Investments

[Tynie Topics]

Interesting article, I think football programmes have probably gone in the opposite direction sadly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36024614
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[manchesterunitedman1]

Tynie Topics wrote:

Interesting article, I think football programmes have probably gone in the opposite direction sadly. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36024614

Very interesting indeed but I think it a total shame that he keeps all his collection in a bank vault-as for me that is not a collection, that is as your post states-an investment.

Each to their own so if this is how Mr. Tan derives his pleasure showing them off every so often then who am I to argue-but it is not my way for sure.

On the subject of programmes retaining their value then I can advise that Manchester United Pre-War and any ultra rare post war programmes have stayed steady or gone through the roof, but the late war time [1945-6] and the subsequent years up to 1954-5 have "dropped on their backsides"

Many collectors now putting items into auction will select an odd one out of a season as one individual lot and bundle the rest of them together just to get rid.

When I had to sell my stuff in yr 2000 I decided to initiate what is now the norm and select the tough ones out of any season and try and sell separately and then hope I could bunch the remaining ones together-it worked for me back then and others have followed this pattern.

However, not everything MUFC turns to Gold with many rare and scarce issues pre-ebay fetching several hundred pounds now in a lot of cases that value has halved or even dropped lower, so anyone entering the United collecting side gets a few good deals nowadays.

MUFC Pre-War homes from say 1936-7 to 1938-9 have remained constant and whichever auction house you look too they are all going to cost over £400 with commissions and this level of pricing has been around for many years and in my opinion will not waiver for a considerable time to come or if at all.

United pre-war aways at Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham have always been more expensive against MU than any other clubs and although today's prices may have dipped under a £100 it is probably 60-70%+ more than against anyone else.

Recently, I was aware of a private sale of 4 Plymouth Argyle homes from the early 1930's a good well collected club-the 3 against other opposition brought in £300-350 a piece but the United one was £675 and this happens quite regularly where United are concerned-my luck I had the one v United but someone else did not!


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[littlewiggy]

I'm not the wealthiest of chaps (understatement), and about 4 or 5 years ago I had got to the stage in my programme collection where I needed slightly less than a hundred programmes to complete my post-war to current stash.

Unfortunately they were all war-league (45/6) or extremely rare friendly or Welsh Cup issues.

I soon realised I would never be in a position financially to obtain these programmes, so with a heavy heart I began dismantling my collection.
Despite my limited purse, I had several rarities largely due to luck / clever purchasing, so cashed in when said issues were still just about at a high.

My main passions were tickets and badges.
I came to the conclusion that it would be better to have a "great" collection of those, as opposed to a "good" collection of everything.

I've not regretted it either, and looking at the programme market now, I got out at the right time completely by accident.

[Tynie Topics]

littlewiggy wrote:

I'm not the wealthiest of chaps (understatement), and about 4 or 5 years ago I had got to the stage in my programme collection where I needed slightly less than a hundred programmes to complete my post-war to current stash. Unfortunately they were all war-league (45/6) or extremely rare friendly or Welsh Cup issues. I soon realised I would never be in a position financially to obtain these programmes, so with a heavy heart I began dismantling my collection. Despite my limited purse, I had several rarities largely due to luck / clever purchasing, so cashed in when said issues were still just about at a high. My main passions were tickets and badges. I came to the conclusion that it would be better to have a "great" collection of those, as opposed to a "good" collection of everything. I've not regretted it either, and looking at the programme market now, I got out at the right time completely by accident.

I was similar in a slightly different way.

My Hearts collection was at a crossroads, as was my Scotland.

I needed a fair few Scotland issues that were going to cost a bit, I needed even more Hearts that were going to cost even more, I'm not a wealthy man either!

Hearts homes immediate post war are three figures in most cases, the away pre-1955 are very very hard to uncover, so I decided to keep my Edinburgh derbies, Finals, semi finals and European and dispose of the rest as I was never going to complete. I sold all my pre-1955 out with the above, plus some rare 60/70/80's friendlies, and used the proceeds to plug a lot of gaps in my Scotland collection.

I'm now complete home from 1945 onwards, and need 15 aways, plus a few U21 and unofficial games, I would never have got near that stage with Hearts, and I couldn't have done both. However I still have a nice Hearts collection without being obsessive about collecting everything (I only need two post war Edinburgh derbies).

Investment? Yes they will all be sold at some point. I do not have anyone to pass them onto and the wife will sell them anyway if I peg it first, so at some point (not in the next 20 years!) they will be sold and the proceeds used for something or the other before I'm worm food. Whether they turn out to be a good investment time will tell.

