What is a vintage stamp? (the first of several parts of this somewhat-complex discussion)

All stamp collectors want to acquire vintage stamps - well, most of us, anyway. That's where the money is, right? Some people think that all vintage stamps are valuable just because of their age.

Not necessarily.

There is no clearcut definition of what constitutes a "vintage" stamp.

We get emails all the time from people who collected stamps when they were a kid and now want to sell them. And from people who inherited an old stamp collection from a parent or grandparent and want to sell it. And also from people who have a handful of stamps from the 1960s or 1970s. Almost all of them say that they want to sell their "rare and valuable vintage stamps."

They are shocked when we tell them that a stamp produced in 1970 (for example) is not "vintage" and is almost certainly not "valuable." Although it's now 38 years old - and probably older than some of the senders of these emails - a stamp printed in 1970 is actually fairly "young" or "recent" in the stamp world. On top of that, many stamps from the 1950s or so forward have been printed in such huge quantities (billions of the same stamp in many cases) that it's impossible to consider them to be "rare." Don't forget, there are several factors involved in the price of any specific stamp:

• condition,
• condition (yes, I know I repeated it)
• scarcity / rarity
• subject matter (this has much more significance for collectors of topical or thematic stamps than to country collectors)
• condition (again)
  
• age (and by that, I don't mean 20 or 30 years old)

Definitions of "vintage stamp" vary, but we would hesitate to consider any stamp printed later than 1925 or 1930 to be "vintage." Old, yes, but vintage, no.


to be continued ....