Your business pages have been highlighting the difficulties faced by stamp dealer Stanley Gibbons.
As a philatelist in Bahrain, and a postal historian specialising in Great Britain material, I have watched Stanley Gibbons as it has moved away from servicing genuine collectors, and publishing accurate GB stamp catalogues, reflecting true market values, to making short-term commercial gains out of thousands of investors, who lack knowledge and purchase mainly British stamps at catalogue prices, which bear little relation to reality.
Despite being a collector, the new chairman of Stanley Gibbons, Harry Wilson, is continuing the recent tradition of promoting stamps as an alternative investment. To restore confidence in the philatelic market, he should ditch the investment department, re-price the material in GB catalogues to realistic levels, and start buying and selling stamps at genuine prices again. Otherwise, bankruptcy beckons.
Gavin Littaur
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