if a stamp fitting this category (Scott 67, Scott 121-122, Scott 95-101 might cost more than $1000. I have a unused og fault free Scott 84 with PSE but not graded that I think most would accept as a rare stamp, but if graded, there is no way it would receive more than a 75, probably 70. It is stamps like these that previously had value when the categories were F, VF, VF-XF, that now seem to be consigned to the trash heap that reflects tge real problem with the stamp market in the United States.

It is very much like society as a whole: you have the enormously wealthy, the increasing numbers of improvished, and this great swath of people in the middle, who used to be clearly middle class, but now with the disparity of wealth at the extremes, maybe struggling to stay middle class. Those stuggling to remain in the middle class or stand proud are like the less than 90 grade true classics that now seem to be ignored.

And I think that this is the real risk to, not the hobby of stamp collecing, which is done for enjoyment, but the stamp market. When the buyers of less than grade 90 classics perceive that they are wasting their money purchasing a depreciating commodity then all you are going to have left is avalanche of nice collectable stamps that are nonetheless adjudged as wallflowers and a small pile of the grade sought after by an equally small number of the wealthiest of collectors. Indeed, I surmise this has already happened.