Which Are The "Hottest" Pre-1940 Countries In Terms Of Sales?

Thanks for all the replies.

"what you like and want to invest in " I don't mix the words of "stamp collecting" and "investing " together.

We see a lot of the inventory of INVESTORS and SPECULATORS come on the market at a regular basis over the pass few years. Matter in fact a lot of stuff is listed right now if you look around the stamp auction websites .

We can see a lot of them are thinking ,they have been holding material for years and not seeing both a raising market in prices and seeing a smaller market place is a reason to dump their holdings and move on .

As for me I am a buyer at these reduce levels because me and others are collectors who are filling holes that were expensive to fill in the past . Lock up my money in CD;s getting 5% give me a heck of a lot for stamp purchases .

Now add to the mix that a lot of those old timers are checking out from the hobby adds extra fuel to the fire sales of collections .

Phones have limits as you just learned. A laptop with adequate time allowed to load all images did produce all 540 images each with one or more album pages.

While not intended your post created serious disinformation as well as cast a pall on future posts from you.

Edit: Of course the 540 pages were not the few which appear at the top of a listing, they were located downward a bit to where such multiple illustrations are usually found. It requires a scroll to reach that location. Reviewing the entire listing on ebay does require scrolling.

"Serious disinformation", "cast a pall on future posts"? Give me strength.

"Hottest" does not mean you should buy right now. Chances are prices are a bit bloated and may retract later on. If you're a collector, buy what you like. If you're an investor, I would invest in ads conveying that you are a dealer who is buying. Then you can get wholesale prices worthy of future appreciation.

"We see a lot of the inventory of INVESTORS and SPECULATORS come on the market at a regular basis over the pass few years. Matter in fact a lot of stuff is listed right now if you look around the stamp auction websites" floortrader or anyone. How do you tell who an investor is? A collector I can tell, but investor?

Simple answer --Last Sunday at a stamp auction there were 100 complete sets of a South Viet Nam all in sheets . Catalog was about $2100.00 ,it sold for $125.00 , that was a investor who held those for a while and took a bath . Even my sets of Switzerland PAX sets which were $ 650.00 catalog and I purchased them at $180.00 to $200.00 which was a good deal is now selling for $80.00 ,I am still crying over that

A lot of investors store their purchases totally different than collectors , some keep them on stamp auction display cards and you will notice date of sales or notes to that effect .

floortrader - thank you for the clarification and analysis. Yes, your are right many investors took a bath. I have probably over paid for my fair share of stamps as well.

Just from a collector's standpoint, I've seen Japan and Manchukuo become much less available and prices rising in the past couple of years. Costa Rican stamp sellers seem to want to list well above the usual 40-55% below Scott in a lot (but not all) listings for one reason or another; no idea if that is demand-driven or just some anomaly. Cape Verde on the higher end stamps seem to have climbed as well, but the lower-end/common stamps are still just cheap.

Not a market analyst, but just one guy's take who shops for stamps daily. Nothing scientific or data-driven here; just my observations.

I collect stamps for fun not to make money. Yes I'm interested in the quality of the stamps (a lot) and the value of the collection (a bit) but making money isn't my main motive for sitting down with my stamps. If I get my wife to look at a page of stamps it's normally to bore the pants off her with ramblings about history or the designs, never the value

My experience is that whenever I start a new country, it gets hot and the price rise as I try to purchase items. If I don't work on the country the prices stay low and the material is easy to find. :)

Collect what nobody is looking at .It stands to reason that a person can buy up the best material in a area nobody cares about and you can become a expert in that area because you become the to go to person in that field .

I had a lot of fun a few years ago buying up Used U.S. Plate no. coils ,paying next to nothing for a large envelope full after awhile of buying a few offers on ebay and mounting them ,it became a fun project .

"probably over paid for my fair share " I think we all do it at sometime in our collecting life time .

I do it often and will do it again ,maybe next week . There is a set of stamps that will fit nicely on one of my pages and have not seen them at auction for many years .So I am not going to lose it for $5.00 or $10.00 ,guess it comes down to pay up or wait another 2 or 3 years .

Over the years each one of us have looked at our collection and notice that 25 cent stamp missing but never finding it , so it is safe to say " yes ....I will pay 50 cents just to fill that spot . I am sure if you buy at auction 3 to 5 different sets of the Scott International vol I and sort them out into one collection you will notice what blank spaces have not been filled and those are your "HOT " stamps that will be the best pre-1940 stamps to be dealing in .

So the best HOT stamps are the one;s everybody is looking for and you can ask a premium price for .