Investor Grade Stamps

This question may sound strange to collectors but to folks interested in stamp investing:

How important is taking possession of stamps to investors? If stamps were held in a central location with guarantees of ownership (titles/contracts) would this be appealing in any way? Suppose you could take possession but didn't have to. This could guarantee the health and wellness of the stamp. Sort of like a commodity like oil or corn.

As a collector, my first thought is "what a truly horrible idea". My second is "what an easy way for investors to go broke".

rlsmoney, Your posts continually center around money, investing, perceived greedy colluding dealers, and so forth. Are you really a collector? Just saying ....

I don't see the slightest attraction to investing in stamps as a rule and certainly those schemes where they are held by someone else in a central repository or where they would be jointly owned by other investors. Understanding that good quality collectibles often involve an infusion of serious cash, I think it is folly to consider them a great investment other than the joy or pride of ownership. I guess it would be nice to have a profit from an item you have held for a long time but if you got a decent % of your original "investment" back at the time of selling and enjoyed ownership in the interim, I would consider this a win-win result. I would think that this philosophy potentially possible for a collector only for high grade items. Average or lower grade items have to be considered for enjoyment only with no monetary considerations down the line. Just one man's opinion.

Agreed, question better belongs in a investment forum; it will mostly generate responses like the above from actual stamp collectors in this community.
Don

I think your idea is plausible. British territories such as Saint Helena, Ascension Island, and Tristan da Cunha get a good portion of their GDP from the sale of postage stamps so if their postal system was publicly traded (I haven't researched this) then you could technically purchase shares and invest that way. You'll have to see if they're publicly traded though.

Didn't Stanley Gibbons try this "stamp investment portfolio" approach... and with fairly disastrous results?

I would never trust that the stamp(s) actually exist and in the condition/grade claimed. Seems ripe for scamming/Ponzi scheme.

yes this would only appeal to this market. If you bought a c3a, are you paying 1.6M to stare at it, or to say you own it, and sell it in 5 years for 2.6M?
I am thinking along the lines that only experienced curators of fine collectibles should be able to handle the stamps. I am thinking about long term protection of rarities while retaining ownership rights.

When folks win on a Siegel sale for instance, what if Siegel were to transfer the stamps to a vault. Would you trust them? When you were to sell, would you trust them to handle likewise? This is implausible?





I try to offer what I can. I enjoy this community, and love reading posts. Maybe if I wasn't harmed by dealers through the years, I would be less vocal on that end, when someone else says, bring it to a dealer, versus an expert without profit incentive. That's typically my stance. I am not different from the person who says "take it to a dealer". I'm just the guy who says "don't take it to a dealer".

Interestingly, I am putting together a repo where you can see my modern error collection in an open sourced manner. Stay tuned. Its going to be public shortly. My posts don't typically center around money or investing. I am a collector. I don't think any of my stamps have appreciated in value but believe they will (hopefully before I expire)

What I am trying to really figure out, is what innovations could foster real change to philately at a platform level.

Interestingly canadianphilatelist : Could the USPS be saved through the creation of a US government sponsored enterprise, similar to how Fanny Mae is structured? I don't know, but I do know they hemorrhaged 3.9 billion last year. Granted a lot has been through retirement promises, and what not, but Stamp management and reform needs to happen on many fronts and it requires a lot of understanding the ecosystem.

Why would Siegel bother? And can you imagine the insurance premiums? And investing is stamps is a very bad idea anyway. Long time collectors who bought judiciously and have held items for decades will probably make money. Few others are likely to. Dealers make money on knowledge of the market coupled with quick turnover to a collector base, they rarely hold decent items long term.

People do what the op asked about all of the time. It is called storing in a safe deposit box. Same difference. These holdings come up for sale quite regularly. As far as investing goes the op did not specify a time frame so I am not sure where the Rev's supposition that stamp investment is a fail comes from. I do not look at any collectibles as investments but where is hard data (not anecdotal from the "players") that proves this?

I think this type of model is exactly what Afinsa Bienes Tangibles used.

One problem with centralized control over anything, is you have centralized corruption too easily attained.

This guy should know a thing or two about investment grade stamps...

All one needs in the way of proof is to have watched auctions and the market long term. The only way to make any real money short term is to find something where the seller did not know what they had. The idea that one can buy stamps from an auction or from a dealer for investment and make real money short term under any other condition is illogical. Dealers do it by buying only what they know they can resell quickly, but most sales do not involve a really large % markup. It's a volume business.

Not all dealers make from volume, some would rather go for high profit margins on few quality items. Check out this dealer, a lot of what he sells are in the 4 to 5 digits...

https://www.michaelchipperfield.lon...ory/gallery/

A not to old article;
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richar...54e515573a17

if you want the valuation, you take it to a dealer, and ask for the value, not what he's willing to pay - even the dimmest knows that a dealer has expenses and can't pay full value, also bear in mind that if you want to sell it you'd have to pay commission, and so does the buyer, so the dealers price may not vary much from what you'd be left with.

not many experts knows the actual value of stamps.