Euro Zone - Apfelbaum, Inc.

Over the last two years, the Euro has been under constant pressure. First Greece and now Spain and Italy have seen investors reluctant to purchase their sovereign debt. The European Central Bank has devised a scheme to lend money to banks to purchase loans from these countries as they come due, but what this really amounts to is Germany, France and the Netherlands agreeing to lend money to the less credit worthy of the Euro zone. We have already discussed in other posts the effect on the stamp market that weakening Euro values are having and we have looked at what the potential effect on prices that a specific country’s pull out from the Euro might do. But there is another philatelic danger if the Euro zone was to fall apart and each country was to go back to their original currencies. When the Euro became the official currency of the European Union in 2000 countries began using Euros as their currency and they replaced all the older money that was denominated in the former currency. For stamps this meant that all stamps that were denominated in the older currency were demonetized and (after a brief period where such stamps could be exchanged for newer Euro denominated stamps) they were no longer valid for postage. If Europe went back to original currencies, Euro denominate stamps would most likely be demonetized and thus worthless as postage. Collectors took enormous loses in 2000 when they saw twenty years worth of new issues for fifteen countries lose their postage value and you should be careful not to let this happen to you again. I would recommend suspending purchases of newer European issues until the Euro issue settles down. If the Euro remains, you can no doubt purchase the issues you missed, probably at a discount from face value. And if the Euro goes the way of the dodo you can then buy the demonetized stamps for your collection at a fraction of what they would have cost you.

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