Help Me Out On This -Someone's Stamp Investment .

Tomorrow at Kelleher's Stamp Auction . There is a lot in the U.S. section for a 3 cents stamp sheet hoard of commemoratives . The lot has $16,000 face and is selling for less than $10,000.

Now this is where I need your math skills

It was purchased at $16,000 face with 3 cents stamps , back then $16,000 would buy you a decent house . Today if you had the same amount of first class postage stamps ,so 3 cents to 55 cents is 16X inflation increase ,so the $16,000 today is the same as $256,000 . Again enought to buy a decent house . Are you following me here .


So this person or his family is getting back 1/16 of the original investment for the sale of the mint stamp sheets .....check this math and see if that is correct .....and use this example next time your thinking of investing in stamps as this poor guy did between 1944 and 1958 .


just reread my posting ,now if the value now is $256,000 and their getting under $10,000 ,then they are getting back 1/25 of value in todays dollars .

Stock market is way up, gold prices are high, bitcoin is all time high, banks are paying 0.05% for a CD. Sinking 10g into 16g of face value might be your best ROI for your money right now, especially if your planning on sending a ton of Christmas cards.

GIBBY---- I don't think a Christmas card can hold 16 stamps .

Land has always been a good investment, they are not making any more of it.

2021 Caveat (Not land within a Kilometer of the beach, or large rivers.
Brisbane couple in flood area, just received their annual House Insurance $15,000

It was not done for $$$ but rather for love.

And by a ton, he means a TON!

My grandfather died in 1964 and left (among other things philatelic) a carton of 3c sheets. A little over $1000 face. We looked and looked, and finally found a dealer paying 80% of face (I think it was Marlen on Long Island, but I could be wrong), about 20 years after he died. And these were 3-cent-ers, so they were already old when he died. Not a wise investment, no matter how you play with the numbers. And I am sure he bought them as an investment - he didn't do anything special with them. Every week, he would go to the PO and buy a sheet or two at $1.50 per sheet and take them home and throw them in the box. When we found them, there they were - no mint sheet files, no 'nuthin' between them, just a box of sheets of stamps all in one neat pile. Luckily, they were kept flat and didn't stick together (THAT was a miracle), so we were able to get 80% Face. In the last 75 years or so, there have only been a handful of new issues that you could make a profit on. Gramp was trying for one of those money-makers. If only he had bought a sheet of the $5 Hamilton (or better yet, the $5 Coolidge), but he simply couldn't afford to plunk down $500 at the PO. That, and Gram would have been a widow sooner than she was.

Auction results in .....sold for $9,000

Marlen has been in Great Neck since 1983.

Well...at least the seller gets something back (minus commission, etc). That's better than the cumulative financial cost/loss which have been incurred for many hobbies, such as fishing or golf (transportation, equipment, accommodations, dermatologist, etc).

I think hobbies / love are more about time. In my opinion time is our most precious commodity and sometimes we measure in financial return what we should measure in happiness. I don't play golf, or fish but I do things that bring me great happiness such as SCF
Saving sheets upon sheets upon 16,000 dollars of sheets strikes me as a misplaced investment, I may very well be wrong.
Just my opinion
Cheers, m

And there might be hundreds more boxes around just like that one. I once spent a few days counting $40,000 in face airmails. And there could easily be 100 more of those lots around, too.

Would've could've should've. Although the money would have been better invested in real estate, stock market, baseball cards, or original pressing of Blue Note and Sun LP's, at least there's still something left to show for it. Better than having gambled it all away on poker, or spending on booze or something. Also, I'm sure there were some fad investments during that era which would have done much worse.

Of course... enjoying time spent with a hobby is its most important aspect, IMO also.

I don't believe many people who collect stamps do it as an investment; I certainly hope they don't.

Mr. Bookbndrbod, not to sound arrogant, but we don't.
Regards, cheers

" I once spent a few days counting $40,000 in face "

Biggest one I had to count was "only" $10k

"I don't believe many people who collect stamps do it as an investment; I certainly hope they don't."

Well I certainly hope they do!!

I hope that their 'investment' in terms of time and money results in a huge return in their 'investment' in terms of enjoyment, knowledge, and even better a monetary return as well.

Luck, of course, has a lot to do with the monetary aspect of collecting and knowledge is even more important.

(How many people were lucky enough to pick up cheap Chinese stamps or coins before they exploded in value?)

The person that picks up sheets of mint stamps from the post office, IMO, has not done their homework in terms of education and knowledge. And with the current trend of post offices around the world that churn out endless reams of wallpaper that scoop up collectors' money will most likely end up the same as the example in the first post.

Of course there are going to be exceptions, but one would really need to have a crystal ball to figure out which issue or issue would the the 'magic one'.