Alternative Investor

Where next for the street art market?

Where is the Street art market going & how is this affected by the Auction houses spring sales?

It’s getting to that exciting time of year when all the auction houses hold their opening contemporary art auctions, this Feb proving to be more interesting than ever, with the global economic turmoil having seen a correction in the art market it will be fascinating to see how this has affected the auction houses selection of work placed for auction, the level that the reserves & lower estimates have been set at, and ultimately the results achieved by the work offered. For those who read my initial article you will know that the area that I am especially interested in is street art (or urban art as Bonhams have labelled it). As all of above applies to contemporary art as a whole there is a complete subplot underneath this, which manifests itself in the current attitude to street art and where it is currently going. I want to draw attention to key lots that I will be looking out for to show the health of the market as a whole and looking forwards what can this tell us. I am also focusing on the London auctions, as they are a fantastic indicator of what is to follow in New York later in the year.

I want to break the spring auction season down over 2 articles, firstly focusing on the power houses of the auction world, Sothebys & Christies. Once these auctions have finished it will be clear as to how much the art market has corrected, how well managed the sales where and give some guidelines as to what to expect from the urban art auctions at the end of the month at Bonhams & Dreweatts. Then post their sales focus on the more specific Urban art sales at Bonhams & Dreweatts. I’ll pick out some lots to keep an eye on as a good indicator of where the market is heading, and what to expect. Finally in the last instalment I’ll run down the auction season as a whole, look at what it meant  and pick out what to watch for the rest of the year

The last series of auctions in autumn saw a higher percentage of bought in work (unsold work that fails to hit it’s reserve and remains unsold), and also the problem of selling work against estimates that had been set back in August when the market was in a far stronger position. The results were poor for the auction houses, and sellers, however they were good for buyers, who had greater choice and the opportunity to be more circumspect with what they want to buy and what to pay. On another note with work that fails to sell, if this is a piece that you had your eye on a huge amount of business is done post auction when potential buyers can make the auction house an offer to pass on to the seller. This is a good way of picking up a strong piece at a good price, and also takes advantage of an unrealistic estimate. At this moment in time it is a buyers market, and one where a lot of sellers need cash, so any offer may well be entertained. 

The first auction is held at Sotheby’s. Sotheby’s Christies & Phillips divide their auctions into Evening & Day auctions, with the evening auctions having a far smaller consignment of work, of a far higher quality. The evening auctions are where the auction houses place the best contemporary work that they are approached with, they set the bar for what is to come. The Sotheby’s Evening auction is held on Feb 5th in their London New Bond St showrooms, with the day auction the next day on the 6th Feb. Christies hold their evening auction on the 11th Feb and the day auction on 12th Feb, these at their London King St showrooms.
Having gone through the Sotheby’s catalogue (see bottom note) it is a very tight auction, only 27 lots and all very well established blue chip artists. For me I will be taking a look at the performance of
Lot 6 Fontana (estimated £5M - £7M), Lot 13 Warhol (£550-£750K), Lot 14 Hirst (£250K - £350K), Lot 15 Jeff Koons (£2.2M – £3.2M), Lot 16 Roy Lichenstein (£1.8 - £2.5M). These lots hold interest, Warhol as a general barometer of the market, Fontana as the key value piece, Hirst is interesting due to the recent direct to market sale he held last October, Koons as it appears he is already slightly overpriced, and finally Lichenstein due to the price and unusual nature of the work. It will be interesting to see if these works al sell, for how much, and finally the overall total for the show and the amount bought in (unsold lots).
The next auction, the Sotheby’s contemporary day auction the first area of interest is the reduction in street art work offered from previous auctions. This in itself not a surprise, their had been to much work being placed in auction houses from artists very young in their careers. Within this auction the lots that are catching my eye are 3 Banksy pieces Lots 171 (£20K-£20K), 172 (£10K-£15K), 174 (£30-£40K) and Lot 173 JR (£10K-£15K). With the Banksy work this will give a very strong indication as to how desirable the artist still is, has he cemented his place at the head of the street art scene. It appears that with Lot 174 the estimate has been set deliberately low, the piece is unique and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this smash it’s estimate, possible trebling this. The other 2 Banksy pieces are from editions of 25 each, both originally £500 in 2003 and again they will prove useful to gauge the strength of the Banksy market in general. The other lot of interest here Lot 174 by JR is intriguing. This was the same image that JR pasted on the outside of the Tate Modern as part of the Street art exhibition last summer. The piece itself was only sold late last year as part if the Outsiders show held at Lazarides. The work was also sold for £20K plus VAT, so again this will be interesting for the price it achieves, and as to whether the seller makes a decent return on their original investment..

