Release: MONDAY MAY 8, 2020
Higher collecting costs are one of the key reasons many people stopped collecting stamps in the 1980s. It’s also testimony to unbridled government greed. When stamp collecting enjoyed a massive renaissance in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, the US Postal Service created dozens more stamp issues each year. They figured, if collectors would buy some stamps, they would buy all stamps. Stamps sitting in collectors albums were free money for the postal system. Instead of more revenue for the USPS, the huge increase in stamp issues drove many from the hobby, especially kids who just didn’t have enough money to buy all those new releases. Still, the USPS wouldn’t listen. They finally got a clue around the end of the millennium – just about the time it was too late.
To be fair, few hobbies other than rock or bug collecting can be considered “cheap.” Comic books that once cost 15- or 20-cents new now sell for upwards of $3 to $5. Toy train cars found in hobby shops used to sell for $20 or $30. Now, just one vintage locomotive can cost upwards of $1,000 or more. For coin collectors, silver dimes and quarters that once were available at just a little over face value now cost a big chunk of change due to the price of precious metals.
Though retail prices have increased, some solace can be found, not in the retail cost of collectibles, but the collector value. After all, though a silver dime may now cost a young hobbyist two-dollars because of the silver content, the numismatic value of coins has skyrocketed. If it has the right date, mintmark or condition, that ten-cent piece could be worth several hundred dollars. In stamp collecting, spotting a printing error can easily result in riches.
The key is in the search. The best example of that is the most famous postage stamp of all – the magenta one-cent British Guiana from 1856. The provisional stamp was the lone known survivor of 5,000 printed. In 1873, that rather ugly stamp was found in an old box by Vernon Vaughn, a young Scottish boy in Guiana. He sold it for six shillings ($10 today) and its journey traveled through the hands of various collectors. About a century later, in 1980, it set a record selling for $935,000.
A few years ago, that same stamp sold for $9.48 million, just under $10 million. That’s exactly how dreams are made. So, let the new searches begin.
For more collecting advice, visit www.peterexford.blogspot.com