Would You Ever Consider Stamp Collecting As A Lucrative Alternative Investment?

I used to stamp collect and have a lot of rarities but as you say the market is full of vagaries and fraudulent fiddler diddlers not to mention all the counterfeit stamps that are very difficult to prove not to be genuine much like the Movie autograph market.

It feels to me everything is a con these days we have no honesty in virtually any area of life.

It has made life harder as everything you do these days means you are searching for an honest builder , mot garage , banker , lawyer - They just seem far and few between!

I used to collect stamps too. I had a pretty good collection, as I was given my father's which he'd collected since childhood, along with my grandfather's, and some other elderly relatives' collections as well. I also had a large collection of first day covers. Sadly, my entire collection was stolen! So, no, I wouldn't bother with it now, it's too easily disposed of by someone with no morals.

I also collected stamps as a schoolboy in the late fifties and early sixties and eventually the collection got sold to generate some money. I agree with OD, society was more law abiding in those days and values were fair. There was a great deal of interest in the stamp market then as there was not the plethora of stuff available nowadays to fill our 'pastime' hours like there is today.

From what I am seeing today there are still the stalwarts that scour the auction channels and bid a few pounds here and there but I suspect that the real value of stamp collecting has diminished and prize specimens are few and far between. I do not believe that it is a lucrative market anymore unless you happen to be in the business with a wealth of network contacts. I suspect that it's a bit like the antique furniture market, the bottom has simply dropped out of it with time.

In any event, and like anything, the value of something is only what someone is prepared to pay for it.

I think it can be lucrative, but you need to have unique items on your hands rather than mass produced stamps. Even older stamps haven't accrued value faster than inflation, cash and / or the stock market.