3 ms·

I'm mostly kidding... Buy forever stamps from USPS. As they raise the price of postage, your stamps will go up in value, and then you can sell them for a prof

I'm mostly kidding... Buy forever stamps from USPS. As they raise the price of postage, your stamps will go up in value, and then you can sell them for a profit! This is probably a terrible idea, but it makes me giggle. Now I'm imaging some sort of push on r/wallstreetbets to YOLO on stamps, posting insane strategies on how to predict when the price of postage will go up, by how much, and how liquid the market is for millions of stamps.

powvans 6y ago
My wife is a lawyer and she buys a lot of stamps. Recently she stumbled onto some strange stamp firesale on Ebay and bought forever stamps at below face value. I could only guess that this was an unwinding of the trade you propose.
- ipsin 6y ago
  That, or forgeries being laundered... [1] https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/quality-of-modern-counterfeit-u.s.-stamps-keeps-improving https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/quality-... For a cash-like instrument, stamps seem to have very little in the way of anti-counterfeiting security.
- toast0 6y ago
  Stamps (forever or not) are often used for Ebay manufactured spend because they're easy to sell (clear value, lightweight and easy to ship). It goes like Ebay says spend $X or sell $X on ebay and they'll give you a rebate. (Or sometimes the rebate comes from a credit card or Bing). If the $X covers ebay fees and shipping, then buy stamps to reach the $X and then sell them when you get them. If the rebate it sufficient, you can sell the stamps for less than cost, because you're already ahead.
currymj 6y ago
Back in the roaring '20s Charles Ponzi came up with a way to theoretically make a profit trading postage stamps, and raised a lot of money from investors, although in fact he never actually bought the stamps, and instead invented the Ponzi scheme.
samizdis 6y ago
There's a quaint and quirky thing in the UK called a premium bond, which you can buy and which the government guarantees to buy back from you at its initial fixed value (1 bond costs 1 British pound). Every month, a lottery system pays out prizes to holders of bond numbers, as chosen by "ERNIE" - "Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bond
- robocat 6y ago
  The equivalent New Zealand scheme (Bonus Bonds) is being wound up due to low interest rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Bonds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Bonds From elsewhere: “With low interest rates continuing to reduce the Bonus Bonds prize pool, the Bonus Bonds scheme was closed to new investment on 25 August 2020 and an announcement was made that ANZIS intended to begin winding up the scheme no later than the end of October 2020.”
- ac29 6y ago
  Would be interesting to see something like that in place of state lotteries her in the US. Neither is a good investment, but the longer term nature of the prize-bond system makes it less likely to attract desperate short term gamblers.

powvans 6y ago

My wife is a lawyer and she buys a lot of stamps. Recently she stumbled onto some strange stamp firesale on Ebay and bought forever stamps at below face value. I could only guess that this was an unwinding of the trade you propose.

ipsin 6y ago
That, or forgeries being laundered... [1] https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/quality-of-modern-counterfeit-u.s.-stamps-keeps-improving https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/quality-... For a cash-like instrument, stamps seem to have very little in the way of anti-counterfeiting security.
toast0 6y ago
Stamps (forever or not) are often used for Ebay manufactured spend because they're easy to sell (clear value, lightweight and easy to ship). It goes like Ebay says spend $X or sell $X on ebay and they'll give you a rebate. (Or sometimes the rebate comes from a credit card or Bing). If the $X covers ebay fees and shipping, then buy stamps to reach the $X and then sell them when you get them. If the rebate it sufficient, you can sell the stamps for less than cost, because you're already ahead.

currymj 6y ago

Back in the roaring '20s Charles Ponzi came up with a way to theoretically make a profit trading postage stamps, and raised a lot of money from investors, although in fact he never actually bought the stamps, and instead invented the Ponzi scheme.

samizdis 6y ago

There's a quaint and quirky thing in the UK called a premium bond, which you can buy and which the government guarantees to buy back from you at its initial fixed value (1 bond costs 1 British pound). Every month, a lottery system pays out prizes to holders of bond numbers, as chosen by "ERNIE" - "Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium_Bond

robocat 6y ago
The equivalent New Zealand scheme (Bonus Bonds) is being wound up due to low interest rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Bonds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Bonds From elsewhere: “With low interest rates continuing to reduce the Bonus Bonds prize pool, the Bonus Bonds scheme was closed to new investment on 25 August 2020 and an announcement was made that ANZIS intended to begin winding up the scheme no later than the end of October 2020.”
ac29 6y ago
Would be interesting to see something like that in place of state lotteries her in the US. Neither is a good investment, but the longer term nature of the prize-bond system makes it less likely to attract desperate short term gamblers.