Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
There may be fewer speculators among the working classes, time will tell I suppose.
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The scarce and rare items will probably continue to command high values due to demand outweighing supply. regular, common PRC stamps will continue to slide downward as their will be worth less in face value compared to the strong US dollar. Speculative issues where there is an adequate supply may see a drop in value as people in PRC dump them on the market to get needed money.
At least that is my thought of what might happen. The bell weather PRC stamp is the Year of the Monkey stamp (Scott #1586). It has been the subject of much speculation for many years. In 2015 Scott, it was valued at $2,000.00 for MNH. Could someone with a 2016 Scott please provide the current value?
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Interesting how history repeats itself. China had a stock market more like a casino than a marketplace, people were speculating using borrowed money, tons of folks with no knowledge were involved. Any of this sound familiar?
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Hi Everyone;
Yes and their downturn is bound to continue. This is in part due to better enforcement of fake
Chinese knockoffs. Also many Americans realize that Chinese goods are either shoddy, due to
poor quality control of materials, or made with sweat shop labor.
Almost everyone I know is trying to avoid that "made in China" label, for fear of dangerous fakes.
But the real armageddon from China has yet to be realized. That is the eventual real estate
collapse that will be due to over-speculation that goes on there. China has built whole cities
with thousands of apartment buildings with dozens of apartments. these cities are complete
with streets, fake name-brand shops and everything a functional city should have, except people.
Problem is nobody can afford any of them. So there they sit as modern ghost towns. 60 Minutes
did a 20 minute news piece on this problem a couple years ago.
I hope I'm in the ground before this one hits. It will be a real whopper, of a crash.
Just Chillin'....
TuskenRaider
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There are empty cities and complete never used airports in Spain too. The bubble already collapsed over there.
On the other hand, I have never heard of anyone turning their backs to iphones or ipads because they are made in China.
In the end there is not so much black or white. Most is grey.
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A few facts:
1. Chinese economy has grown at 10% or more in last 30 years, it will come down to 4-5% which is normal and nature.
2. For product quality, it has a lot to do with the marketers. Apple wants high quality, they produce iphone, ipad, dollar store, walmart, target want cheap, they produce cheap, low quality products.
3. For PRC stamps, its price peaked in 2011/2012, it has been gone down a lot. But in Chinese stamps discussion forum websites, there are high schoolers, college students, and other young collectors which I have not seen any in U.S.
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01:57:00am
China has a managed economy and an even more restrictive information system. That is a recipe for economic disaster. For some time the government has imposed secrecy on the stock market there, concealing o at least delaying sales figures that reflect a downturn of certain stocks.
As this situation has become obvious world wide traders have been pulling their investments which will only further weaken their fundamentals. If the people, workers, traders, mom and pop investors, ever get wind of this that whole society may implode and China might just return to a society similar to the warlord fiefdoms of the past.
Time will tell.
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Jansimon's opinion is unexcited.
(That is a compliment.)
Asset bubbles are like terror attacks; they destroy some people, but they do not destroy whole countries.
All things being equal, I suspect that the Chinese interest in All Things Chinese will continue, that there will continue to be lots of disposable income in lots of hands, and that this will all be good for the hobby.
The main risk I see is in paying a premium price for a genuine article, as I see the flood of fakes leading to a day when no one will ask if its real, only if its cool.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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12:57:51am
" .... Asset bubbles are like terror attacks; they destroy some people, but they do not destroy whole countries. ...."
I might agree if by destroy you mean creating a vast wasteland.
No, I can't recall that happening due to an asset bubble.
However if we mean creating a period of time. three, five or even ten years, when the economy is reduced to, or close to, a barter economy and people are starving on street corners then yes. Far too many have no recollection or at best very limited knowledge, of events such as the Great World Wide Depression of the 1930s. It took a world war to energize the government to spend money (It didn't have) to inject some life into our economy and put the workforce to productive labor, even if much or that product was for armaments.
Imagine if the recent "Great Recession" (1007-2010 ) had continued. Think back just a few years and ignore political talking points for a minute as you revisit the collapse of a housing bubble, major industries coming to a halt and highway underpasses becoming SOR campgrounds. It was well on its way to bring this nation to its knees.
