GB Stamps as investment

Financial advice is not my forte, but spotting and buying a good thing on the GB new issues circuit, I have not done to bad in the past.

Knowing in advance or speculating on a good thing can pay off, but not all of the time. Most of what is issued by Royal Mail is just confetti. but on occasion there are the odd bargains.


A Perfect coronation Prestige Booklet


I thought this item had climbed and peaked in 2004 to a cat price of £40.00, but it seems I was wrong, demand is still very strong for the £1 (Dulac) Coronation stamp, and now interest is booming for the se-tenant Wildings 2 x 47p & 2 x 68p from the same booklet. (bottom left)

Printed in gravure by Walsall security printers on OBA free non phosphor paper (OFNP) with pva gum issue date 02/06/2003.

As a result of this interest, main dealers have announced another gigantic price rise for the Prestige booklet "A Perfect Coronation" It is now catalogued at a staggering £65.00.

Prices on eBay (buy it now) are still in the region of £30 - £39, but if you want a copy or extra

copies for investment I suggest you go into open bidding. Until the word gets around of this rise, and it is re catalogued as such you can still pick up copies of this booklet for a lot less.

The Machin pane (right) is just as important to specialised collectors, although it only contains se-tenant 1st class gold and 2nd class blue (4 of each) surrounding a centre label, these are still missing in se-tenant format from a lot of collections.

Use my advice and obtain your new issue prestige booklets direct from Royal Mail at the time of issue, hang on to them for a couple of years. If they zoom to a price(s) out of this world you have a great investment for little money. If they are going to increase by any realistic amount they will have started to show in this time (2 years) , if they dont show a significant increase you can always sell them for more than the face value as the 1st & 2nd class NVI stamps ( which seems to be the norm for contents in these Prestige books these days), as potage goes up they will rise in value with postal increases every year just the same.

Slings & Arrows / Swings & Roundabouts

Saying this about postal rates rising each year, how long before Royal Mail revenues department cottons on to the fact that collectors are saving these "Forever stamps"(as the Americans call them) keeping them stored up for ages and used for cheap postage?

Since 1990 when these NVI indicated stamps came on the scene 1st class postage has increased from 18p to 34p. This amounts in math as 100% + profit if you bought them at face?

I do not think using them as postage is an investment myself, when you take into account the fact that inflation runs into 3% - 4% each year this money invested in basic NVI postage would be better off in a high return savings account. But then again we are collectors first and foremost and if we did not buy them we would have no NVIs in our collections would we?