In the meantime it gives great enjoyment, and I have no intention of locking it all away in a vault! (mind you the collection isn't worth £millions!).
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[Rocon17]

Tynie Topics wrote:

Interesting article, I think football programmes have probably gone in the opposite direction sadly. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36024614

I’d agree with you Tynie about football programmes going down. My database going back 10-15 years suggests a reduction averaging 50%. This covers pre-war and post-war items of note. I’m sure there are special situations/clubs that have done better/worse and other collectors might have more comprehensive data.
I wouldn’t say that most stamps have been such gold-mine in recent years, as the article suggests, either though. See below from the Financial Times in Feb.16. I’d agree that the stamp market is in better shape than the market for Football Programmes, mainly because dealers like Stanley Gibbons have carefully cultivated the field as an investment vehicle. Cheers.

[i]China’s economic slowdown licks stamp prices (FT 26/2/16)
Veteran BBC newsman Laurie Margolis is one of many private investors caught out
“Philately gets you nowhere,” is one of Laurie Margolis’s favourite quips. The BBC journalist and editor, whose biggest claim to fame is that he broke news of Argentina invading the Falkland Islands, has not done as well with his stamp collection as he has in his career. Mr Margolis and his wife inherited “sheets and sheets” of 1960s and 1970s stamps when his wife’s father passed away six years ago, Mr Margolis says.
They guessed they had £50,000 worth. Then a dealer told Mr Margolis that, for example, that one large set of distinctive 1960s stamps he owns, with a face value equivalent to 12.5p each in today’s money, would fetch just 2p each.
“My father-in-law got into buying commemorative stamps [those with pictures] in the 1960s when they were a new thing, thinking they would be worth money one day,” Mr Margolis says. “But it was the worst investment ever.”
He is also bemused because, in about 1980, his father-in-law made a pretty penny by selling some stamps raising hundreds of pounds that he gave to Mr Margolis and his wife to fund their wedding.
The collection Mr Margolis inherited, in fact, has ridden two major speculative booms in stamp prices. The first was in the late 1970s, when a bubble emerged in stamps thanks to strong financial liquidity.
This time around, Mr Margolis and his wife are among many private investors to find themselves shocked by the abrupt end of a stamp price rally that was prompted by Chinese buying, but has dissipated along with the nation’s double-digit growth rates.
In 2010, a rare Chinese stamp sold at auction in Hong Kong for £300,000, with the asset class benefiting from a credit boom that also inflated the prices of art, wine, antiques and bluefin tuna.
Stamp and coin dealer Stanley Gibbons blames profit warning on weakness in Asia
William Hanbury-Tenison, an Ireland-based fine art agent who stopped focusing heavily on China in 2013 when he predicted the boom would not last, believes it was the Beijing government’s economic stimulus that caused price inflation in alternative assets globally…….
Fast forward to today, however, and that Chinese cash has departed the stamp market. Art auction houses have also suffered from a slowdown in sales of art to China, and philately is regaining its former associations as a historic hobby, not a speculative investment.
An index of 250 rare and sought-after stamps compiled by market-leading dealer Stanley Gibbons has still achieved a combined annual growth ratio (CAGR) of 10.3 per cent over the past decade. But last year, growth was muted, at just 2 per cent. It rose 4 per cent in 2014, and around 6 per cent the year before……
“You get ten year cycles, and you do get rises, then a few years of flattening, and then prices rise rapidly again,” says Keith Heddle, head of investments at Stanley Gibbons. “The next peak will start around 2018.”
The fortunes of Stanley Gibbons, whose famous shop on the Strand in central London has provided days out for stamp hobbyists for decades, have also risen and fallen with the Asian stamp investment boom.
Back in January 2012, the pre-eminent international stamp dealer was flying high. It reported an “exceptional” growth in sales for the year just gone, citing success in the “lucrative” Far East. The group had just opened an office in Hong Kong, and was about to set up in Singapore.
The glory days appear to be over. Stanley Gibbons warned on profits last October, blaming weakness in Asia and “illiquidity” in high value sales. Then, earlier this week, the group said its sales to high net worth buyers were lower than it had expected, that its auditors had resigned, and that it was trying to raise £10m in new equity.
Booms and busts in rare stamps aside, private investors interested in the asset class need also to realise that most stamps will probably never make them any money. That, of course, is because it is only the rarest and most unusual that become valuable.
“A lot of people come in to find out the value of stamps, generally that they have inherited,” says Arthur Ryan, a dealer based in Richmond, West London. “They often think old stamps equate to loads of money, and generally that is not the case.”
Laurie Margolis with his late father-in-law's stamp collection © FT
He adds that even seasoned collectors tend to have a lower expectation of financial returns. “If you’ve been collecting for a long time and you know your stamps, you should expect them to be worth at least what you paid for them.”