Really Disappointing Day

I went out to a local stamp show today, the only one that we really have around here on a semi-regular basis. I was hoping to fill in some holes in my U.S. collection, there are some that I need through the 80s that will finish me off post-1935, plus a big pile of topicals that I figured I could easily pick up.

I was wrong.

The show itself was disappointing, there were maybe a dozen dealers, if that, and nobody had anything I needed. I mean anything. Nobody had a U.S. stamp there post-1940 and even though I spent more than an hour picking through everyone's worldwide stamps, I never found a single one I needed in any of my topical collections. I could get the stamps before and the stamps after, just not the ones I needed.

I walked in with $300 in my pocket, figuring I could easily burn through that. I walked out with $300 in my pocket, having found absolutely nothing I could use.

It was just sad. I can order all of it online in a heartbeat, I just wanted to be able to pick and choose which specific stamps I wanted, like I used to be able to do at stamp shows. Now... I guess all of that is gone.

I have had similar experiences..it is a bummer when you spend hours and its not fun...a lot of times I stopped at the one dealer I did not think would have anything for me and I did find SOMETHING...don't give up...not all dealers are alike some really do have decent things at affordable prices !

Oh, I know, I just went through 5-6 of the dozen dealers and they were all the same. This is the best show there is around here, except for one "big" one in February. I remember the good old days when a show had a couple hundred dealers, now it's a tiny little room with people who really have nothing.

Oh well, there's always online, I guess.

I got oodles of that kind of stuff so maybe I can help you? Can you shoot me some kind of list? I might just have some of the stuff you need.

Cephus: I'm sorry you had a disappointing day.

I'm sure the last thing you want is some Pollyanna looking for a silver lining in your rain cloud, .....

But, I have to say, I would LOVE to go to a LOCAL stamp show with a DOZEN dealers. Some of us have nothing locally.

Kirk, scf-is-my-local-club, S

Well, local in the sense that it was withing driving distance. It was actually close to 80 miles away, making it even more disappointing not getting anything. My wife walked out with a couple of things though, so I suppose it made it worthwhile for her.

Odd question, but does anyone ever find packets /kilo of pre 1930's canceled at these shows? I went this weekend to - my second show - think there were 24 dealers, and most of the choices were way out of my price range and each was a single stamp offering. One of the dealers I talked to said to look for the really big shows that are a couple of times a year here... I feel like I don't know enough to buy off flea-bay. There are some significant holes in the pre-1930's US; but maybe by the time I get things combined onto new pages it won't be so spotty. Suggestions?

CEPHUS ------I had the same experience as you this weekend .Im a contractor who worked hard all week and when the weekend came .I took $200.00 in cash to enjoy at the stamp show to buy something for my worldwide collection.
First let me add that I don't purchase general worldwide at 1/2 of catalog when I know in the future none of the stamp dealers will ever offer more than 1/5 catalog in the future ,so thats never going to happen to buy at 1/2 of catalog . Second the collection lots and box lots they were offering were all beginner stuff and picked over collections of nothing over $10.00 per stamp and very few complete sets in those collections lots . I didn't care what country I was buying but I wanted quality and key stamps and long runs of pages full of stamps and what I saw was just junk and third generation picked over material. Very disappointed .
Dealers are taking to shows inventories of picked over material and the most common packet material grade collection lots .They had no written pages of better material mount in collections and researched to types and nothing I could purchase were I could study and discover vartities on my own with foreign catalogs all I saw was packet material accumaltions . The show didn't even have a good variety of literature only a few over ten year old foriegn catalogs .very disappointed .
Another area that the shows fail at is supplies ,the dealers are carrying less and less .To me the stamp shows need a whole new rethink .

I agree with you, we were also going to pick up a couple of mount sizes that we had run out of. Usually, we just order online, but since we were going, we figured we'd spend our money there. There was only one place selling mounts, on an old turning display and it was mostly empty. They had none of the sizes we needed, and we were looking for really common sizes. We placed an online order last night for what we needed instead.

For me, I wasn't rejecting stamps based on price, they had no stamps that I needed available at *ANY* price. One dealer wanted to be helpful, I gave her my topical list and she couldn't find any of it either. She said she could try to bring some of the things I wanted to the next show next month. By then, I'll have ordered it all online and won't need it anymore.

Nothing I was looking for is in short supply through online retailers. Retail only works if you have the product people want at the time they're looking to buy. Having to bring it back next month just doesn't help.

optimism should be infectious.

Hey at least you folks have dealers close by,,,, Here in Montana they are far and few between

Sorry to read through this thread and the poor experiences at stamp shows, and I can offer no encouragment or solace.

But if anyone is ever going to the UK for a holiday/family visit etc, then please visit some of the British Fairs. There are always excellent dealers with good variety and some great bargains to be had.
There is always kiloware on offer, baragin boxes, pages galore and it is very difficult to come away with nothing......I usually end up broke.
I plan my holidays around a show or three [He says embarrassingly] and always look forward to them. From June 10th-26th I will be going to 5 shows and one includes my favourite dealer.





90% of her stock is 10p per stamp; 50p per miniature sheet. Her table is full all day. If you are not one of the first 5 or six through the door, you have to stand !

So I feel for you when you talk about poor shows, and an 80 mile trip uses a lot of gas too ! This also costs money !
One good thing going for you? Your wife collects

Londonbus1

Hmmm wife collect as well good idea, but she likes to collect glassware. So we are better off going into differant directions, we can support each other with out get mad at each other...lol

Cool you can fill her glassware with stamps, or float your stamps in the glass ware. :)

Always a bummer to get our hopes up like that only to get let down. Personally, I think the internet has really spoiled the collector in the best possible way. Almost anything is readily available for purchase online whereas in yesteryears we had to rely on whatever happened to make its way into town.

Personally, especially for collectibles like stamps, I want to be able to pick out the specific stamp I want, not just rely on whatever some company wants to send to me. However, that's just not an option these days. I can't look at the stamps I want to buy, at best I can check out scans, but I can't look at them with my own eyes.

It really takes a lot of the fun out of collecting when everything is done online.