For those seeking Moneystamps, Brazil deserves close scrutiny. Its principal achievement in philately was in being the second country in the world (in 1843) to issue postage stamps. Its iconic initial Bull stamps are well known to collectors and are highly prized. Brazil was a royalty at the time and did not suffer the frequent revolutions and changes in governance which mark so much of the history of South America. Hence, one does not see the multitude of stamps issued by numerous new governments or overprinted from previous ones. This stability in governance means that Brazil issued far fewer stamps and used them for longer periods of time. Despite this stability, Brazil Moneystamps show above average appreciation rates.
Table 1 shows the 5 and 25 year appreciation rates for Brazilian stamps by price category. It demonstrates strong growth in all price groups, unlike most countries which show upward trends in the growth rate as the price increases. The summary appreciation statistics for Brazil are well above the average of all Moneystamps, confirmation that Brazil has been among the top performing nations.
The table shows no prices for stamps in the over $5,000 group because there were so few and they have not recently traded. Note that the number of mint items is almost twice that for used stamps and their value appreciation is significantly higher. This is consistent with my theory that mint stamps are preferred by collectors now that stamp mounting is not as damaging as in years past. We also see that mint never hinged stamps have become the standard for investment buyers, so much so that they are willing to pay hefty premiums that bring risks all their own, i.e. overpricing and re-gumming. Just look at the price histories for U.S zeppelin stamps for confirmation.
The second table is a list of individual buy recommendations. The selection was made based on stamps that achieved a 100% or more in appreciation over the last 25 years for both the mint and used categories. Note that the 5 year appreciation numbers confirm the strength of Brazilian stamps since they frequently represent a significant portion of the 25 year numbers. The stamps marked as BBUY1 represent issues which where also recommended by us in our BESTBUY recommendations 25 years ago. Hence, they have been top performers for at least 50 years. How many stock picks can say this? Since we cannot display the actual Scott prices we have added a price group number to allow readers to differentiate items by their financial commitment as well as future appreciation potential.
The individual stamp pricing table has a number of airmail issues by various private carriers operating in Brazil or in South America as well as special issues for the zeppelin visit to Brazil. These issues were only recently added to the Scott catalogue and therefor show no five year appreciation numbers. The 25 year appreciation numbers are based on the Sanabria airmail stamp catalog which was last published in 1966. This longer time period explains some of the extraordinary appreciation numbers. There is probably significantly more appreciation potential in these stamps now that Scott has broadened the market for these issues given their limited issue sizes and short operating duration.