Stamps
Stamps of Approval
In Philatelic Sales-As In Any Other Marketing Effort-Island Governments Need To Know Their Customers
For some years now, Pacific Island governments have been issuing their own stamps, some of which are meant for the collectors’ market and some of which are actually used to send mail around the world. But are Island stamps popular enough with collectors to generate good income for Pacific governments?
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Getting solid numbers on philatelic income is sometimes hard to do, since the figures are often lumped with other income figures. Sometimes only gross stamp sales are reported. This amount may include stamps sold to local people for postal use. However, as many Island countries have small populations whose inhabitants don’t write too many letters, it’s a good bet that most of the money reported comes from stamp collectors. In an attempt to find out specific figures, I queried a dozen philatelic bureaus in the Pacific. Not one answered.
However, in past years, some numbers have come to light. In 1991, the Cook Islands made about US$35,000. The Marshalls saw an income of about $250,000 in 1994 and Palau reported philatelic sales of $192,000 in 1992.
Pitcairn made figures public yearly in the 1990s. In their best year they sold about $160,000 in stamps. In 1998-1999 the total came to about $130,000. This amount is critical in balancing Pitcairn’s budget. It amounts to well over 40 percent of total government expenditures. While this is an extreme case, such amounts are certainly attractive to other islands as well.
In addition to stamp sales, another direct benefit is the creation of philatelic bureaus, especially if they are located within the country. Typically employing from four to 10 people, they provide clerical jobs for the people who must dispatch stamp orders and service envelopes ("first day covers," as they’re known) created for collectors. These offices usually maintain standing-order accounts so collectors automatically receive their orders. The amounts on deposit from stamp collectors can sometimes be substantial.
Unfortunately, this source of government income seems to be shrinking. Partially, this is due to the aging of the stamp collector population. Marketing studies of philatelists show that it is not a child’s hobby anymore. It is dominated by older males, many of whom are in high income brackets. These men tend to collect stamps in two ways. Either they specialize in specific geographical areas—with the Pacific always being a popular region—or they collect based on topics. Space travel, animals and sports are examples of popular topics.
One problem has been that philatelic bureaus have sometimes misjudged who buys the stamps. Following the old notion that children are the major collectors, many stamp issues were made that featured subjects with juvenile appeal. These topics often bear no relationship to the country that issues the stamps. Sometimes that country is really what the collector was interested in. The Cook Islands, Niue, Tuvalu and Tonga have all made this mistake. With the possible exception of Tuvalu’s locomotive stamp series, which was wildly successful (see Pacific Magazine’s June 2002 feature on Tuvalu), collectors want Pacific-specific exotica when they are buying from Pacific countries.
Another mistake of Island countries has been in the number of different stamp designs issued. The idea seems to be that if you can make money with one stamp, you can make twice as much with two. But in a collectors’ market, this is not true.
In 2000, for example, Palau issued 301 different stamps, the Marshalls 204 and the Federated States of Micronesia 172. Taken together, that’s the second-highest total for any nation in the world, outstripped only by Liberia. Even well-heeled collectors may not want to pay face value for a full set of a country’s stamp issues.
Some have learned their lesson. For years, Tonga was noted for its high number of stamp issues, but in 2000, it only released 21. In the same year, Niue limited itself to 14 and the Cook Islands to 10. Some countries have tried to make up for low release numbers by raising the face value of the stamps they do release. Tokelau, for example, only issued 14 stamps in 2001, but two of the issues were souvenir sheets of about $1.50 each and nine of the stamps were denominated at $1 or more.
Pacific countries need to learn from their mistakes. They need to keep their issue numbers down, make their stamps relevant to their geography and keep them in some relationship to real postage rates. Pacific countries need to realize that once their reputations among affluent collectors have been lost, it is sometimes hard to get them back. They also need to plan for a decline in demand as many of their most faithful collectors age out of the market. Treated with care, though, philatelic sales can be a useful source of income for strapped Pacific Island budgets.
