MALAYSIAN INTEREST IN PHILATELIC ARE DECLINING

PENANG STAMP FAIR 13TH - 16TH SEPTEMBER

The reason for the Malaysians philatelic interest are declining because POS Malaysia kept reprinting commemorative stamps when the initial mintage ran out of stocks.

Back to the years before POS Malaysia was privatized about a decade ago when the entity was fully owned by the Malaysian government the interest in philatelic was very strong among avid collectors. Long queues can be seen lining up the street from POS Malaysia during the first day of launching of commemorative stamps. During those days it has limited mintage between 20,000pcs to 50,000pcs of commemorative stamps being printed and once sold out it was never reprint again and there were strong secondary market for these stamps.

After POS Malaysia been privatized and listed on the stock exchange in Bursa Malaysia everything changes and "profits" was the main priority. Before the date of launching new stamps to mark an occasion POS Malaysia will announce that they will print limited numbers of stamps only (eg: 20,000pcs) to create a rush of demand to the public and once they have sold out the commemorative stamps on the first day POS Malaysia will secretly reprint the stamps again. 

Reprinting stamps is like printing money and that is very easy to make huge profits for POS Malaysia. For instance once you buy a single piece of RM5.00 stamp and kept inside your stamps album POS Malaysia has profited 100% gain from you ! Just imaging the profits of POS Malaysia when the whole nation stamp collectors bought commemorative stamps from POS Malaysia. It is huge and easy money been made !

However this practice of reprinting was uncovered and has irked the collectors and people has loss interest big time in philatelic and now you can go to POS Malaysia main office to buy those yesteryear series still available at face value. POS Malaysia does not understand that once you lose the secondary market people have loss the interest in philatelic and also the collectors.

Stamps collectors has switched interest to Numismatics - Banknotes and Coins collection. This is one of the many reasons that have contributed into the rise of Malaysian numismatics.

Shame on you POS MALAYSIA !

Only a handful of people came to visit the stamp fair.

POS Malaysia counter selling those yesteryear series and personalized stamps.

Happy Reading.

Andrew