Do You Ever Bid Just For The Heck Of It ???

i browse, I browse, I browse..sometimes I place a bid just for the heck of it...but fortunately most times someone outbids me by 25 or 50 cents !!

Being a worldwide collector, of course,
however, the articles must be pieces I don't have,
and I (always) have a ceiling on what I think they are worth.
My win / lose ratio is about 10%

I clean up sometimes at club auctions because collectors
generally are more specific, and don't want anything to so with
Hagners full of labels (Cambodia etc)
5c a stamp is the norm.

If my budget is say $40 and I spend $25 on miscellania,
then I go to the stockbooks for the better more difficult to find stamps

Did that just today. Was bidding on several early US from a seller ( ebay) who was offering free shipping. Kept getting outbid, so I'd move on. Finally landed a #163 15c yellow orange Webster. Not the greatest centering, and the upper perfs are a touch rough, but a higher value stamp from 1873, it'll do very well for filler until something better comes along. And, hey, it was fun.

Hi

I check the stamp market value and what it is worth to me. Catalog price comes into play a little bit but the market value and worth to me is the key. I then place a bid. That's it. Over and done. I do not bid "up" as I have already decided on value. If I win the stamp, great, but if not there is always another day.

I have seen ebay bidding "wars" go to astronomical prices for a stamp that is relatively inexpensive from any dealer.

Jerry B

SURE ----I did it last Sunday at the CHICAGOPEX stamp show .During the auction there was a lot in the auction which was consign by the American Philatelic Society ,it was a large bulk lot of cigar boxes,file boxes ,assorted albums and that kind of stuff . I think the auction firm was handling it for free or for a lower charge for the society . The lot was estimated at $1000.00 to 1200.00 .I didn't view the lot before hand so had no clue as to what was in it but the catalog said it was with blank albums and unused annual album pages it was just junk-in-a-box and a few boxes of stamps . I was waiting for a lot three lots forward .The auctioneer open at $500.00 and no takers than dropped the bid to $400.00 with no takers ,It was a charity lot for the APS ,and the auctioneer said they didn't want to ship it back ,so he asks for $350.00 . I looked at it as a donation to the APS and raised my card and was the only bidder . First thing I did was throw away two full cartons of blank albums and pages .The remaining two boxes were well worth the price and now very happy with many nice stamps to add to my collection and still think I made a donation to a good organization and yes! I would do it again ,to help out .

correction ----it was est. in the catalog at $500.00 to 750.00 and was lot 2302 at Regency stamp auction .just want to keep my posting accurate .I will be working and having a lot of fun with the lot over the next few weeks and think it was a fair price for a lot of nice material and helped out the APS.

Hi floortrader




Are there no school stamp clubs where you are so you can donate the material? How about auctioning the material at your local stamp club and sending that money to the APS also. You could always auction the material on SCF, someone is always looking for material like that.

Truthfully, I think it is a shame to throw out material that may be usable to others. Just because you don't want it does not mean that it is useless to everybody.

My rant for today.

Jerry B

Since I posted this I have been bidding in ernest..a Belgian dealer listed a whole bunch of Argentina lots with free shipping...this is like cutting my expenses in half ..if I buy from Argentina the shipping can be more than the item itself !!

I frequently bid on the free shipping one cent junk stamps. Hopefuly no one else will bid, and it will cost the seller money to ship my one cent stamp.

I use to, but I have such an accumulation of common stamps I had to make myself stop.(somewhat).

Dianne

Go Girl !

I do it all the time. But I only do it on rare and expensive items as I always put out a low bid and hope that it somehow falls through the cracks and I hit a good one.....hasn't happened yet.....

My wife is not a collector, but tolerates/listens to me talk about my stamps and the "holes" in my early US classics - my wish list so to speak. One evening she was on ebay just looking around at what I had on my watch list and noticed an attractive #1. Just for giggles she decided to "bump" it up a couple of bucks. Yeah, that's how I got my #1. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that story! Unfortunately, she's never repeated the mistake, though I've told her plenty of times that I really need a #122. She taken a "hands off" policy regarding my bidding.

philb you are responsible.

Just for the heck of it after reading your post I did just that.
For the heck of it I bid on a lot of Pacific Island stamps on paper and got about 2000 stamps for $10. I told my wife it is philb's fault but she will not believe me!

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