self-same dealer, and asks, say, only the half of what he paid, he is
astounded when the dealer has the audacity to tell him frankly, "I can
buy most of those stamps at a few shillings per thousand, and you want
an average of a halfpenny each for them!" "But," retorts the
collector, "I paid you one penny each for them years ago, and now you
won't give me half that amount. A pretty thing investing money in
stamps!" The reply of the dealer will be, "My dear fellow, you have
put your money into the wrong stamps. I bought, and can still buy,
those stamps wholesale at a few shillings per thousand, some of them
at a few pence per thousand; but I have to pay clerks for handling
them and sorting them out, other assistants for cataloguing them, and
the printers for printing the catalogue, so that in the end I cannot
afford to sell them _separately_ for less than about one penny each,
but if you want a few thousand of any value I can sell them to you at
a price enormously below what you ask for your collection." The
collector's eyes are opened.

It is impossible to get away from the necessity of regarding stamps as
an investment. Even the schoolboy cannot afford to put his shilling
into stamps unless he can be fairly assured that he may get his money
back at critical periods, which will crop up even in school life.
Indeed, it may be said that there are few, if any, stamp collectors
nowadays who do not put more money into stamps than they could afford
to do if there were not some element of investment in view. In some
instances large fortunes are actually invested in stamps, and I was
only recently told of a collector who had taken his money out of a
very profitable business and put it into stamps, and had netted very
much larger profits than he ever realised in his regular business. But
to do that sort of thing requires a profound knowledge of stamps and a
ready command of a very large banking account.