Investment Department
Since around 2000 the company has actively offered stamps as investments and has set up a special office in Guernsey for this activity. The company had offered a similar service in the early 1970s on a small scale. Sales of investment products have been strong in Asia and the Middle East and through the company's email database, however, sales in the United Kingdom have been hampered by the fact that the company's philatelic investment products are not regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority and therefore UK financial institutions and financial advisers have been reluctant to recommend the products as investors would not enjoy the same level of protection they receive when investing in regulated products. Gibbons have stated that they intend to launch a regulated investment fund in order to overcome this obstacle.
As recently as 2002 the company's attitude to philatelic investment was that stamps were purely a hobby. Many in the stamp business still had unpleasant memories of the excesses of the 1970s bubble.
Some financial advisers and stamp dealers have doubted the wisdom of investing in stamps due to the relatively high prices charged by Stanley Gibbons compared to other dealers and the experience of the 1970s when many investors lost out after a speculative bubble in stamps burst. The relatively high initial costs have also provoked comment, estimated at not less than 20% compared with less than 5% for many retail mutual fund type investments. Gibbons have responded by emphasising the high quality of their items and the long-term nature of their investment proposition.
In 2007 financial news website Bloomberg announced it would publish the SG100 Stamp Price Index, an index based upon retail and auction prices for the top 100 most frequently traded stamps in the world.
In 2008 a complaint was made to the UK Advertising Standards Authority that the guarantees offered by Gibbons in the advertising for their investment products could not be substantiated. After investigation the complaint was not upheld, as no portfolios had yet reached their maturity.
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