After this the following week we have the same evening & day auctions at Christies. Here in the evening auction I am focusing on Lot 11 the Bacon (£4-£6M) & Lot 17 the Rothko (£2.5M-3.5M) Both incredibly well established artists whose work should command great interest and achieve at least their minimum estimate. The next day, as with Sotheby’s there is a noticeable lack of street art from the previous sales, yet the one piece of interest that is there is Lot 180, Banksy (£25K-£35K) of a unique piece on a safe. This again is something that has yet to come to auction, and due to it’s more “street appearance” is pretty special for Banksy makes it very interesting.

It is clear that estimates are more realistic, and the quality of work offered is tighter and reflective of the current economic situation. This also confirmed to me recently by speaking to Phillips - they are really concentrating on quality and rarity of work, and pressing upon sellers the need to set realistic reserve prices It is also clear that it is a buyers market and may become even more so over the next month or so. With this in mind keep an eye on these first 2 rounds of auctions then come back to read some pointers for the Urban art auctions at Bonham’s on Feb 23rd & Dreweatts on Feb 26th.

Useful Links

www.sothebys.com
www.bonhams.com
www.phillipsdepury.com

* To find all the relevant auction info you can go direct to the auction house sites above, register on the site, and search for the contemporary auctions as on the dates given. It is also possible to watch the auctions on live streaming if not actually there in person

Disclaimer:
Comments made in this article are the opinions of the author only. Alternative Investor makes no comment or recomendation or suggestion of any specific items as an investment opportunity and neither Alternative Investor nor the author are qualified to give financial guidance.

Contemporary art explosion and the world of Banksy

In the day when Lehmen Brothers filed for Bankruptcy & Merrill Lynch announced it was to be taken over, Damien Hirst held his first direct to auction sale at Sotheby’s, raking in over £111 million, well over the higher estimate for the sale, and included a £10.35M sale a piece entitled the Golden Calf.
What this highlights is the growing strength of the contemporary art market, it seems when the money markets are in periods of great unrest, money turns to other more tangible assets.
This has seen a huge boom in the contemporary art market.
Of the contemporary art market the newest and most interesting section is that of street / urban art or for want of a better word – graffiti.
From the streets of New York and East London street art has become far more acceptably mainstream, the Tate Modern commissioned six street artists to paint their river façade. So who are the artists to look for and how does the art market work?

The forefather of this current resurgence in interest is Banksy. Known for his witty and socially aware comment Bansky has built up a strong collectors’ base in a very short period of time. Value in Banksy’s work has absolutely rocketed in the last couple of years. Silkscreen signed Banksy prints that were sold for £150 back in 2004 now regularly command £12,000 - £15,000 at auction, with the unsigned £50 versions go from £1500 - £4500 (dependant on the image.) If you had been lucky or canny enough to buy a Banksy canvas back in 2004, one example being Kids on Guns you would have paid £500 to see this currently worth anywhere from £50,000 upwards.
The Banksy boat has now sailed for most new investors, as his work is now so expensive and the returns relatively limited (ie a Banksy self portrait dyptich canvas costs £450,000 from his primary gallery).
There are other artists that are currently worth considering if buying for pleasure and investment. These are Faile, Adam Neate & Jose Parla.

Starting at the top of the tree you have the US collective Faile, represented by Lazarides the same gallery as Banksy.
Faile’s style is torn away imagery revealing 1950’s & 1960’s comic book graphics. Faile started out working on the street pasting up posters & stencilling.
Faile have seen a similar rise in prominence and price over the last couple of years, painted wooden crates that cost £2,000 in March 2007 now regularly sell for £12,000 at auction, whilst a recent Faile canvas from 2006, costing around £8000 sold for £106,000. Faile have exhibited on the outside of the Tate Modern this year and have a show coming up in November in London.

Next we have Adam Neate as represented by the gallery Elms Lester. Adam sprung to fame by leaving thousands of his paintings on card around the streets of East London for people to find, cherish and take home. A hugely talented painter Adam’s work is also commanding thousands of pounds at auction.

