Buying New Vrs Used???

I am in the process of expanding my collection in other directions and have found a few stamps I'm interested in. This is all new to me so forgive me if it sounds dumb.
Some of the stamps I've found I like cost more to purchase used than they do mint.???
Can anyone help me to understand more about this and why some would be that way??

Thanks
Leah

Leah, I gather that the prices you are concerned about relate to
Disney stamps which should be relatively recent. I just checked my 2010 Scott catalogue for US issues as see that 4 Disney stamps from 2008 (#4342-4345)are listed at .85 cents for mint and .20 cents for used each. Perhaps you can be more specific about the used stamps that are more expensive. By the way, there are several instances of old stamps that I am aware of where the used stamps are much more valuable than mint. Regards Mike

Leah, in the end, it all comes back to supply and demand. Some small stamp-issuing entities are very popular, but have very little use for stamps.

Take the case of Pitcairn Island, which has quite a following. Pitcairn has a population of around 50, and no local mail service. (Why would you bother?) This means that the only source of used stamps from Pitcairn is from mail from the island, or stamps cancelled specifically for collectors.

Another case, much closer to my heart: the Indian State of Barwani. (Don't worry if you've never heard of it; most collectors haven't either ) It had a population of around 150,000, but far fewer than half of the population was actually literate, and so had any use for mail. The stamps of Barwani were only valid within Barwani; letters going anywhere else in India or the rest of the world required Indian stamps. And, though it pains me to say it, Barwani was a bit of a backwater. All of this means that used stamps of Barwani are much harder to find than unused (collectors could order them from the State Post Office), and stamps still on the original envelope



are much scarcer still. (This stamp, the second ¼ Anna of 1921 has a catalogue value of around $50 unused, $250 used, and is worth around $1000 still on the postcard like this).

So, if the supply of used copies of a stamp is lower than the demand for them, the price will rise - and can easily go above the price of the unused. It just all depends.

Wow. Thank you for that information. That makes some sense to me now and I can better judge what's best for me. Thanks again

Sorry mch99 I missed your post completely. Actually I am looking to start my collection outside of Disney stamps and came across some I liked, for example confederate states issue CSA13 20 cent Washington, green. Its mint price is 65.00 but its used price is 600.00. Wasn't sure if someone got trigger happy with the zeros or if this was normal of some stamps

Leah, I agree with tonymacg's explanation of supply and demand affecting stamp prices. I've seen some examples where this has applied in my purchases. With regard to CSA #13, my 2010 catalogue shows mint = $40 while used = $400 for the green Washington. Perhaps some of the CSA stamps have gone up dramatically in price in the past year or the stamp you are interested in is XF. Regards Mike

With U.S. issues mint is normally higher than used. With CSA there was an abundance of mint at the end of the war with far fewer used copies causing the used value to be higher. This is also true with many of the local issues where uaed copies are rare and with many mint remainders were sold off after the company closed. Another example was the experimental perf 11 Scott 461 where news of the stamp was let out and numerous mint copies were bought (in Washington, DC) and used copied are rarer since few were saved. The used 461 is about twice the mint value.

Used stamps also offer the ability to collect by cancellation/by perforation (perfins) and on covers. There is greater variety and imho more fun with used stamps.

Wow that's a little over my head, haha. I have not had to learn this stuff with Disney stamps they all came to me new and went with the book I had. I guess I still have a lot to learn... off to the library haha