Moneystamps: The Safe-Haven Investment in an Unsafe World

This book provides convincing facts and arguments as to why stamps truly are the ultimate safe-haven asset and then gives you actionable information on individual stamps to get started. The term moneystamps is used to differentiate the ten percent of stamps, issued before 1950, that have true investment potential, from the ninety percent which are of interest only to postage stamp collectors. Stamps' ability to serve a diversity of needs combined with their fixed supply quantities gives them a broad appeal, stability and ever rising value. In securities' evaluation, financial metrics have been developed to help make rational choices. And guess what, the same metrics approach works even better for stamps as I prove herein. Chapter 2 shows how well my past recommendations have performed. The selection of which stamps have the best potential for preserving and growing in value, i.e. moneystamps, has been my specialty for the last 25 years. My non-stamp experience is in the financial arena. Having spent the last 20 years writing about income investing for Forbes magazine and managing client portfolios helped me to develop a keen appreciation for the uncertainty investors are suffering in the current securities markets. Income yields are disappearing from the market, and investors are facing ever increasing risks of capital losses in their search for income. Since selling my advisory business, my focus is on investing in assets whose principal attribute was asset preservation. Such assets are termed safehaven assets. These assets are not well understood but offer a genuine shelter from today's uncertainties. The investment world has changed significantly in the last decade. As of the latest reading, some $17 trillion dollars of worldwide capital is now invested in financial instruments with negative rates of return. Another symptom of change is that, according to the Wall Street Journal, $100 denomination US currency notes to the tune of $900 billion has left the United States and disappeared. These are clear signals to national governments of an opportunity to take control over what is essentially idle capital. For instance, the German government recently sold a 30 year bond issue with a zero interest rate and the US Government is looking into a similar 50 year issue. What this is telling us is that the world is awash with so much capital that borrowers with impeccable credit can borrow for free. Just promise to give them their money back. In investment lingo this is described as investors putting the return of capital ahead of the return on capital. We will cover this in our discussion of the various type of investors in Chapter 1 and how stamps fill a variety of needs beyond this primary one. What is clear from this fundamental change in capitalism is that governments see an opportunity to take control over what they perceive as idle capital in the name of the public good. Whether you come away from reading this book and deciding to build your own stamp investment portfolio, or decide to use a professional stamp advisor, you'll find that investment grade stamps can be an effective part of your long-term asset diversification needs. Expanded and continuous guidance can be found on our website www.StampFinder.com.