But those events have happened time and time again, the South Seas Bubble, the French Mississippi bubble and the Tulip Mania that actually did bring the United Provinces of the Netherlands to its knees and relegated Holland to second class status afterward.
There have been similar "bubbles" that have virtually ruined the economies of Argentina, Brazil and Chile, as well as Mexico, Japan, and less well known Indonesia and Malaysia.
Today these financial debacles are often reported in terms of investments and business lost, forgetting the pain that the common man, or woman, must endure while the wealthy have to sell some extra bauble and cancel a month long vacation in the tropics.
In the family of one of my cousin's, there is a story, supported by a newspaper clipping, of the death of a young child from starvation in the apartment of an out of work laborer during the crash of 1893. The baby died in its mother's arms. Five children and not a scrap of food left. No job and no money for a man who had previously managed to work six days a week in construction.
That is what I mean by a bubble bursting and destroying a nation.
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"...Year of the Monkey stamp (Scott #1586). It has been the subject of much speculation for many years. In 2015 Scott, it was valued at $2,000.00 for MNH. Could someone with a 2016 Scott please provide the current value?"
$1875 italicized
k
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As usual, Charlie IS spot on, and the effects of bubbles on national economies and its people can be staggering. I won't add to his graphic examples.
I will contest one point, though, that being the US willingness to spend its way to recovery in the interwar period. FDR, with his New Deal and NRA and TVA and.... all set about spending on America and putting America to work. It WAS a success, if not fully so, when, projecting that the recovery was already solid, FDR pulled back. So, it was not his commitment to spending that should be questioned but his understanding of the recovery's progress and failure to understand any pull back might (and did) have deletirious effects.
My great good friend, Joe Moscovitch (several of you know him, too) hated FDR. For years, I couldn't understand it, as Joe was as New Deal as you got. I had to push him on it, when he finally admitted that he hated FDR because, having an opportunity to create a permanent and inviolate social safety net he only went half way, allowing folks like Ronald Reagan the opportunity to move a protected asset into the operating pot, essentially borrowing against our future with no mandate to ever repay it.
Today, we see the same spend/austerity question being played out on several continents, with predictable (for some of us) results.
David
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"However if we mean creating a period of time. three, five or even ten years, when the economy is reduced to, or close to, a barter economy and people are starving on street corners then yes. Far too many have no recollection or at best very limited knowledge, of events such as the Great World Wide Depression of the 1930s."
The Great Depression was not the result of an asset bubble.
There is an argument for (what we have come to call) income inequality, eg, aggregate demand was lower because too much income flowed to too few people.
But the more compelling argument is the destruction of trade, as described in Keynes' The Economic Consequences of The Peace.
If you want to argue asset bubble, you need to name the asset.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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02:13:23am
The asset was over valued stocks bought against future growth with margin accounts.
The Bush recession asset was over built homes purchased with the future value in mind to use to pay off bad mortgages.
For example people bought homes they could not afford assuming that eventually they could sell (Or refinance)at a profit as housing prices, much like stocks on margin in the late 1920s, would grow and grow.
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I wouldn't think there would be a dramatic affect on their stamp market. There is no shortage of people in China and once someone starts collecting stamps, it is hard to quit.
Unlike the U.S. and other countries China has a great many younger collectors who will probably keep the ball rolling. There are also many people in the rest of the world that collect China passionately.
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On this thread: Hong Kong: Speculation fever is alive and well, I posted about apparent stamp buying fever in Hong Kong and the high prices being obtained on new issues on the secondary market.
As I wanted to verify the accuracy of what an eBay seller (referred to in that thread) had claimed in his item description, I contacted someone who is resident there, who is actively involved in philately. I gave him the link to the eBay item in question.
This was his reply:
"As for the miniature sheet...Hong Kong is in a bit of a silly time now when it comes to commemoratives. Chinese New Year stamps have always been 'hot'...people line up on the first day of issue for hours to buy FDCs to flog on Yahoo auctions etc. But now, people are speculating on every new issue, they treat stamps like the stock market. The same is done with commemorative banknotes, its just a commodity for flipping.
