India

Despite a substantial increase in the last several years, the stamps of India and States are still undervalued and under appreciated. As the economy of India has grown and as the Indian diaspora has become more financially successful in the many countries to which Indians have moved, the stamps of India and States have grown tremendously in popularity. But despite the ebb and flow of short term popularity, there is one component that will contribute to increasing prices for these stamps and that is their intrinsic scarcity. There are three hot countries now-China, Russia and India. The reasons for the vastly improved popularity of these countries is the same- greatly improved local economic conditions, highly educated nationals and at least in the case of India and China, vast numbers of native born people living in other countries (expatriates always collect in greater numbers than people who stay at home). But there is one aspect of price pressure that favors India over these other two newly popular areas and that is genuine scarcity. Thirty years ago, before any of these countries were enjoying the wave of favor that they enjoy today, we would see nice collections of China and Russia. More significantly, good general collections often included nice sections of China and Russia (and still do). But India, beyond a few of the British issues, has always been very scarce. Many, maybe even hundreds, of the Native States issues catalog for only a few dollars each and are almost never offered for sale. So not only is India a country that should continue to enjoy increasing popularity, but from a philatelic chase point of view, it is one of the most appealing countries that there is.