The year 2021 exceeded all expectations in philately.

Several very important purchases took place last year. In Germany, for example, the most expensive cover in the world was bought – so called Ball cover with one piece of the Mauritius 1d POST OFFICE stamp. The price reached over 8,000,000 EUR plus buyer’s premium. I wrote about this cover in the June 2021 news. In the USA, a block of four 24c stamps called The inverted Jenny was sold for a record $ 4,860,000. You can read more about this item in April 2021 news.

The Corinphila Auction House in Switzerland also reports record numbers. The number of participants in their autumn auction has more than doubled compared to the pre-covid period. The total bidding budget requested by theonline live bidders alone reached over 16 million CHF! Auction agents also reported extensive orders. This interest was then confirmed by many record summs achieved in the auction.

Zürich 4, Type IV + V in a pair, sold for 270 000 CHF plus buyer's premium

Record turnovers and sums were also achieved not only in many other auction houses around the world, but also in the Czech Republic. Stamps of the Czechoslovakia from the period 1918-1939, but also from the years 1945-1989 reach records in auctions, which even exceed the catalog prices several times over.

Actually, it's nothing new. The prices of rare collectibles (not only stamps) have been rising almost always in the past. This trend can be documented decades or even hundreds of years back. It is caused by many factors, the most important of which is probably the long-term excess of demand over supply. There are tens of millions stamps collectors worldwide, however, some rare stamps exist in just a few dozens or hundreds of examples. There will never be enough for everybody. This mathematics is quite clear.

#philately #recordprice #pricegrowth #demand