The World’s Biggest Philatelic Market Discovers Foriegn Stamps

The best news for 2012 is the realization that the largest philatelic market in the world, the Chinese market, has begun to expand its horizons. Philatelic markets mature like people do. Newer philatelic markets are narrow and collectors in these markets rarely show interest in stamps beyond their own country. As the markets mature the collectors tend to expand their interests. They do this for two reasons. First many of them have soon acquired all the stamps that they want and can afford of their home country. And second, as collectors mature they begin to see the appeal and specialty interest in the stamps of other countries. We began to see this in the Russian and Eastern European markets in the 1990’s. Long dominated by home country collectors, the Russians, in particular, began to collect the stamps of other countries so that they have become major buyers of scarcer British Commonwealth material. This is because of intrinsic specialty interest but also a way for collectors to divest their philatelic holdings from home country markets that are volatile due to economic and currency concerns. Increasingly, mainland Chinese collectors seem to be doing the same and 2011 has marked the first year where we sold good amounts of non Chinese stamps to that country. If this pattern holds, it bodes very well for our hobby.