Beijing Olympic stamps popular with collectors
(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-04 08:54

The 2008 Beijing Olympics have provided a much needed boast for the local stamp market, which has been in the doldrums for almost a year.

Two new stamps, one featuring the emblem for the games and the other featuring the mascots, have proven incredibly popular among both stamp collectors and investors of late.

A page of 10 of either of the stamps has a face value of 8 yuan (99 US cents), but they are selling for much more than that.

"The 8 yuan pages of emblem stamps are selling for 140 yuan in our market," said Ma Lianhong, an official with Shanghai Lugong Stamp Market, one of the biggest stamp markets in the country.

Two million pages of the emblem stamps were issued, while 7.5 million pages of the mascot stamps were made available to the public.

"The Olympics are always a hot theme," said Ma. "And since there are still two years to go before the Olympics, the number of the stamps on the market will surely reduce by the time the games begin."

Ma said many investors are buying up the stamps.

The country's stamp market has seen a series of booms and busts in 1986, 1991, and 1997.

Since the late 1990s, many investors had given up on stamps and focused on the stock market or other opportunities, but that is now changing, Ma said.

He said another series of stamps and coins release last month, which featured the 12 animal signs of the Chinese zodiac, was also very popular. That series was the first ever to contain all of the 12 animal signs.

That complete series, including 12 gold and silver coins, two gold stamps, 13 pages of 12 stamps, and a pamphlet, was originally priced at 8,800 yuan.

Only 30,000 sets were printed, and just 1,000 sets were to be sold in Shanghai.

"Two hundred and fifty sets were ordered in one week after they appeared in the local market on November 12," said a manager surnamed Wang with Beijing Stamp Company.

Ma said the Olympic stamps should be a better investment than the zodiac stamps and coins. "The price is too high and doesn't have much room to rise."