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FOREIGN STAMPS AS PROFITABLE INVESTMENTS.

SOME RECORD SALES. It was computed the other day that during the last 25 yeans something like one million sterling had 'been spent by foreign stamp collectors at London auctions alone. This represents £40,000 a year, and is of course quite exclusive of money spent in private deals. Ar in the case of pictures, so the value of stamp collections increases as the years go by, and it is an easy matter for a good philatelist to turn hundreds of pounds into thousands -within :v comparatively short time. For instance one collection which cost originally £16,500 was sold 20 years later for £29,500. In another case £10,000 was paid for a collection which originally cost £5500, and there are quite c number of cases on record of collections doubling in value within from four to eight years. —Cost £69, Sold for £3000.— After 20 or 30 years one may anticipate selling carefully-selected specimens at an even greater profit. For instance, there is a case on record of a collection ! made during 37 years, at a cost altogether of only £69, which was sold for £3000. Another collection which originally cost ! £360 was sold after 27 years for £4000. Thus it will be seen that stamps are often more profitable than bricks and mortar as investments. Another striking illustration of this fact is provided by the Tapling collection at the British Museum. It was left to the nation by Mr T. K. Tapling some years ago, and was valued at no less than £100,000. To-day the price set upon it is £150,000. Some say it is the finest collection in the world, but if the statement that the stamps possessed by M. le Renoutiere yon Ferray, of Paris, are worth nearly £300,000 is true, that regarding the Tapling collection can scarcely be correct. This famous French collector is said to have spent, since 1870, £200,000 upon his collection, and his annual expenditure with one firm alone averages from £3000 to £4000. — The Prince of Wales's Record Purchase. — Two years ago the collection of F. Breitfuss, Russia's most important collector, was sold for £50,000, and there have been other important sale 6 during the last ten years, in which from £10,000 to £30,000 has been realised on various collections. It is, of course, well known that amongst British collectors the Prince of Wales occupies a prominent position. Exactly what his Royal Highnese's collection is worth has not been made public ; but in view of the fact that five years ago he paid £1450 for a specimen o*f the twopenny blue Mauritius, it is apparently one of great value. It is not generally known that the Prince of Wales secured this stamp over the head of the German Post Ofiice Museum, who sent an agent to secure it at any price. At £1400 the agent lo*-t com age, however, and thus the stamp came into the royal collection. —Rare English Blacks.— { Even this, however, is not a record pi ice for one stamp, for ho year.- previously the German Postal Museum paid £1875 for a specimen of the blue Mauritius, i The En)-] of Crawford is one of the most enthusiastic philatelist* in the country, and amongst the gems of hi-> collection is a complete sheet of the rare Englirh pen.iy black stamp w ith tl; Q letters "V X.'" on the upper corners. Altogether ihero are 226 of these stamps, each of ■which is valued at £8. It is remarkable how the price of single stamps increases. For instance, a pair of Zurich stamps, bought by the M. Breilfui-s already, referred to in 1881 For £4, are now worth clo*e upon £150 ; while a Saxony stamp, bought two years previously for £3, is worth £100 ; and a collection of Spanish stamps, bought in 1873 for £10, is worth £200. , — 40.000 Customer.*. — As showing the enormous bu.-ine^s done in foreign stamps, it might be mentioned that a small strong-room at one representative firm's headc|uaiter6 contains more than £75,000 worth of stamps, pasted into

l stock-books and numbered. Then* aire L 40,000 names of customers in all parts of i the world on the books of this firm, for - whom about 12,000 catalogues of British ' and 10,000 of foreign stamps are prepared , annually.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19090818.2.441

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 80

Word count
Tapeke kupu
714

FOREIGN STAMPS AS PROFITABLE INVESTMENTS. Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 80

FOREIGN STAMPS AS PROFITABLE INVESTMENTS. Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 80

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