As a schoolboy my greatest treat was to visit a small, Victorian-era stamp shop on Air Street, an alley behind Brighton’s famous Clock Tower, to add to my collection of British issues.
The elderly proprietor would reach behind the counter for a brown leather album and advise me what was available for my saved pocket or birthday money. Among my most revered early acquisitions was a Queen Victoria Two Penny Blue.
My addiction as a philatelist survives more than six decades on as does the collection obsession.
As a university student I took a temporary break from stamps and developed a taste for illustrated children’s books. My shelves at home have a fine collection of adventure stories, with wonderful embossed covers, by Victorian author G A Henty. Other favourites include works by the illustrator Randolph Caldecott as well as more contemporary writers and illustrators such as Maurice Sendak.
As a correspondent in the US in the 1980s, my attention turned to political memorabilia. Although I couldn’t resist adding US stamps, with current affairs themes, to my collection even if they were outside my Great Britain zone of interest.
Collector: As a child, Alex, far left with brother Daniel, bought stamps and books. As an adult he bought shares in Hipgnosis, whose royalties include Shakira, above
As time has gone by, stamp and illustrated book collecting has become less fascinating. Partly because wonderful outlets such as the Air Street shop and Brighton’s vintage book shops, one of which was run by my kindly Uncle Aubrey, have vanished. Foolishly, instead of just buying items with intrinsic value, I have indulged my hobbyist instincts on the stock market.
It was always likely to be a tricky venture because as a long standing City Editor, trading in stocks, which I might write about, is verboten except in permitted windows. My tendency, as an avid collector, is just to hang on. As an enthusiastic advocate of long-term investing, my portfolio is overweight with indulgent, personal interest stocks – many of them serial losers.
In my student days, the go-to holiday job was as a deckchair attendant. I enjoyed a valuable stand in the shadow of Brighton’s Palace Pier since renamed Brighton Pier.
Imagine my excitement in more recent times when serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson (son of the legendary columnist Paul Johnson of this parish) acquired the pier and other leisure assets and relaunched it on the London stock market as the Brighton Pier Group. It was an irresistible purchase which brought nostalgia for my native city rushing back.
All was going swimmingly as the proprietor diversified into leisure assets such as indoor crazy golf centres. What could go wrong? The earthquake began when one of Johnson’s other enterprises, the indulgent cafe chain Patisserie Valerie, erupted as a result of an alleged accounting fraud which took place under Johnson’s nose. Shares in all his enterprises took a hit and over the last five years, the value of my holding has slumped 57 per cent.
As a chocolate addict I could not but be tempted by the launch of Hotel Chocolat as a public company which paid out its early investors in deliveries of the good stuff. I was too late for that but the idea of a British chocolate company, sourcing the very best ingredients from its own nature friendly plantation in St Lucia, was a huge temptation.
Initially, my hunch paid off and the stock climbed – helped by the fact that the UK’s favourite chocolatier Cadbury had been swallowed by US food giant Kraft. Then Hotel Chocolat over-expanded. It headed into the graveyard for British companies across the Atlantic. In spite of a recovery over the last year as the company has extricated itself from the US, the shares have tumbled 46 per cent over the last five years.
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Also on my hit parade of hobby shame is the British music rights fund Hipgnosis. The founder Merck Mercuriadis, with a career managing top bands such as Iron Maiden, is steeped in the music business. He was the first entrepreneur to recognise that there were rich pickings to be made from the royalties of artists and ran up huge debts buying up songbooks including such stalwarts as Fleetwood Mac, Shakira and Barry Manilow.
Its activities started a gold rush and soon much bigger players, with huge cheque books, such as Universal Music and private equity giant Blackstone, were on the case. Universal snapped up Bob Dylan’s songbook for £165 million in one of the biggest deals.
Hipgnosis was out of its depth. Loaded up with debt it sought to sell some of its song book to rival Blackstone. But there was a clear conflict of interest as Merck also advises the private equity firm on its portfolio of artists. Hipgnosis shares tumbled, not helped by a decision by the US Copyright Royalty Board to recalculate – at a lower rate – payments to the owners of song books. The share price snapped and my hobby portfolio took another huge knock.
As a great fan of British innovation and the pioneering spirit, I could not but be excited when Seraphim Space, a fund devoted to the world of satellites and exploration, was launched on the stock market a year or two ago. Having bought in at an early stage it has been nothing but a disaster as great British launches, such as Virgin Orbit from the Cornwall Spaceport, failed in mid-air. The best of UK innovation such as satellite pioneer Inmarsat fell under overseas ownership. The stock is down 28 per cent over the last year.
My biggest regret about all of this is that instead of indulging in buying hobby shares I didn’t stick with physical assets. Even though the price of first editions and some illustrated books has soared, there is still the possibility (one lives in hope) of picking up bargains at flea markets and boot fairs or on the Abe Books vintage site.
The doors of Stanley Gibbons, on London’s Strand, keepers of the philately price catalogue, are still open. Moreover, stamp auction manifests often come my way.
Even if the values fell, I would still have the pleasure of filling the gaps in my collection and mulling over the albums as dotage approaches.
As for hobby shares: they have proved an expensive mug’s game. By the way, I do have an extensive collection of Royal commemorative mugs, some dating back to the Victoria and Albert era, in a glass cabinet in the family kitchen.
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