Some people find their parents’ or grandparents’ carefully preserved stamp albums and immediately think they have won the lottery. Looking at the neatly arranged old pieces of paper, they imagine selling them, paying off the mortgage, replacing the car and spending the rest of their lives drinking cocktails on the beaches of Malibu, posting hourly selfies to drive their friends mad. They probably will not become the most loyal visitors to this website.
When I write about the value of a stamp, I will rarely give an exact figure because in most cases it cannot be determined precisely, only approximately. But this first part will be an exception!
But let us return to the main question: how much is a stamp worth? The question is like asking how much a car, a book or a piece of clothing is worth. The answer is determined by supply and effective demand , just like everything else. In general, a stamp can be sold for whatever someone is willing to pay for it and bought for whatever price someone is willing to offer it at. Of course, the price is often negotiable and, even more often, determined by the winning bid at auction.
In the following parts I will explain what makes one stamp much more valuable than another. Does it depend on age or on the country that issued it? How does condition affect price? I will try to explain clearly how to identify a stamp and how we can estimate its value ourselves.
But this part is only the warm-up! Now for something specific, because there are stamps whose price can be stated exactly. Unlike chicken backs, stamps currently sold by the post office have been officially priced for around 180 years and still are. In other words, a stamp sold by the post office can be bought for the amount printed on it. This is called its face value.
Hungarian stamps issued after 1991 are still valid for postage and many can be purchased at post offices, in the postal administration’s webshop or from Filaposta. The easiest way to recognise these stamps is that they bear the inscription “MAGYARORSZÁG”, whereas earlier issues show “Magyar Posta”.
For example, the miniature sheet shown here, issued for the Sándor Petőfi memorial year, is worth 730 forints—exactly the amount printed on it. The issue is unusual because of the four 145-forint stamps, the upper two also carry a surcharge of +75 forints. When buying the sheet, therefore, you pay not only 4x145 forints but also 2x75 forints in surcharges. The face value of each of the upper two stamps is therefore 145+75 forints, while the lower two are 145 forints each. The sheet’s total surcharge of 150 forints serves a good cause, because the postal administration uses the money to support youth philately. (That is why I chose this stamp as the example.) So by buying surcharged stamps, we are also making a donation.
I know some of you may be disappointed and were expecting a more dramatic story. But it was necessary to establish that Hungarian mint never hinged stamps issued after 1991, with no postal cancellation, cost the amount printed on them. We have also learned what the term face value, means. This will become important later when we begin identifying stamps. With other stamps, the situation is more complicated. Let me explain with another example.
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The image shows the 1-korona value of the 1913 Turul issue. Its face value is 1 Hungarian korona, meaning that this was its purchase price at the beginning of the 20th century, but that tells us nothing about its value today. According to the Catalogue of Hungarian Stamps, the stamp is valued at 1,000 Ft, while foreign catalogues value it at 3–5 euros. On online marketplaces, however, examples can be found for around 500 forints, although I also found much higher and lower prices. We therefore need two more concepts: catalogue value and market value, and the difference between them can often be substantial. There are also several different catalogues. Before we can understand these values and use them in practice, a few things must first be clarified. The first and most important task is to learn how to examine our stamps without damaging them. That will be the subject of the next part. After that, using simple examples, we will begin identifying stamps, assessing their condition and determining their value, while also learning many of the terms used by stamp collectors.