Opportunity To Purchase Stamp Collection

The above quote is sort of an oxymoron.

The fact that the stamps are "lightly hinged" means that they do have damage (ever so slight, but still damage that affects the gum ... and ultimately the value.) Who made the assessment that they are "lightly" hinged versus just plain "hinged" ... or even worse "heavily hinged"?

While lightly hinged stamps are tolerated for a lot of early issues, the value factor is often diminished by this gum disturbance. Any attempt at removing the hinge will almost certainly cause some minor thin damage to the stamp itself, which could greatly diminish values, particularly on some of the high catalog value items.

Thank all of you for your helpful and considerate advice. I plan to go back today and re-examine the higher valued stamps again for centering, defects and signs of regumming. I should have the opportunity to purchase this entire collection for 11K TO 12K so, if conditions are as I originally assessed, I will give it serious consideration. Thanks again.

Did you buy it ,,, do tell and if so what was the dollar figure

Jack you would think he would want to tell us of his experience! Many stop by here...but not many build up the required 50 posts !

You think it would be the decent thing to do. Ever since all the tv shows like Pawn stars, auction hunters etc people think that they are going to hit the jackpot with something old whether it be stamps, coins.
I guess you folks here get of fly by nighters, a follow up would be nice.

Could be he bought it and is now wondering why.......

You could be right, wonder how many people thought they were going to get rich buying a old stamp collection then to find out market value is a lot less then they paid for it.

Our local auctioneer had box lots of stamps advertised for last nights auction so 3 of us decided to go and see if we could pick something up to break down for our club auctions..they were junk..mostly U.S. common stockbooks and covers...the cheapest one went for around $90 dollars... I stopped thinking about them about $50 or $60 dollars...you can get a "find" at an auction..but its my opinion that in general people tend to overpay !!

It is hard enough to decide what to bid on when you know the content of what you are bidding on let alone on a box of mixed unknowns. I know when I obtained the cover I described in https://goscf.com/t/17612 , there were those who thought I overbid. But I bid what the item was worth to me. Hard to place a value on enjoyment. (I know people who spend good money to get extremely frustrated on the course! )

Boxlots are intriguing no doubt..but as some of the folks that stop by here wondering "what are my stamps worth?" are going to find out..stamps are easier to buy than to sell !

All you have to do is turn on the TV the whole nation is auction fever, everyone thinks because they are old they must be worth a lot of money. The thrift store in my town often has silent auctions last month there was a nice collection for auction, I put a bid of $100 mainly for the albums and stock books. I put a rough value of maybe 200 a lot of mid 20 century stamps mostly Canadian and worldwide. O n the final day of the auction I went down to see what the bidding was and the highest bid was 130. What they do is if there is two or more interested you place your bid on a scrap of paper and the highest wins I put down 170 as I had auction fever and was looking at this collection for the past month and really wanted it. The highest bid was 400 maybe there was a gem in the heap but didn't see it. After the auction I went over and shake hands with the winner and asked what was the stamp that made you bid so high. His answer was the old penny reds in the stock book which he showed me, there was about 15 of them worth maybe 10 bucks I didn't have the heart to tell him what I thought they where worth.Just said if I had seen them I might have bid higher. Auctions are a strange place.

Sorry double posted by mistake

I have noticed in my local auction houses that stamps now are generally 50-100 % more than a couple of years back. It would seem all the financial doom and gloom is encouraging people into speculating on job-lots and collections. As philb said in his last comment, many speculators will find these easier to buy at big money than to make any profit. The problem is that finding reasonably priced stamps at auction becomes harder for real collectors.