Last of the potential new heavyweight’s is Jose Parla, born in Miami and settled in Brooklyn New York.
Parla has taken his calligraphic writing style from tagging on the street to building up fantastically intricate stories on canvas and wood. Parla takes a very hands on approach to collectors of his work and vets all potential buyers to ensure his work is not flipped (sold quickly) for a quick profit, as a result his work rarely comes up for auction or sale – and this in turn has driven the prices up for his work. Watercolours that sold for £1500 a year ago are now commanding  £12,500 - £15,000.

So how to start collecting / investing?

The first & most important rule is that buy what you like.
This a timeless piece of advice, and one that you will hear time and time again from anyone of any experience. Like any investment the value of art can go down as well as up (as happened with Warhol’s work in the 90’s and currently with landscapes work currently). And looking at a depreciating asset is a killer. Art is also emotive, and if you don’t understand the artist, or their work at all, you never should buy.
Wherever you buy make sure that you have solid provenance for the work, without this your potential fortune will be rendered worthless! If you can buy original one off’s always do so first, they are the best investment from a returns perspective. Unsigned prints are bottom of the pile, and whilst not to be totally avoided are the riskiest area to start collecting in.
Develop relationships with the artists and galleries, this is where you will be able to buy and sell work before the rest of the world. A good relationship with galleries is invaluable as they will keep you informed of what is coming up, and also good to sell any work that you may have bought. Buying art is made so much easier with a good gallery onside. You can also negotiate discount and get the inside track on a new artist.
If possible commission work direct from the artist, as this cuts out the gallery sales commission (usually 50%) and you get to work directly with the artist on their creative process.
Finally you have the secondary market, from Ebay to Sothebys. This is where you can pay the largest amount, or can pick up the occasional bargain. Buying and selling at auction does have a world of hidden costs from Droit de Suite (which is 5% artists resale rights) through to the buyers premium on the hammer price and the dreaded VAT added on top of this. Again selling at auction is a maze of hidden costs, from insurance, collection, storage, photography and selling fees included, all of which are negotiable, so always ask!
So who is next? Take a look at the following sites as a starting point, always good for new artists - alternatively take a walk around Old Street / Shoreditch and see if there’s anything been left that you can pick up and take home!
www.lazinc.com, www.elmslester.co.uk, www.blackratpress.co.uk, www.picturesonwalls.com

Other links:
www.banksy.co.uk
www.joseparla.com
www.faile.net
www.adamneate.co.uk

Kevin McQuaid

Kevin McQuaid has been a serious art collector since the early 1990's. His appreciation of art started as a youth in the early 80's when he toured galleries with his mother as she studied for her degree.
Kevin worked for Gap. Diesel and Paul Smith before starting his own fashion importing business.

For Arts Sake?

The auction of Damien Hirst's work at Sotheby's on Monday broke records and took place as a major United States investment bank was collapsing. 
People happily spent £100m on Damien’s works, some purchasing for art and some for investment.

The auction may have bucked the turmoil in financial markets, but the question is still out on whether through private auctions and missing out
the dealer Damien Hirst is now moving from art to product.

No matter what the experts might say, the vast majority of art has been “commercial” as even classical artists relied on selling their work or
being commissioned to produce works to survive.

However, the spotlight is now being turned up ever brighter on the idea of buying art for investment, a practice that may be vilified by some
in the world of art, yet is actively encouraged by some of the greater modern artists, Mr Hirst’s auction being one of the larger examples.

Over the coming weeks Alternative Investor will be running a series of articles about the world of Art as collectables and investments,
which we hope will assist your decision making process.

XL and West Ham

The administration of holiday company XL has been terrible news for those who have booked holidays or flights with the company.
It is also terrible news for West Ham who have just unvieled a new strip for the 08/09 season carrying the XL Holidays logo.

However for football memorabilia collectors it is a potential good buy.
It is never possible to be sure how memorabilia will increase in value, but the newly designed West Ham away shirt has only been on the shelves a few weeks and is likely to be removed very soon. Having this item with Zola and a number 1 in a sealed bag or even better autographed may be a good purchase for the future.

Kitsch & Collectible

On the whole collectibles are rich and classical, they have a quality above a certain level that makes them want to be treasured and collected.And while these items because they are limited edition do tend to gain in value, the return is not always high enough for an investor to take the trouble to buy these items purely for the cash benefits.

