Modern mint stamps issued since 1990 sort out into three broad categories—bad investments, better investments and reasonably good investments. First, a little background. Throughout philatelic history, buying new issue mint stamps as they came out and holding them has been a mixed bet. Obviously, the few philatelists that did this in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century reaped large rewards. They bought stamps in a nascent hobby and sold them years later into a market eager for earlier mint stamps. By 1960 this path was well worn, and many collectors were putting away quantities of mint worldwide stamps for sale into an increasingly popular hobby, except that it didn’t really work out this way. Philately never grew fast enough to absorb the quantity of mint stamps that were put away in the period 1960-1990, and prices for most worldwide stamps from this period (China, Thailand and a few others excepted) are lower now than they were when the stamps were bought as new issues (it didn’t help that most European countries have demonitized their earlier postage stamps so that they can’t be used on mail, thus reducing even their floor postage value).
Matters changed significantly about 1990. Face values of stamps worldwide began to increase to where investors felt uneasy putting away large quantities of mint stamps, especially given the previous thirty year history of stamps being such a poor investment. Further, the fierce market run up of the late 1980s had led to the disastrous nineties, and collectors who had been burned were uninterested in putting more into their collections than what was needed to keep them up to date. It’s easy to see what happened. Because the quantities of mint stamps saved from 1990-2010 is so low, these stamps have performed very well, especially when you look at non-first-world countries where large quantities of these stamps were still put away.
The modern period, then, breaks down as outlined in the first paragraph. Modern stamps with little investment potential are wealthy first world nations, including the US, Canada, UN, and Western Europe. Stamps of these countries were put away in large quantities and, though they have a floor value, as they can always be used as postage, upon purchase they are immediately worth in the 60% of postage range. It would take a mighty philatelic wind to drive their value much higher than this. There is a second group in this period that has potential but is harder to predict. Latin American mint stamps, for instance, fall into this category. These are stamps that exist in very small quantities, but so do collectors. What has hurt earlier Latin American new issues is the high inflation in these areas which has reduced the underlying postage value in real terms and lowered the value of the stamps. But the modern Latin American issues since 1990 are scarce, and if inflation remains under control in these areas and if more indigenous collectors begin to desire their stamps, these philatelic items will perform well. The history of Latin American philately from an investment standpoint, though, has always contained “if’s”, and few of those “if’s” have ever panned out.
The best bet for modern mint stamp investment is Eastern Europe. These countries meet the population criteria for active collecting—increasingly well educated, increasingly wealthy, and cooler climates. Russia already has its minions dutifully laying away quantities of newer issues. But Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania are very good bets for the future.