Grab Your Checkbook For This Siegel Revenue Auction

March 24th, 2014

The Wild Horse collection of Revenues and Encased Postage is just around the corner. Some of the highlights include the rarest of the Silver Tax Stamps and a Persian rug valued at $17,500.00

http://www.siegelauctions.com/2014/1066/1066.pdf

There are a lot of interesting revenues in the second Siegel sale as well. As is often the case when it comes to revenues some care must be exercised in viewing, since there are a few mistakes among all the goodies.

It should be noted that the other sale, just called United States Stamps has a great collection of a very unusual type of revenue stamp called a tinfoil. This is likely the finest collection ever assembled with many rarities. They paid taxes on tobacco products and are most unusual.

Inteerstingly enough, the big persion rug is actually NOT rare. I see 3-5 offered at shows every year, let alone at auction. Same thing with RB10a.

They are stamps, like dollar Columbians and Zeps, that seem to hold their value despite being readily obtainable.

I think demand and reputation/notoriety have more to do with the pricing than actual scarcity. There are $50-500 catalog value items I'm having a MUCH more difficult time locating than "the big boys"...

There really aren't that many, but they are popular so they show up a few times every year. There really are far fewer of them than most $17,000 catalog postage items. Keep in mind that there are also a pretty fair number of postage stamps that catalog far in excess of $17,000, but only a few revenues that do.
It is certainly true that with revenues catalog value is not necessarily a true indication of scarcity, and that there are many revenue stamps that catalog relatively very little that are very hard to find. Actually one of them is lot 78 of the Wildhorse sale, misdescribed as a sewing machine perforation (itself not a common item), but is actually the perf 8 variety, a very tough stamp indeed. Both are listed in the Scott Specialized.

Some of the sewing machine perfs are tough as well, e.g., the R120. I think Richard said he's only aware of two examples extant. The R115a is actually about an order of magnitude more scarce than the R112b, despite cataloging $50 less. I've seen a grand total of two in person, one of which I own, and the other I traded to Richard. There were a couple of multiples in the Cunliffe collection, but outside of that, nada. Siegel has had exactly one example in their history.

I have several examples of the R19 sewing machine perf, but am still looking for an RB3. There was one that actually showed up on ebay last year, but I didn't see the auction until after it was over. The stamp went for full Scott, which isn't surprising. That's another rare bird.

I have seen a few more perf 8 examples than that, but not many. I have an R57 sewing machine perf, which is the only one I have ever seen.

Well that was unpleasant. Despite actively bidding on several lots I was completely shut out. Quality sells, sometimes stupidly so. Even the "nice" as opposed to superb lots, went high.

Unfortunately, the one lot that I didn't go nuclear on (I still bid above Scott) was actually the first lot I was interested in, and since there were other lots coming I didn't want to exhaust the entire budget on it. Had it been the last lot I was bidding on, I would have gone higher. Oh well...