EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Price Determinants of Collectable U.S. Commemorative Stamps: An Examination of Philatelic Demand

Paul Grimes, Larry R. Woodward and Myles Clark

The American Economist, 2023, vol. 68, issue 2, 246-260

Abstract: Philately, the collecting of postage stamps, is a popular hobby throughout the world. Stamp collectors’ motivations vary from the simple pursuit of leisure and recreation to financial investment and speculation. This study explores the demand for vintage U.S. commemorative stamps by examining the determinates of retail prices across alternative categories of sellers. Using regression analysis and a cross-sectional sample of the first 250 commemorative stamps issued by U.S. postal authorities, we estimate price equations for representative national dealers, regional dealers, and for electronic auction sites. The results indicate that production quantities, age, and specific attributes of individual stamp issues are the primary determinants of retail price. However, the pricing structures across categories of sellers are significantly different in a hierarchical manner indicating that dealers may successfully segment the collectable stamp market across different types of collectors but alternative explanations for our conclusions cannot be excluded without additional research.

Keywords: D12; D40; L15; Z11; price determination; collectables; stamps; philately; market segmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/05694345221125694 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:amerec:v:68:y:2023:i:2:p:246-260

DOI: 10.1177/05694345221125694

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The American Economist from Sage Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:68:y:2023:i:2:p:246-260