Hong Kong will host an investment show in June at the Hong Kong Exhibition Centre which will feature three rare stamps from British firm Stanley Gibbons, according to Adrian Roose, director at the Guernsey-based company. The three rare items are priced at GBP500,000 (HK$7.67million) each.
High-net-worth individuals are placing more money into alternative assets which include collectables. According to the World Wealth Report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, luxury collectables last year accounted for more than 26 per cent of the assets of high-net-worth individuals.
The GB30 Rare Stamp Index, which tracks the prices of 30 rare stamps of Great Britain, averaged an annual return of 10.7per cent over the last 50 years, according to Stanley Gibbons.
'As the stock market becomes more volatile, we have seen more demand for stamps as they are uncorrelated to the market,' said Philip Dawe, director at Stanley Gibbons. 'We have had a lot of interest from China through our website and we believe there will be a lot of interest in these rare items.'
Stanley Gibbons offers a range of investment plans which give investors the option to have the stamps physically delivered or to receive the dividends. Mr Dawe said rare stamps required attention and warned that 'hot and humid weather is probably not very good for storing these'.
Investors can choose to place an initial capital for set periods from three years to 10 years or more.