Of all collectibles released over the past decades the most popular and one of the most profitable have been associated with the motion picture Star Wars.

Even the most casual Star Wars fanatic has probably heard about some action figures they've never actually seen from the vintage 70s-early 80s Kenner line. Back in the early days of the original Star Wars (1978 for those who are not sure) it was pretty hard not to come across these figures as they crammed toy store and supermarket shelves . And one of the classic figures that made the early stock was the rocket-firing Boba Fett.

To this day, Boba Fett, which is a pretty common figure, brings a good price on auctions, and an extremely high price if you're one of those people who needs to buy one in the original packaging. Some examples of eBay packaged original 1978 Boba Fetts have gone for £200-£400+, and the ultimate tribute to fanatical overspending: was the ending EBay bid for a Boba Fett in the original Star Wars packaging at just over £700

But if you think those prices are insane, you obviously haven't seen someone try to buy a rocket-firing Boba Fett as pictured above. First and foremost, they are now so rare that they must be authenticated before they can be sold. Theoretically, there is a chance that they're some unknown rocket-firing Boba Fetts out there in an old box in a loft, and because of it’s cheap look there may even be a chance that someone’s dad may be looking to sell one in a box of old toys in a car boot sale, but anyone who knows will be buying this item with the real possibility that if authenticated they will probably be paying off a large chunk of their mortgage as current price on a rocket-firing Boba Fett is in the region of £20,000. Not bad for a toy bought for less than a pound in 1978.

But how can you begin to tell if any of these items are worthy of the risk to purchase for a decent return? With the rocket-firing Boba Fett it was because they were removed from sale when the rocket system was banned due to child safety issues, and this seems to be a good marker of what to look for.

As with stamps that are recalled or have mistakes it is much the same in the toy market. Items previous to recall or with known early mistakes even something as simple as different colours can push the value of the item to huge multiples of the standard, and of course as with all toy collectibles, being in mint condition in a sealed unopened and undamaged box is always best.
Also look for a story that has some longevity, Star Wars films have been made across three decades, there is a good possibility that there will be a new supply of avid collectors for many years to come as those today aged ten brought up on the latest round of Star wars movies will one day reach an age where they too have a disposable income and a wish to be collectors.

The nice thing about trying to look long term at these items is that in the first instance many of them are mass produced and quite cheap to purchase. It is probably guaranteed that if you buy a sealed Star wars toy and keep it pristine for ten or twenty years that it will significantly gain in value, the decision to make is, do you have that kind of time to wait, and do you have that kind of storage space?

PULP!

The act of buying comic books as an investment is a relatively new thing to the comic book world.

At first, comics were read, used, and either thrown away or shared among friends. Few were stored properly and very few of the early comics survive today.

While there has always been an avid collector market which has seen rare issues rise in value to ‘the collector’ the actual process of buying comics as an investment has only really made headway in the last few decades.

As comic books gained in popularity and the people who owned them got older and had more disposable income, higher values began to be placed on comics.
With the release of comic book characters into pop culture through cartoons, movies and television there was a marked rise in the value of classic comic books.

To state an example, the UK based comic book Warrior ran for 26 issues between 1982 and 1985 it was the original home of the character V from the recent film ‘V for Vendetta’. Being only a few decades old full sets of Warrior in good condition were selling on auction site EBay for around £100 being bought by middle aged men who had memories of standing at bus stops as teenagers reading this distinctly British pulp fiction. Upon release of the film full sets of Warrior comics was suddenly worth up to £900 as people desperately traded for them before they eventually settled back down to around £350 a set.

Over time or by fashion and market awareness, some comic books, especially origin issues, can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, such as Action Comics #1 worth in the region of £250,000.

Today, with companies like the Comics Guaranty Company and Ebay, even current comics are worth a considerable amount of money. Take an EBay auction where an Ultimate Spider-Man #29 went for £300. That’s 200 times the original cover price of £1.50 in only 5 years.
Because of the rise in investment in the comic book market we now also see situations where strategic buying affects the market, an All-Star Batman #1 went for £150 only months after the comic out at £1.20.

This puts the everyday reader of comic books in an interesting situation. Comics as an investment? Comic books are rapidly beginning to look like the stock market. With websites like the Lyria Comic Exchange modeled after just such a system.

In its purest form, investing in comics means to look at comic books from a monetary standpoint. As a general rule, most comic books will go up in value. How much they go up can vary greatly. That can depend on many factors such as rarity, condition, and popularity.