As for the 2014 GPO sheet...I bought a bunch of them when they came out. Was using them on mail...slowly, as they're large, so not often I had something to post, to use them. A few months ago I heard they were really hot in the market. I sold the last 6 I had for $500HKD each to a collector, who had contacts among Chinese dealers who were apparently selling them for $800 each...for $20 face...I regretted using so many on mail.
Every commemorative issue comes with a M/S of course, and apparently lots of people will buy and sell them in sealed packs of 100.
The $20 GPO sheet, was re-offered for sale at the Expo last week, with a 2015 Expo overprint...I queued up 3.5 hours to get into the show (and in the end had to leave the queue to go to work)...turns out, that queue was to buy at the Hong Kong Post booth...but basically nobody was going into the show, everyone was there to buy stuff to re-sell (that was the opening day).
The prices can't continue like this...look at the end of colonial era material...people were buying everything in full sheets, believing "HK stamps with the Queen's head will be collector's items"...and now the last definitive set showing QEII, the last commemoratives and the birds and the Lantau Bridge miniature sheets are worth less than face.
"
So, at the moment, any China economic downturn has not yet reached Hong Kong. Such speculative buying will probably continue, for some time. There are two ways to look at this situation: either this stamp buying fever may attract a younger stamp collecting audience (good for everybody),
Or, more likely;
As a somewhat typical trait of many Chinese people is to gamble, they will not care one jot what it is they are buying, as long as they can sell on with a profit. See above reference to Expo 2015, 'nobody was going into the show'.
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Any speculation as to how the market crash in China may affect the stratospheric prices of recent years in that stamp market?
There may be fewer speculators among the working classes, time will tell I suppose.
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11:25:26am
re: China Economic Downturn?
The scarce and rare items will probably continue to command high values due to demand outweighing supply. regular, common PRC stamps will continue to slide downward as their will be worth less in face value compared to the strong US dollar. Speculative issues where there is an adequate supply may see a drop in value as people in PRC dump them on the market to get needed money.
At least that is my thought of what might happen. The bell weather PRC stamp is the Year of the Monkey stamp (Scott #1586). It has been the subject of much speculation for many years. In 2015 Scott, it was valued at $2,000.00 for MNH. Could someone with a 2016 Scott please provide the current value?
Login to Like
this post
re: China Economic Downturn?
Interesting how history repeats itself. China had a stock market more like a casino than a marketplace, people were speculating using borrowed money, tons of folks with no knowledge were involved. Any of this sound familiar?
Login to Like
this post
re: China Economic Downturn?
Hi Everyone;
Yes and their downturn is bound to continue. This is in part due to better enforcement of fake
Chinese knockoffs. Also many Americans realize that Chinese goods are either shoddy, due to
poor quality control of materials, or made with sweat shop labor.
Almost everyone I know is trying to avoid that "made in China" label, for fear of dangerous fakes.
But the real armageddon from China has yet to be realized. That is the eventual real estate
collapse that will be due to over-speculation that goes on there. China has built whole cities
with thousands of apartment buildings with dozens of apartments. these cities are complete
with streets, fake name-brand shops and everything a functional city should have, except people.
Problem is nobody can afford any of them. So there they sit as modern ghost towns. 60 Minutes
did a 20 minute news piece on this problem a couple years ago.
I hope I'm in the ground before this one hits. It will be a real whopper, of a crash.
Just Chillin'....
TuskenRaider
1 Member
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re: China Economic Downturn?
There are empty cities and complete never used airports in Spain too. The bubble already collapsed over there.
On the other hand, I have never heard of anyone turning their backs to iphones or ipads because they are made in China.
In the end there is not so much black or white. Most is grey.
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Login to Like.
01:08:15pm
re: China Economic Downturn?
A few facts:
1. Chinese economy has grown at 10% or more in last 30 years, it will come down to 4-5% which is normal and nature.
2. For product quality, it has a lot to do with the marketers. Apple wants high quality, they produce iphone, ipad, dollar store, walmart, target want cheap, they produce cheap, low quality products.
