Armand Rousso Hartford Courant

 Earlier this year, the 35-year-old Rousso paid $99,000 for a plate of eight $5 Christopher Columbus stamps, the largest single transaction at the Siegel Rarity in New York City.
The catalog price is often relative to a stamp’s actual worth. Rousso’s stamp exchange would establish an up-to-date market price by posting an asking price from a seller and soliciting bids from prospective buyers.
Rousso expects the exchange to be in business by Sept. 30 and has recruited a nationwide network of 200 stamp dealers who will act as brokers for the stamp exchange. The 200 dealers received their “seats” on the stamp exchange free but anybody else wanting a seat will have to pay at least $5,000, beginning October 1, Rousso said.

Because of the declining rate of inflation and federal government rulings that collectibles do not qualify as investment for Keogh Plans and Individual Retirement Accounts, the rare stamp market has been flat for the past 2 years.

He compares this condition with the stamp market in 1978, 1979, and 1980 when “the stamp market went crazy” and grew at an annual rate of 60 percent. Stamp prices began to tail off in late 1980 and 1981 as inflation softened, Reznikoff said.
“You only need to blow on it to get it moving again,” Reznikoff said Friday about the state of affairs in the stamp market.

“Get a few investors to spend money and you will get the collectors to spend.” he said.
Collectors and traders will be able to do business with the brokers, such as Reznikoff, and the exchange if they have access to personal computers that are equipped with modems. A modern is a device that converts data to a form so it can be transmitted through a telephone from one computer to another computer where a second modem reconverts the data.

In a telephone interview Tuesday from New York City, Rousso estimated that the worldwide stamp market, both retail and wholesale, is $470 million and, “I expect to get a big chunk of this in the first year.”