Genuine ???

Happened to see a interesting auction..


http://www.ebay.com/itm/PR-China-C9...em336d9b81a8

what do you say guys ?

I don't collect China. Yet.

So it looks like a 1960's souvenir sheet, and way overpriced.

I don`t know... but in 1978 Yvert&Tellier it has a considerable CV (600 Fr)... so guess the price asked it`s not only justified because as I`ve heard there is an increasing demand for China stamps..no errors listed. Guess a newer catalogue could enlighten you.

overpriced ? I felt it was under priced..

Pricing stamps and what's my collection worth? All depends on who's talkin', doesn't it?

There's a catalog value first and then its the "who's talkin" and "who's buyin"..

I wanted to know if someone here has more insight of this stamp and its price..

There were 20,000 of these issued. A relatively low quantity.

It shows a first day cancel.

There are also plenty of very good forgeries out on the market of several of the PRC stamps that are being pushed up by speculators. This looks like one of them, although I cannot be sure without physically examining the souvenir sheet. Another point -- the great majority of these have minor faults, and yet this stamp appears faultless. There is a good reason why this S/S is not in one of the major auction houses.

The other Year of the Monkey block being sold by the same seller also appears to be fake.

Thanks khj.. it seemed very alluring to me but..too good to be true

The 2011 Scott catalog has it priced at an italicized $4500 for a used souvenir sheet. I don't recall ever having seen a genuine postally used copy, they've all been CTOs.

While the S/S is relatively scarce, the price is being driven up by speculators, not collectors. There are several other PRC stamps and S/S's that were printed in relatively small quantities that haven't skyrocketed in price like this issue. It's just the flavor of the year for the speculators.

That is also the reason for the production of a large number of PRC forgeries. PRC forgeries were not really a problem until the past 10 years.

When speculators are involved, I stay out and wait it out even if it takes a decade or two. There are plenty of other "normal" priced stamps for me to collect. This is why my PRC collection has been archived for the past 15 years.

Thanks again for the immense info..

I was a amature collector until the last 3 years. Thats when I started collecting thematically - odd shaped stamps. During my regular hanging out on ebay I started liking the superbly colorful PRC stamps. So much so that I purchased the complete Huanshan mountain set, the W5 series and some other really beautiful stamps like T69M and T29M.

The point is it gives joy to have a small priced collection then to have a large valueless collection. Sometimes I wish we did not have these speculators around. Life would have been so beautiful..

By the way I have come across a big number of used MeiLan Fang S/S. It's available on one of the chinese auction sites. I am not very comfortable with the bidding system there so I have never purchased anything over there so far but the site does pack a punch.
The site is:

http://english.zhaoonline.com/

I always check the price of PRC stamps here once before bidding on ebay.It just gives me a kind of idea on the prevailing price