Uh-Ohhh. It Don't Look Good!

Ray, We would both like to have had that one, but....not from that seller. And certainly not at that price!

Dave

http://www.ebay.com/itm/381469224331?ru=http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_sacat%3D0%26_nkw%3D381469224331%26_rdc%3D1

Why $3,700 for that stamp?

Pretty rare shade. Ray is better with the shades than I am; maybe 1863-64 Deep Lake, Deep Carmine-Lake, or Deep Brown Lake. All are Rare. Don't think any of them would command that price, in my opinion.

Okay, great perfs, and overall preservation, nice (but not outstanding) centering, and a drop-dead example of a rare shade - so, even if the seller was the Devil himself, how much should that stamp have realized, if sold at a house auction?

This dealer is one of the well known names people associate with the "cartel" - a number of ebay names apparently all controlled by the same person. A shill bid will always be made so that no one will pay less than they want. If that bidder wins it shows up again a couple days later under another name. They are also famous for selling regummed stamps as NH. I would not buy from this dealer.

Okay, so if I'm following the "theory" correctly, the "Cartel" lists items and then through a network of shill bidders bids the items up to a desirable price. If the shill bid wins there is a sale and the listing entity pays ebay a 6% final value fee on the transaction. Then the same item is listed again by a different ebay screen name and the process repeats ad infinitem until the item sells to a non-cartel member for an acceptable price. And of course, if the non-cartel buyer is unhappy with the item for any reason he or she can return it for a full refund (exclusive of return shipping cost - which might be to a different country than mentioned on the listing).

Assuming I have followed correctly, it seems to me like all of those final value fees would become costly after a while, and "they" are still running the risk of a return, which would start the process all over again.

I am not suggesting that some of these ebayers are not behaving strangely. It seems they are. But I'm not convinced that their mission in life is to prey on inexperienced ebayers.

I have dealt with overseas stamp auction houses and found there to be an oppressive "value added fee" charged by some governments on import/export transactions. Perhaps the goal of this seemingly odd behavior is merely to circumvent the Britsh Taxman that the Beatles sang about?

Columbian,
The exploits of this person are well documented. Many people know more than is being posted but for several good reasons are not stepping forward. Some of them legal, some of them simply because no one wants more headaches. A person like me, who is just a retired hobbyist, has less exposure than a person who has a business to protect. But even I avoid posting too many detail because I don't want to educate anyone who might want to learn how mess with other people.

Facts we know….
But there have been many threads which clearly illustrate this seller as one who buys hinged items from better quality auction houses, modifies the gum, and then resells them as 'never hinged' on ebay.
It has also been documented that he moves a lot of material between seller names.
It is known that if you try to return with this seller he will require you to ship it back to Great Britain which is against ebay policy.
It is known that this person will seek various online retribution activities if he doesn't like you.
He will communicate with you using racist and threatening remarks.

No one can say for sure anything about shill bidding except ebay. No one knows if he cancels the transactions, pays the ebay fees as a part of the cost of doing business, or is pumping his books for other reasons. But does it really matter? This person has been ripping off philatelists for years and years, he has been in court, and lost, and was building time at one point for philatelic crimes. I don't think this is simply 'behaving strangely' nor do I feel it's a 'theory'. I cannot conceive how anyone would be able to defend this behavior as being good for our hobby or not potentially harming others.
Don

And my interest is in the item; the antics of the seller are a separate matter to be reckoned with as best one can. But I don't want my question eclipsed.

How much should this item have sold for?

From another seller and using past Siegel auction as a guideline; I'd say between $250 and $325. (For example, Sale #1092 Lot #1146 OG H, nice centering sold for $275).

I don't think it was red enough but it was real close to a shade that Mike McClung had mentioned one time that Jack Daley had for sale one time that they called raspberry. In the close ratings in the Chronicle he called it a very rare exotic shade. Absolutely sure that Dave is right and it was a 64 shade.

There was another guy about four years ago that sold two of these in one auction on ebay and a while later I contacted The seller to see if they would put me in contact with the buyer because I wanted to buy one of them and it turns out that they were lost in the mail. So who knows it might've even been the cartel back then.

If I were to have bid, I would have easily gone to $100 or more. Really cool stamp.

I have purchased some items from this seller in the last year, a couple were just fairly priced, but several were outright bargains.

I'm with Ray--$100+ would probably be in the range. If it were the Raspberry shade, and a few knowledgeable bidders went after it, it might get up into the $500+ range--maybe.

I have a very different viewpoint than others concerning the 1861 3c. I wouldn't risk more than a few dollars on it unless I, or even better, a notable color expert gave me insight from an in person examination.



Using a bit of "reverse engineering" by adjusting the levels in each channel utilizing the fact that the black and blank paper areas have their own peaks on a histogram, the right side of the image should be much closer to what the stamp appears as in real life.

The color of the adjusted image isn't much different than the image presented, but it does match very closely to some sulphuretted stamps I have that once treated with hydrogen peroxide look close to a claret-like color. Despite being claret-like, their colors are actually quite common. Determining shades based on non-color calibrated images across the Internet is mostly a futile endeavor.

With considerable effort to develop a methodology, I did accumulate a collection of color varieties of this issue purchased based on Internet images that impressed a notable color expert. By purchasing one item from a seller and measuring the inaccuracies of their scanner, I was able to determine rough color shade identification of their other listings. Could I identify the exact shade of the stamp that they were selling? No. Could I get a decent idea of the stamp's shade that allowed me to make a better informed guess as to its shade? Yes.

Given that I have so far found no sellers utilizing color calibration, I cannot trust listing images enough to take more than a risk of a few dollars per stamp that seem to be a non-common shade.

At an auction house with shade identification from an expert, I would trust previous sales as Don/51studebaker mentions.

I utilized various methods and risked a few dollars per stamp to build my collection. Are they all pretty examples without flaws and with good centering? No. However, I was able to build an impressive collection of shades with very little money.

essayk,
In direct address to your question "How much should this item have sold for?", I would not have risked more than a few dollars on it. However, I am only a year into philatelic collecting after a long hiatus since my early youth. Perhaps others know more than I, but I haven't heard any arguments in this thread that justify anything beyond my analysis of the situation.

Historical DNA Collector said:





Buying a stamp based on the shade or color shown in a scan is foolish.
If I could manipulate my scanner to create the above, can you imagine what someone who knows what they are doing can do?

After days of inactivity, I was outbid today by a dealer with large transaction numbers. He's probably sitting with a max bid oh $35. Think I'll probe with a bid of $35.01.



Biding ends tomorrow at 2;34 PST.