Hi,
Very interesting question
The stamp market is mysterious sometimes, and I believe that only the
dealers and the "heavy" or area-specialized buyers have a good grasp of
what's really going on in the market today. Here is my 2 cents,
applicable for my own area, unfortunately, I can't speak for
everything... :

-Generally speaking, US sellers are much more reasonnable than European
sellers in term of starting prices. There are few exceptions of
course...

-Some Parisian Auction houses are starting to use Dallays' catalogue
quotes (french colonies specialized cat), as starting prices. Dallay's
quotes are sometimes much higher than the good old Yvert, and as per
them, is a better representation of the market....still too high...????

-Demography...Baby boomers are starting to come back to their
collections, sometimes after many years of interuption caused by
carreers, family, other activities, etc.. I believe this come back will
be extremely strong in the next few years and will dictate the market,
because those people are numerous, and generally fluent, is it the
right world? (they have a budget for their passion, and "money is no
object" in some cases).
Caveat...After the baby boomers will be gone, then the stamp maket will
enter in a major crisis, because the big majority of youngsters have
other interests (ie: computers, electronics, etc...) that they will
keep for most of their life. Stamps will really occuppy a very small
portion of their time, if any....

Honestly, I think that the currency fluctuations have only a marginal
impact on prices. What really dictates prices is the demand, you, me,
the fellows paying too much because they really wanted this item
now...or the reasonnable guys, holding their bids and watching what's
going on...

This is one opinion, It will be very interesting to hear from
specialists, sellers, dealers, especially the large ones, because
thanks to their volume, they have a good view of what's going on in the
general stamp market.

Patrick
Montreal, Qc.