• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Classic Latin America logo

CLASSIC LATIN AMERICA

News, commentary and opinion on Central and South American philately

  • Home
  • Resources
    • Introduction
    • Central America : Philatelic Societies & Specialized Catalogues
    • South America : Philatelic Societies & Specialized Catalogues
    • Fakes and Forgeries
  • Auctions & Shows
  • Absolute Beginners
  • About
  • Contact
  • STORE

And the second most expensive Latin American country to collect is…Honduras. And the least expensive? Guatemala. Debate!

Black Honduras

Back in 2000, a Canadian Gentleman by the name of Michel Bégin compiled a database entitled “The Most Affordable Classic Stamps to Collect” and published his findings on the web.

Clearly a man with time on his hands, he manually ploughed through the entire Scott 1840 – 1940 Specialized Catalogue and sorted each country’s listings into price bands to determine the overall cost of collecting a specific country.

Fast forward to 2017 and the website www.germanstamps.net has attempted a similar exercise. This time, Michel 2015/16 has been used as the default catalogue. Data has been accessed electronically rather than manually and the listings now encompass the full 1840-2015 period.

There are two variants of the tables, one for summary country listings and another for detailed (e.g. including states, locals, officials, postage dues, revenues etc). These two tables can then be viewed as either mint or used and as actuals or percentages.

An exercise of this nature is only ever as good as the data upon which it is based and inevitably there will be anomalies that skew or affect the final result. Nevertheless, it is an excellent tool for getting a broad idea of the overall catalogue ‘value’ of a country, understanding the relationship between the number of expensive to low value stamps and how the cost of completing one country relates to another.

How affordable are stamps from Central and South America?

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to just pull out the Latin American constituents to see how they compared against one another.

For example, at the summary level for mint stamps, these are the results.

Latin American stamp values ranked

This exercise throws up some interesting results. For example, the three most expensive countries to collect are:

  1. Mexico (by a significant margin)
  2. Honduras
  3. Colombia

However, Honduras has to be treated as an anomaly due to the hugely disproportionate €150,000 valuation Michel puts on the renowned 1925 ‘Black Honduras’ airmail, of which only one exists. If we eliminate this one stamp then Honduras drops down to 13th place.

As for the three least expensive, the figures give us:

  1. Guatemala (the most inexpensive)
  2. El Salvador
  3. Haiti

El Salvador and Haiti only have two stamps each that catalogue more than €100 with Guatemala having only seven. In comparison, Mexico has 289, Brazil 117 and Colombia 98.

The data can be cut any which way you want and you can have a lot of fun with the tool, dependent on your collecting interests.

How accurate a reflection of Latin American philately the stats provide is up for debate though. Ultimately, it is only as good as the source data, some of which you may decide to question. In many respects it can only be used as a guide for relative rather than actual value.

Certainly, it would be fascinating to see a similar version using Scott (or the rapidly ageing SG) data to see how they compare.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. bob says

    1st March 2022 at 6:17 pm

    interesting info as I’ve recently become interested in stamp collecting & have been considering specializing in Latin America .
    thanks 👍

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Never miss a new post

Receive an e-mail alert when new posts are published

Your e-mail address will not be published and will only be used for sending you notification of new posts

Upcoming Events

Mar 28
All day

Siegel | Uruguay: The Magnolia Collection

May 25
May 25 - May 28

Essen | IBRA 2023 International Stamp Exhibition

Aug 10
August 10 - August 13

Cleveland | Great American Stamp Show

Aug 11
August 11 - August 15

Taipei | Taipei 2023 40th Asian International

Nov 27
November 27 - December 2

Bangkok | Thailand 2023

View Calendar

Recent Comments

  • Nick Smith on Venezuela – the final specialized catalogue for 2022
  • Nick Smith on Venezuela – the final specialized catalogue for 2022
  • Rolfli on Which country has the world’s worst postal service?
  • Peter Moorer on Bookshelf Essentials Part II – The Central American Newsletter
  • Nick Salter on Bookshelf Essentials Part II – The Central American Newsletter

No interest in Latin American stamps?