3. For PRC stamps, its price peaked in 2011/2012, it has been gone down a lot. But in Chinese stamps discussion forum websites, there are high schoolers, college students, and other young collectors which I have not seen any in U.S.
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
17 Sep 2015
01:57:00am
re: China Economic Downturn?
China has a managed economy and an even more restrictive information system. That is a recipe for economic disaster. For some time the government has imposed secrecy on the stock market there, concealing o at least delaying sales figures that reflect a downturn of certain stocks.
As this situation has become obvious world wide traders have been pulling their investments which will only further weaken their fundamentals. If the people, workers, traders, mom and pop investors, ever get wind of this that whole society may implode and China might just return to a society similar to the warlord fiefdoms of the past.
Time will tell.
Login to Like
this post
re: China Economic Downturn?
Jansimon's opinion is unexcited.
(That is a compliment.)
Asset bubbles are like terror attacks; they destroy some people, but they do not destroy whole countries.
All things being equal, I suspect that the Chinese interest in All Things Chinese will continue, that there will continue to be lots of disposable income in lots of hands, and that this will all be good for the hobby.
The main risk I see is in paying a premium price for a genuine article, as I see the flood of fakes leading to a day when no one will ask if its real, only if its cool.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
26 Oct 2015
12:57:51am
re: China Economic Downturn?
" .... Asset bubbles are like terror attacks; they destroy some people, but they do not destroy whole countries. ...."
I might agree if by destroy you mean creating a vast wasteland.
No, I can't recall that happening due to an asset bubble.
However if we mean creating a period of time. three, five or even ten years, when the economy is reduced to, or close to, a barter economy and people are starving on street corners then yes. Far too many have no recollection or at best very limited knowledge, of events such as the Great World Wide Depression of the 1930s. It took a world war to energize the government to spend money (It didn't have) to inject some life into our economy and put the workforce to productive labor, even if much or that product was for armaments.
Imagine if the recent "Great Recession" (1007-2010 ) had continued. Think back just a few years and ignore political talking points for a minute as you revisit the collapse of a housing bubble, major industries coming to a halt and highway underpasses becoming SOR campgrounds. It was well on its way to bring this nation to its knees.
But those events have happened time and time again, the South Seas Bubble, the French Mississippi bubble and the Tulip Mania that actually did bring the United Provinces of the Netherlands to its knees and relegated Holland to second class status afterward.
There have been similar "bubbles" that have virtually ruined the economies of Argentina, Brazil and Chile, as well as Mexico, Japan, and less well known Indonesia and Malaysia.
Today these financial debacles are often reported in terms of investments and business lost, forgetting the pain that the common man, or woman, must endure while the wealthy have to sell some extra bauble and cancel a month long vacation in the tropics.
In the family of one of my cousin's, there is a story, supported by a newspaper clipping, of the death of a young child from starvation in the apartment of an out of work laborer during the crash of 1893. The baby died in its mother's arms. Five children and not a scrap of food left. No job and no money for a man who had previously managed to work six days a week in construction.
That is what I mean by a bubble bursting and destroying a nation.
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re: China Economic Downturn?
"...Year of the Monkey stamp (Scott #1586). It has been the subject of much speculation for many years. In 2015 Scott, it was valued at $2,000.00 for MNH. Could someone with a 2016 Scott please provide the current value?"
$1875 italicized
k
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re: China Economic Downturn?
As usual, Charlie IS spot on, and the effects of bubbles on national economies and its people can be staggering. I won't add to his graphic examples.
I will contest one point, though, that being the US willingness to spend its way to recovery in the interwar period. FDR, with his New Deal and NRA and TVA and.... all set about spending on America and putting America to work. It WAS a success, if not fully so, when, projecting that the recovery was already solid, FDR pulled back. So, it was not his commitment to spending that should be questioned but his understanding of the recovery's progress and failure to understand any pull back might (and did) have deletirious effects.