Using comic books as an investment will require much more than just a cash investment you need to become a strategic collector, examining not just the comic, but also the rights that are tied into it, for example a new comic book hero that already has a movie deal is probably a good investment, and for those that are considering investment the latest hot tip is Battle Pope. The book tells the tale of a hard drinking, womanizing Pope condemned by God for his own evil ways, who is called to action to save Saint Michael, with the help of Jesus H. Christ, becoming mankind's final hope in a world overrun by demons following the Rapture. Now the decision is, do you choose the comic book for it’s content or it’s investment potential?

The investor will need money to buy the comic books and proper protection and storage to keep them safe. There is also an investment of time. The investor will need to follow the market and track their collection and value. A true “investor” in comics will also need a bit of detachment from their collection because the dedicated investor may need to part with some of their collection when the time is right.

 

Boring Old Art!

The International Fine Art and Antiques Fair (TEFAF) is the art market’s grandest annual occasion. Hundreds of dealers from across the globe descend onto one small town and for one week it is possible to buy anything from the rarest fine art to more modern artists. You can also find decorative art on show, statue’s, jewellery, silver and 18th-century furniture.

But should you be buying art? According to Art Market Research’s (AMR) top 2% inflation-adjusted art index, the prices now being achieved for old masters just exceeded their 1990 peak, rising strongly in the last year. The index for modern painting is 15% off its peak, contemporary and 19th century is 50% below its peak and the more volatile impressionist market is nearly 70% off the 1990 highs seen at the height of the bull market in Japan

Yet average impressionist prices are still higher than other styles from the period, so modern – and particularly 19th-century – works look to be relatively good value at this point in time.

The price of art is affected by such an array of intangible factors therefore valuing it can never be exact. After all, what one generation finds appealing another may find unsightly. Nevertheless, for those without an art-history background and with a distrust of unregulated markets, art indices are the best way to assess trends before taking professional advice. Indices are limited, however, by only including data on auction prices, and these prices only reflect a quarter of the art market, However, the auction system, where prices are public and transparent, is still the best measure of art’s ‘true’ value.

The most credible art index, by Mei and Moses, measures repeat sales since 1952, and makes provision for fine art’s heterogeneity, while ignoring unsold works. It also leads to one glaring conclusion: the more you pay, the lower your return, especially above $50,000 (£29,000). Beyond $2m, the average return was negative. So at first glance, the pricey TEFAF may not be the best place for the investment-oriented art buyer. The few prices available on the exhibition website (www.tefaf.com) range from $90,000 to $30m+ .

For more eclectic tastes, emerging art markets offer greater opportunities, though there are already few to be found at the top end of the market. Chinese ceramics have risen dramatically since 1999, peaking in 2005/6, Latin American art has long performed well, and Russian painting has seen increasing demand since 2001. In lower price brackets, emerging country contemporary art offers better prospects because of its appeal to a new middle class, just as impressionist and modern art did to Europeans and Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Another interesting development has been the growth in demand for domestic art, notably in the
USA and Japan. 

Several academic studies have shown a correlation between exhibition attendance and national art prices.

As the Japanese economy recovers, this may be the next market to watch.

Above all, if you’re going to invest in art, you should remember that it is art’s aesthetic qualities that underpin its future value. To develop such an appreciation and an eye for value there is no better place than the TEFAF fair.

 

Stamps & Currency - Basic advice for the would be collector

The fact that there are far more stamp and coin dealers than stamp and coin brokers, and that very few wealthy people hold portfolios of these collectibles tells us that this sort of investment, one of the safest, most accessible and lucrative for the average person pales in comparison to most other investments.

But there seems to be widespread curiosity about this fascinating topic, and if you abide by a few simple and sensible rules it is possible to produce a good rate of return on an investment over a short period of two to five years.

In the case of coin and currency collecting, the market is fairly strong in all segments of the field and trends are generally established and well known to collectors. So while it may have more long term growth potential than stamp collecting, windfall profits in coin and currency are rare.
Gold and silver coins have intrinsic value in their metal and tend to fluctuate in price with the metal markets, which in turn vary with value of the US dollar.

