Baby boomers help Gibbons to collect

A golden age of stamp collecting and autograph hunting is upon us, Stanley Gibbons declared today.

"The 'baby boomers' are now reaching the age of serious collecting, which puts us in an attractive place in the current economic conditions," said Stanley Gibbons chairman Martin Bralsford.

Chief executive Mike Hall said the business had never been so busy, registering 17,500 new collectors last year compared with an average annual sign-up rate a decade ago of 1000.

Hall said that collectors are increasingly likely to be the wealthy over-45s, who are either picking up again a hobby they enjoyed as children or who are demonstrating the same obsessive qualities in collecting stamps and famous autographs that they brought to making money in their commercial careers.

Last year one British stamp from the 1860s fetched £125,000, Bruce Lee's handwritten notebook was sold for £100,000 and a letter signed by Beethoven went for £75,000.

Stanley Gibbons' underlying pre-tax profits for 2008 rose 4% last year to £4.7 million and the dividend is going up 6% to 4.75p a share.