My great good friend, Joe Moscovitch (several of you know him, too) hated FDR. For years, I couldn't understand it, as Joe was as New Deal as you got. I had to push him on it, when he finally admitted that he hated FDR because, having an opportunity to create a permanent and inviolate social safety net he only went half way, allowing folks like Ronald Reagan the opportunity to move a protected asset into the operating pot, essentially borrowing against our future with no mandate to ever repay it.
Today, we see the same spend/austerity question being played out on several continents, with predictable (for some of us) results.
David
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re: China Economic Downturn?
"However if we mean creating a period of time. three, five or even ten years, when the economy is reduced to, or close to, a barter economy and people are starving on street corners then yes. Far too many have no recollection or at best very limited knowledge, of events such as the Great World Wide Depression of the 1930s."
The Great Depression was not the result of an asset bubble.
There is an argument for (what we have come to call) income inequality, eg, aggregate demand was lower because too much income flowed to too few people.
But the more compelling argument is the destruction of trade, as described in Keynes' The Economic Consequences of The Peace.
If you want to argue asset bubble, you need to name the asset.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
01 Dec 2015
02:13:23am
re: China Economic Downturn?
The asset was over valued stocks bought against future growth with margin accounts.
The Bush recession asset was over built homes purchased with the future value in mind to use to pay off bad mortgages.
For example people bought homes they could not afford assuming that eventually they could sell (Or refinance)at a profit as housing prices, much like stocks on margin in the late 1920s, would grow and grow.
Login to Like
this post
re: China Economic Downturn?
I wouldn't think there would be a dramatic affect on their stamp market. There is no shortage of people in China and once someone starts collecting stamps, it is hard to quit.
Unlike the U.S. and other countries China has a great many younger collectors who will probably keep the ball rolling. There are also many people in the rest of the world that collect China passionately.
Login to Like
this post
re: China Economic Downturn?
On this thread: Hong Kong: Speculation fever is alive and well, I posted about apparent stamp buying fever in Hong Kong and the high prices being obtained on new issues on the secondary market.
As I wanted to verify the accuracy of what an eBay seller (referred to in that thread) had claimed in his item description, I contacted someone who is resident there, who is actively involved in philately. I gave him the link to the eBay item in question.
This was his reply:
"As for the miniature sheet...Hong Kong is in a bit of a silly time now when it comes to commemoratives. Chinese New Year stamps have always been 'hot'...people line up on the first day of issue for hours to buy FDCs to flog on Yahoo auctions etc. But now, people are speculating on every new issue, they treat stamps like the stock market. The same is done with commemorative banknotes, its just a commodity for flipping.
As for the 2014 GPO sheet...I bought a bunch of them when they came out. Was using them on mail...slowly, as they're large, so not often I had something to post, to use them. A few months ago I heard they were really hot in the market. I sold the last 6 I had for $500HKD each to a collector, who had contacts among Chinese dealers who were apparently selling them for $800 each...for $20 face...I regretted using so many on mail.
Every commemorative issue comes with a M/S of course, and apparently lots of people will buy and sell them in sealed packs of 100.
The $20 GPO sheet, was re-offered for sale at the Expo last week, with a 2015 Expo overprint...I queued up 3.5 hours to get into the show (and in the end had to leave the queue to go to work)...turns out, that queue was to buy at the Hong Kong Post booth...but basically nobody was going into the show, everyone was there to buy stuff to re-sell (that was the opening day).
The prices can't continue like this...look at the end of colonial era material...people were buying everything in full sheets, believing "HK stamps with the Queen's head will be collector's items"...and now the last definitive set showing QEII, the last commemoratives and the birds and the Lantau Bridge miniature sheets are worth less than face.
"
So, at the moment, any China economic downturn has not yet reached Hong Kong. Such speculative buying will probably continue, for some time. There are two ways to look at this situation: either this stamp buying fever may attract a younger stamp collecting audience (good for everybody),
Or, more likely;
As a somewhat typical trait of many Chinese people is to gamble, they will not care one jot what it is they are buying, as long as they can sell on with a profit. See above reference to Expo 2015, 'nobody was going into the show'.
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