Recently, I wrote about how the famed polar explorer Roald Amundsen raised money by selling post cards and stamps. This raised the question of whether the cards and stamps might be considered a security under the Supreme Court's definition of investment contract. S.E.C. v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946). Although the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Howey was decades in the future, using stamps to raise funds was controversial even in Amundsen's time:
“Issues that are unblushingly made for the purpose of raising money for some scheme — North Pole flights, Costa Rican athletic games, Portuguese monuments and such — are a disgrace to governments that foster them and blots on stamp collections. Unfortunately, these miserable things are available for postage … We have seen some of these North Pole stamps used in part payment of postage on letters, so we feel compelled to list them [in the Scott catalog], though we thoroughly disapprove of them.”
Scott's Monthly Journal (June 1925) quoted in Linn's Stamp News (Aug. 25, 2014). The fact that the stamps were issued by the Norwegian state gives rise to the question of whether they would have been exempt under the California Corporate Securities Law of 1968. Corporations Code Section 25100(b) exempts:
"Any security issued or guaranteed by Canada, any Canadian province, any political subdivision or municipality of that province, or by any other foreign government with which the United States currently maintains diplomatic relations, if the security is recognized as a valid obligation by the issuer or guarantor; or any certificate of deposit for any of the foregoing."
Although the stamps were issued by Norway, a foreign government with which the United States maintained diplomatic relations, the security is not just the stamps, but the Amundsen expedition itself. Purchasers of the stamps arguably were not just buying postage, but into the polar expedition itself. Any increase in value would arise from Amundsen's success or failure.
