By Jesse Robitaille
The philatelic market in Canada has undergone “significant change” over the past year, during which time several challenges have risen, according to the president of the Canadian Stamp Dealers Association (CSDA).
The dwindling number of clubs and dealers in certain regions of the country, as well as the increased cost of new issues, factor into the recent changes and challenges, said CSDA president and long-time dealer Angelo Komatsoulis. He also noted Canada’s slowing economy, which could be exacerbated by the recent U.S. presidential election and any potential tariffs that may come with it, as a cause for concern.
“There has certainly been significant change,” said Komatsoulis, a Montréal resident who began his first term as CSDA president in December 2020.
“People build collections, and there comes a point when they have to dispose of it; they have to sell it. There was a time, 10 or 15 years ago, when it was easy to get 30 to 40 per cent of your collection.”
In the early 2000s, for every dollar a collector spent while building their collection, they would generally receive upwards of 40 cents when it came time to sell it.
“Now, at the present, it’s 10 cents. That’s a big drop.”
Komatsoulis, who began buying and selling stamps on a part-time basis in 1972 before becoming a full-time dealer 11 years later, when he joined the CSDA and opened his first storefront, has recently seen more collectors donate their collections for a tax benefit.
“For people who don’t find a buyer, another avenue is to give it to an institution for a tax benefit. But the institutions are in turn giving these collections to an auction firm.”
Rather than splitting a collection into pieces – by year, for example – many institutions instead consign the entire assemblage to an auction house, which often sells it altogether as a group lot.
“I had a friend who built a collection of Olympics stamps – from 1976 to 2018 – but because the individual didn’t impose any conditions on the institution to which he donated it, they put the whole thing in an auction as one lot,” said Komatsoulis. “It sold for $11,000 – but it had over $300,000 in Scott catalogue value.”
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