'Can you buy stamps now, then sell them for 30% profit?' blog discussion 10 April 2012 at 12:53PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Martin's Blogs & Appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the News 30 replies 7.8K views

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Can you buy stamps now, then sell them for 30% profit?" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

SnowMan

The stampede begins :j

bazzyb

The article states that stamps cannot be bought back by RM. This is incorrect, they will buy back unused stamps at 85% of face value. You need to use P674 claim form, available from Post Office.

MSE_Martin

bazzyb wrote: »

The article states that stamps cannot be bought back by RM. This is incorrect, they will buy back unused stamps at 85% of face value. You need to use P674 claim form, available from Post Office.

Hiya, as you'll note the fact they won't buy back comes from the Post Office itself. On the back of your note above I went back to them and asked about it, the reply


"There were occasions when we would buy back stamps in certain circumstancesbut that was never guaranteed and we don't do it any longer."

JulieGeorgiana

What is the price rise for 1st class 'large' stamps... I can't find the information anywhere...

misterthrifty

First class large is going up to 90p.

Before you rush out to spend all of your savings on stamps to resell later, there are a few things to bear in mind:-

1/ There will be a lot being sold off cheap at first which will keep prices down, you will have to hang on to them longer for a better price.

2/ If you sell on ebay then you will pay approx 15% in fees (lisithg, f/v and Paypal) which will knock a hole in your profits.

3/ Hanging on to them holds it's own risks as RM would be happy to write off the liability for previously issued stamps (basically credit notes) given any of these events:-

Selling the business to a private company.
Changing the Monarch
Changing the currency (Euro)

Prices on the open market would drop swiftly if any of these became more likely and you could be left with a handfull of nothing as happened in Decimilisation, in European countries that joined the Euro, etc.

This is not the easy profit that many are claiming.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

Mister T

sham63

Just did a quick example calculation for selling on Ebay;

Buy 1000 x 2nd class for £360

Sell on Ebay for, say, £480 (as face value is £500 after rise)

Ebay fees = £40
Paypal fees = £16.52

Total fees = £56.52

£480 - £56.52 = £423.48 which gives a profit of £63.48

which is approx 18% profit (not 30% but still not bad!)


Assumes free listing & free postage (although you would need to send by special delivery for items of this value - this would eat futher into your profit)

jrawle

misterthrifty wrote: »

Selling the business to a private company.
Changing the Monarch
Changing the currency (Euro)

1. A private company would still be tightly regulated by Ofcom, and would not be allowed to say old stamps issued are invalid.

2. A change in monarch would not make stamps invalid (although perhaps some people would be relucant to buy/use them). Remember in the past there were changes in monarch much more often, it's unusual to have the same one for over 60 years!

3. 1st and 2nd stamps don't show a currency anyway. Putting aside the unlikeliness of us joining the euro, even if we did, and they set first class postage at 1 euro, it would just mean a 1st stamp was worth 1 euro - unlike bank notes, you don't even need to change them!

Perhaps people in Scotland should watch out, though, as independence is more likely than the UK joining the euro, and British stamps might not be valid for mail posted in Scotland after a few years.

misterthrifty

jrawle wrote: »

1. A private company would still be tightly regulated by Ofcom, and would not be allowed to say old stamps issued are invalid.

2. A change in monarch would not make stamps invalid (although perhaps some people would be relucant to buy/use them). Remember in the past there were changes in monarch much more often, it's unusual to have the same one for over 60 years!

3. 1st and 2nd stamps don't show a currency anyway. Putting aside the unlikeliness of us joining the euro, even if we did, and they set first class postage at 1 euro, it would just mean a 1st stamp was worth 1 euro - unlike bank notes, you don't even need to change them!

Perhaps people in Scotland should watch out, though, as independence is more likely than the UK joining the euro, and British stamps might not be valid for mail posted in Scotland after a few years.

I don't agree at all. The Govt will find it much more difficult to sell RM with 100s of millions £ of liabilities on the books, the likelehood is that a new company will issue their own labels and then cancel previous issues after a period of grace. Note that they have sliced off the pension fund already.

Previous changes in the Monarch have previously resulted in a change of stamps and probably it will happen again.

OK, unlikely we would join the Euro, but Germany is an example where pre EU stamps were de-monetarised and are now worth peanuts, even their NVI lost their value. Same with decimilisation here.

Good point about Independence.

Just my opinions but worth bearing in mind if you are planning to hold stamps for a while. There is a secondary market in stamps that is much cheaper than the face price and this has been falling for a while now.

Mr T

thelawnet

Not 30% Martin.
30% is for 1st class stamps, 2nd class is 39%.

jrawle

misterthrifty wrote: »

I don't agree at all. The Govt will find it much more difficult to sell RM with 100s of millions £ of liabilities on the books, the likelehood is that a new company will issue their own labels and then cancel previous issues after a period of grace. Note that they have sliced off the pension fund already.

Previous changes in the Monarch have previously resulted in a change of stamps and probably it will happen again.

£100millions? How many stamps do you think people are going to stock up on? The proportion of people playing this game is tiny, and the average number of stamps each one holds is small too.