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StampFinder Reports
1999 Price Changes in
Scott Volume One
Volume I of the 1999 Scott catalogue reflects a resurgent market in US postage stamps
but shows little strength elsewhere. The 583 US mint stamps cataloging $50 or more had an overall price rise of 9.7% for an aggregate value of $2,731,000. The 166 items with a price change rose an average of 19.1%. This is one of the healthiest increases in prices for the US in several years.

For the rest of the world, Scott showed practically no mint price changes. Of the only 365 mint price changes in Volume 1 for $50+ items, 237 were for USA and Territories and only 128 were for the rest of the world. Attached is a detailed analysis of some of the more prominent countries included in Volume 1 and how they fared.

The story for used stamps is much the same. The 302 US used stamps cataloging over $50 had an overall price rise of 5.3% for an aggregate value of $1,122,000. The 109 items with a price change rose an average of 15.3%, an unusually good showing for used stamps anytime. The rest of the countries in Volume 1 had only 103 price changes in the $50+ category.

We note already that Volume 2 shows substantially more price changes than Volume 1 and affecting many more countries (We will be reporting on the results shortly). Perhaps Scott had only sufficient staff to update the USA in Volume 1 or perhaps their breakup of the British Empire listings this year disrupted their price update schedule. We hope the problem is
not the former, or else, we see slim hope of future price changes for any countries beginning with the letters A or B!

StampFinder is stamp information and exchange site. It offers stamps from numerous dealers on a sales site which is searchable by country, item or topic. The site offers various information services for collectors and dealers. StampFinder also publishes a series of stamp investment guides which provide information on the investment potential of individual stamps.
Samples of some of the recommendations can be found on the StampFinder site at www.stampfinder.com.

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