Stanley Gibbons expand into Rare Coins to benefit investors

PRESS RELEASE 22 March 2012 

As investors worldwide seek to diversify to protect their portfolios, The Stanley Gibbons Group plc launches a ‘Collectibles Growth Plan’; adding rare coins and historic medals to their offering of some of the world’s most historically stable assets*

Rare stamp and prestige collectibles company, The Stanley Gibbons Group plc, has expanded its offering of premium stamps and signatures to include rare coins and medals; combining these alternative assets to offer a ‘Collectibles Growth Plan’ for investors seeking security through diversification.

“Due to the development of the rare stamp and rare coin markets over decades as both trophy collectibles and stable investment vehicles, the track record of these tangible asset classes is unparalleled in terms of their stability and steady growth” said Investment Director, Keith Heddle.

Price data for the rare stamp market has been published by the Group since 1880, providing a transparency unrivalled by other alternative asset classes. This data has been available to investors on Bloomberg Professional service since 2008 and has shown steady, unrelenting growth. The Group aims to publish further indices this year to aid investors.

“The prestige collectibles we deal in are not correlated with other mainstream asset classes and they certainly proved their worth in the meltdown of 2008, when their value rose whilst others crashed.” continued Heddle. “History demonstrates that they are almost completely unaffected by market swings and the volatility of other asset classes.”

With compound annual growth figures of between 8% and 13%†, these rises are outstripping many other traditional forms of investing. This has prompted interest from new private investors and institutions seeking to anchor a part of their portfolios, with an increasing demand from Asia and the US.

The Group are currently finalising a Rare Coin Index, due to be launched in Q2 2012.

* Dimson, Elroy and Spaenjers, Christophe, Ex Post: The Investment Performance of Collectible Stamps (December 1, 2010). Journal of Financial Economics (JFE), Vol. 100, No. 2, 2011. Available at SSRN: ssrn.com/abstract=1444341

† Stanley Gibbons indices- available on Bloomberg Professional™ and stanleygibbons.com


ENDS

Louise Reynolds

press@stanleygibbons.com / +44 (0) 1425 481045