Let’s suppose most people had too much money and needed so badly to lose some of it that they offered courses in how to lose it. I can’t speak of what they would teach when the course concerned non philatelic areas, but when the subject came to stamp collecting there is no doubt that the best way to lose money is to buy new issues. It’s a method that is tried constantly by thousands of collectors and proves itself a winner (that is loser) every time.
Take a country-say the United States- and buy every stamp as a new is
sue for the last thirty years. Even throw in all the winners (which you might not have been able to buy as they were limited editions such as the 1992 Recalled Legends of the West sheet (face was $5.80 and it catalogs today for $240) all at face value and you would have spent about $2000 face value. The best price you could get for it is about $1200. The same is true with every other country of the world (except the Peoples Republic of China where some of the 1980-95 stamps have risen in price and what I say above is only true for the last fifteen years). And the 60% of what you paid for the stamps is for money that you have put out over thirty years when it had much more value than it has today so that your loss in dollar purchasing power is far greater.
Now this is not some newly discovered truth. Stamp dealers have been saying it for decades. And yet collectors continue to buy new issues, which is fine because they want them and they are stamp collectors. But if you want not only stamps, but price appreciation you have a much better chance if you concentrate on stamps issued before 1930.