For news and opinion on the broader stamp market, click on the General Philately category below

Categories

  • Analysis
  • Auctions
  • Dealers
  • Events
  • Forgeries
  • General Philately
  • People
  • Philatelic Societies
  • Post Offices
  • Publications
  • Stamp Issues
  • The Collector

Featured Posts

  • The 1864 Stern essays showing the Paraguay coat of armsThe Collector | Robert Shaw | Paraguay
  • Brazil catalogue cross reference bookCollect Brazil? You probably need this…
  • ABNC Steel PlateOriginal ABNC steel plates come to market
  • Brazil Bulls Eye ForgeryThe Numerals Issues of Brazil – Fakes, Forgeries and Counterfeits
  • Stanley Gibbons' Latin American catalogues have not been published since 2007/8Part 20, Part 20, wherefore art thou Part 20…?
  • The 10 pesos top value of Mexico's Mail Transportation issueThe Collector | Eric Stovner | Mexico
  • The MainsheetThe Mainsheet goes digital
  • Bustamante Peru Specialized CatalogueThe Bustamantes of Peru
  • Cefibol Catalogo Especializado en Filatelia BolivianaNew Specialized Catalogues: Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru and Paraguay
  • 1868 genuine trial color proof in greenCollecting and selling Mexico (Part 2)
  • Old Central Post Office Buenos AiresStamp Dealers in Argentina and Uruguay
  • Venezuela AR39 stampScott Specialized adds another 67 listings to Venezuela
  • The 19th Century Issues of El Salvador 1867-1900. Guillermo Gallegos & Joseph HahnBook Review | The 19th Century Issues of El Salvador 1867-1900. Guillermo F. Gallegos & Joseph D. Hahn
  • Honduras Ambulante Mourning CoverCollecting Classic Honduras
  • Lazy PostmanWhich country has the world’s worst postal service?
  • ELASCA websiteIntroducing ELASCA – The European Latin American Stamp Collector Association
  • The Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue: a review
  • Buenos Aires stamp forgeriesFakes, forgeries…and buying online
  • GJ Specialized Argentina CatalogueNew specialized Argentina catalogue published
  • Stockholmia 2019Exhibiting Latin America…from Denver to Stockholm (Part 2)
  • El Salvador proofEl Salvador finally makes it to London
  • Introducing Venezuela's EscuelasBook Review – Introducing Venezuela’s Escuelas Stamps by Williams Castillo
  • NY 2016 Stamp Show logoWorld Stamp Show – NY2016
  • FIAF logoPhilatelic Societies – a review
  • John Shaw RPSLThe Collector | John Shaw | Paraguay
  • Neal West NicaraguaThe Collector | Neal West | Nicaragua
  • Central American NewsletterBookshelf Essentials Part II – The Central American Newsletter
  • Brasilia 2017 Stamp Exhibition logoBrasilia 2017 – is this the future for major stamp exhibitions?
  • Stamp Market IndexeBay disrupts catalogue publishing with Stamp Market Index
  • The MainsheetBookshelf Essentials – The Mainsheet

Archives

  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • August 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • September 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016

Footer

Menu

  • Home
  • Resources
    • Introduction
    • Central America : Philatelic Societies & Specialized Catalogues
    • South America : Philatelic Societies & Specialized Catalogues
    • Fakes and Forgeries
  • Auctions & Shows
  • Absolute Beginners
  • About
  • Contact
  • STORE

Recent Posts

  • Costa Rica at The Royal
  • The Postage Stamps & Postal Stationery of Guatemala
  • Venezuela – the final specialized catalogue for 2022
  • New Specialized Catalogues: Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru and Paraguay
  • Collecting Classic Honduras

Categories

  • Contact

© Copyright 2023 www.classiclatinamerica.com