Winds Of Change In The Philatelic World

" as the supply and demand factors we now see with continental Western Europe will likely hit areas that are currently *hot* like China and India and there will be corrections in those markets at some point"

The market in China ha s already leveled off.

Well the one auction I follow closest has had more lots either go unsold or at or near the opening than they were one or two years ago, but 1 or 2 years ago was the Covid boom, so the real comparison should be against pre-Covid levels. That I am not fully certain about, except I know for certain discount postage prices have taken a nose dive, as have common FDCs and Germany has become even harder to sell.

DJCMHOH and Shermae - 100% agree. It is the best time for younger people to collect. Also, it is okay to invest or speculate in stamps. Anything that is collectible really has a secondary market. And thus is ripe for speculation. The boomers will be passing their collections to me for a song of what they paid for it. I am buying collections where the albums cost x times as much as the stamps.

BTW in case you all can't tell floor trader is right about the middle of the market. The bottom is falling through. But that just means more stamps for me at great prices.

It remains to be seen whether that is true or just a pipe dream. For sure it will not be true for all of us.

I know I have been buying good stamps at bargain prices. I will continue to be a buyer of classic stamps mint never hinged orginal gum to no gum mint. I also think it is a good time to buy classic used stamps. I know I could be mistaken they may go down even more. That it self will be good as I will be a buyer. I guess I am just bullish on the stamp market. Just a note I buy only United States stamps. Even if they do not increase in value (which I see them doing just that) it will lower my average cost on items I have in stock. As any buyer of anything knows by buying to lower the average cost, it will not have to increase as much for you to brake even or make a small profit.

Anyones thought on this? Replays would be most welcome and informative.

revcollector - It's already happening. People or boomers paid thousands of dollars just on albums never mind the stamps and the collections are going for barely anything.
For most stamp collections (not high end) but better and less, stamp collections are going for a fraction of what people originally paid to acquire and build them.
I have bought collections where I am pretty sure the original owner shelled out between 800-1000 dollars and I paid 200 dollars for it. bottom feeding of course. Deals are everywhere.

Here is another example. FDC are not my thing but they are ripe for bottomfeeding. Some poor soul paid thousands and I mean thousands for some of these collections that are being sold for 100-200 dollars. Ditto for expensive stamp albums. Stamps are history people. They are a countries heritage. And they are being fire sold IMO and the sale is only going to get better. Who knows maybe stamp collecting will be in vogue again.But before it does Stampdragons will be swimming in stamps.

stampgreendragon, this is nothing new. Collections (of all types, not just stamps) selling for pennies on the dollar compared to what the original owner spent has been going on my entire lifetime.

Except for the earlier high end items, FDC's have always been very inexpensively sold relative to the amount spent on originally acquiring them. Same with collecting US new issues for the most part (and probably a lot of other countries, too). But quality collections put together by knowledgeable collectors are a whole different story.

Just a side note here , ever since ROGDCAM posted a link to this board about that impressive worldwide collection that was at Schuyler Rumsey Westpex Sale ,my interest has changed to buying many of those powerful complete sets .

As UKNJAY posted above "I will continue to buy good stamps " that is what I been doing and enjoy putting them into my collection and then posting scans to the "330,000 different" section . The way I see it as long as the Fed's keep these rates high for paying interest ,it doubles my stamp budget . If rates stay high ,I am going to have even a better decent size worldwide collection .

So I agree with GREENDRAGON ,"it is a good time to be a buyer " buying now because another BLACK SWAN is about to land in the philatelic community ,more on that later .

I happened to look back at the first page of this topic and realized that the topic was Sergio Sismondo and his material and what happened to it. So what did happen to it? Other than one auction of stuff that hardly seemed like it could be all he had I have seen nothing more. Where did his lifetime of records and notes go?

"Well the one auction I follow closest has had more lots either go unsold or at or near the opening than they were one or two years ago, but 1 or 2 years ago was the Covid boom, so the real comparison should be against pre-Covid levels. That I am not fully certain about, except I know for certain discount postage prices have taken a nose dive, as have common FDCs and Germany has become even harder to sell." - eyeonwall - 100% correct and that is exactly what I am noticing too. Germany is rough, followed by the other blue countries. Lots of unsold lots. Bidding has slowed.

rodcam - I am on the lookout for Sismondo's stuff and I have not seen anything in a while.

Whenever I see European countries auction prices it becomes apparent how ridiculous the catalog values that they are based on are. Except for true rarities Italy and Russia and many others tend to trade in the 10-30% of catalog range tops. They never exceed that unless you get two drunk bidders. Russia C68 is a perfect example and one that I am recently familiar with. Scott only prices a hinged example at $500 and most collectors extrapolate and assign a catalog value of $1200 for MNH. Michel values C68 MNH at 1100 Euros. I have owned and sold several copies and $500 is the number. Occasionally you will see $700 +/-. Nowhere will you see anyone pay close to full "catalog value". The popular 1930's commemorative sets of Italy have been trading for years at 10-20% and so on.

My point is that getting wrapped around the catalog value axle is not a good place to be when making proclamations about weak vs strong markets. I challenge anyone to explain the how's and whys of those values. Seems like a dartboard thing.