The Krugerrand, Sovereign and the Canadian Maple Leaf one-ounce coin are the mint coins available offering substantial intrinsic value, but it is generally agreed that the bullion is a better overall investment.
None of the above coins will be prized for their rarity.

w bargains in vintage collectible coins are ever available, and a good portfolio should only be selected with the aid of a qualified counselor.
Always opt for the best condition you can afford, even if it means purchasing a less-scarce coin, since the mint and proof coins are always in most in demand from collections and can be disposed of the most quickly when necessary.
For both stamps and coins, it is wise to specialise in items from your country of residence. They will be the least cost-effective to purchase, but they will always be the easiest to liquidate.

It is felt that the market for collectible paper currency will show better growth than coin markets over the next 20 years. As this segment of the collectible market gains more public exposure, catalog values are bound to rise in response, in early cases probably out of proportion to actual value. Paper money specialists are hard to find and most agree that the market is so unstable that only established issues of value are worth long-term investments.
Usual advice with paper is to collect only issues of substantial value, three figures and higher, which have not shown sharp increases in book value in the last five years, and again we stress collecting only the best condition possible.

These issues should provide the best overall long-term growth and best odds on substantial short-term gains.

Stamp collecting is a much more varied field than most amateurs realise, and for investment purposes, it is always best to specialise from the start.

The best bet is to specialise not only in your country of residence, but a specific aspect of that country's history of issue. You have a lot of choice there. Even specific decades, types of stamps (commemoratives, definitives, revenues, airmails, types of perforations, stamped envelopes, first day covers, plate blocks, etc.) provide wide fields.

Among the best performers are classic series of definitives, commemorative issues before 1930, varieties and errors in printing. Lately revenue stamps, the types used for legal documents, commodities and excise customs documents, are getting rosy forecasts from experienced collectors because they comprise the lowest-priced of the extremely rare issues. They are low-priced at the present time only because they are not widely sought by collectors but since there are only so many rare stamps to go around, anything scarce in a popular field, whether in antiques or records or stamps will eventually show a book value comparable to its scarcity.

Classic stamps of values over £100, especially in superior condition, provide the best overall return on investment and tend to outrun inflation as a rule. The more popular the stamp, the better it will appreciate, and popularity can be determined by comparing the catalog price to an actual selling price. When auction prices regularly go over catalog price, the catalog prices rise accordingly and if the cycle continues, the issue will show excellent gains.

As a rule, items such as plate blocks, first day covers, commemoratives of recent issue (50 years or less) and souvenir items are not good investments. The visual beauty of these items tends to artificially inflate catalog prices which in turn inflates the selling price. They don't tend to show reasonable advances in value over the long term.

Large lots of cheaper issues can look attractive, especially at auction where their prices will seem especially attractive, but when you look around and understand that dealers and serious hobbyists bid fairly low for these lots, and dealers figure their profit margins into the buying price, you'll realise that they are best left to hobbyists more interested in having fun than making money.

For the same reason, it is wise to steer clear of purchasing entire collections from former hobbyists. You'll be paying for the cheaper issues that you won't easily liquidate in addition to the better issues, and that's a headache and an unnecessary expense.

It is, however, wise to seek out hobby collectors who are retiring and selling their collections for income. Frequently they have already consulted dealers about values and prices and will frequently offer the private individual a deal comparable to what a dealer would pay for that little bit of extra profit.

Some "Collector's Items" custom-made by the factory, including special coin mountings, metal stamp sets in gold, silver and platinum and fancy exhibition pieces that require substantial investment for completion of the series have turned put to be top performers, but many haven't kept pace with inflation. It makes no sense to put money into these manufactured collector's items unless you have a strong sense of trends and collector's demands. When in doubt, steer clear.

A good rule of thumb is that the collector, not the manufacturer, sets the true value, and predicting future values for these items is risky.

Once you've got a good sense of market values and determining factors, you might want to consider speculating in new issues from time to time. Certain items come out of the post office every few years and shoot up in value over the first year or two. This usually happens because of the oddities in printing method, limited runs, varieties or errors too insignificant to result in recalling the issue, or major errors that result in massive recall of particular issues, making those in circulation of substantial value almost immediately. If you can spot these as they come onto the market and invest substantially in large numbers of the desired item, you can literally make a very healthy return over a two or five year period.

When investing in either stamps or coins, a safety deposit box is almost always a must. Stamps especially are subject to all sorts of damage from environmental changes and a stable atmosphere especially such as that in a bank vault will provide the highest degree of protection.