Armand Rousso International Stamp Exchange NYT | Armand Rousso Stamp Collecting

The following article is taken from an article in the New York Times in 1986. Armand Rousso has a long history and love for stamp collecting and revolutionizing the way people think about stamps.

New York, Friday, January 3, 1986

Frenchman in Florida Creates ‘Big Board’ for Stamp Trading

…Rousso, the owner and chairman of the International Stamp Exchange Corporation of Miami Beach believes he can revive interest in philately with a combination of publicity and the lure of profit. “There is not doubt that collecting stamps is not seen today as a modern, fashionable hobby” he said. “We are trying to dust it off and show, especially to young people, that it can be great fun and, what is more important, very profitable.”

In the exchange, which opened in October and which Mr. Rousso expects to be fully operational later this month, descriptions of each stamp, including the owner’s asking price, are fed to a computer. Potential buyers, dealers, or individuals who have telex terminals or personal computers can see the exchange’s listings of stamps and enter bids on them. If the bid equals the price asked, the sale is automatically completed by the exchange. If the bid is lower, the seller can choose to accept it. Buyers are charged 3 percent and sellers are charged 6 percent. Auction houses usually collect 10 percent from both the seller and the buyer.

Mr. Rousso said that in a 10-day period from the last of November to the first week of December, the exchange’s volume of business was $400,000 and increased daily. Mr. Rousso placed a $3 million value on the stamps the exchange initially offered for sale and said the value of those listed now was about $75 million. The number of serious American stamp collectors, who annually invest several hundred dollars in their collections, is estimated at some 200,000, although the number who dabble in philately could be ten times that number. His experience as a collector and dealer has led to a network of 200 authorized representatives in the United States. Through them, people who do not own computers can buy or sell stamps on the exchange. Mr. Rousso also has subsidiaries in Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, and West Germany.