Question : How Rare Is Scott 10 Versus 10A?

Enjoy observing experts on this site evaluate Scott 11 and 10, especially plating, and advice on resources to help.

I would like opinion on Scott 10 versus 10a. My observation from ebay and auction sites is that Scott 10 is very rare. Almost all listings at auction are Scott 10a. There is a small price premium per Scott on 10 versus 10a, but it seems the ratio at auction sites is at least 8:1 or even 10:1 favoring Scott 10a.

Seems quite difficult to fill the 10 spot in a collection versus 10a. Although both in general are uncommon compared to 11s.

Does anyone have any experience collecting 10 and 10a that could comment on difficulty in obtaining each of these relative to each other?

Thanks

1 in 10 is a good estimate of 10's to 10A's.

The #10, Orange Brown Type I was only printed using the "early" and "Intermediate" states of plate 1. A quick look and some math tells me that 59 positions on plate 1e and 59 on 1i were the type I #10. That is total from both left and right plates.

The remaining positions for those plates are Orange Brown Type II 10A. But..., as you probably know, 10A stamps were also printed using all positions from plates 2e, 5e and 0.

So, my opproximate numbers are...#10, 118 positions. That's 59 from plates 1e and 59 from plates 1i.

#10A, 882 positions. A sum of 600 from plates 2e, 5e, and 0. Combined with the balance of the 1e and 1i plates, which is 282 positions.

These are just the plate positions. It doesn't tell us how many stamps were printed. We can leave that for another post.

Edit: was typing while Sinclair2010 was posting. But you can see the numbers I presented are pretty close to 1 in 10. 118 Vs. 882.

Thanks for analysis.. very helpful. It doesn't seem price assigned by Scott reflects the relative rarity of Scott 10 versus 10a. Siegel had auction earlier in year with incredible collection of Scott 10-11s. In this auction there were a few 10s offered but nothing compared to volume of 10a and 11s that were offered concurrently.. Since that auction I have seen almost no Scott 10 offerings ftom major auction houses this year and going back to last year I can rarely remember an offering. When you do ebay search, most Scott 10 listings are really Scott 10a or actually 11s.

To confuse the matter more, Is it also true that many old certs that call a stamp Scott 10 are actually 10a because of the catalog changes.? A power search on Siegel for Scott 10 brings up many 10a. It's amazing how few true Scott 10 stamps have been auctioned by high end firms.

In a USPCS 2004 Chronicle #203, revised (from Chase's estimates) printing estimates for the 1851 3-cent imperforate "orange brown" (#10/10A) plates were provided. These were plates; 1e, 1i, 2e, 5e, and 0.

A review of the USPCS 3-cent plating page (link below) reveals that 63 positions from plate 1e are type 1 (no inner lines), and 64 positions from plate 1i are type 1.

http://www.uspcs.org/stamps-covers/...amp-plating/

I entered the revised printing estimates from the Chronicle article in a spreadsheet to calculate the total number of type 1 (#10) and type 2 (#10A) stamps of each type printed, and these figures are shown in the table below:


* FOOTNOTE: The Chronicle article stated that an estimated 21,000 impressions were made from plate 1e, but many were spoiled during early printing due to numerous problems with ink and gum, and had to be destroyed. As a result, the number of sheets of 200 stamps delivered amounted to approximately 14,728 (2,945,600 stamps, vice 4,200,000). The estimates of the delivered plate 1e sheets and stamps were entered in the table in place of the printing estimates, and colored red.

This indicates that an estimated 10.29 percent of the orange brown stamps were type 1, and 89.71 percent of the stamps were type 2. If the 2017 Scott Catalog value for #10A ($150) is used as a baseline, based on scarcity Scott #10 should be valued at about 8.72 times $150, or about $1307.81.

Really nice analysis Classic... confirms what I suspected.
Scott 10 is way undervalued relative to 10a value.

If anybody needs one I can supply them at the bargain price of $500 a piece :)

Scott #10 = $1,307.00. Yup, been trying to convince my wife of that.

Prices don't get set by simple math like that, however it does suggest the 10 should be valued higher thanit is, or the 10A lower (or some combo of both)

Now that the dust has settled on the topic of 10 and 10A ,we have to look at the 10A with only one inner line.How scarce is that?

As eyeonwall suggested, ClassicCoin calculated only 'scarcity' (or rarity). Scarcity means a stamp that is in short supply; but this may or may not impact demand.

You cannot simply jump from scarcity to a value without factoring in demand. A stamp can be very scarce but have little demand; value will be low. On the other hand, you can have a 'un- scarce' stamp that carries a high value due to high demand (i.e. Penny Black, US #1, etc.).

It is the demand side of the equation that gets tricky and/or difficult to calculate.

ebay is full of listings where sellers confuse rarity/scarcity with value.
Don

It wasn't that long ago that there was no distinction by Scott between 10 and 10A. Usually the creation of a major Scott number for a stamp generates more demand for it, as that brings in general collectors who now have another hole to fill. For specialists, the extra Scott number is mostly meaningless, as they already were collecting it.

Maybe the mere fact that this thread exists implies that there might be at least a bit more demand for the scarcer variety, albeit maybe not proportionate to the degree of scarcity.

I agree with you txstamp. In fact I collect mainly 19th century used and feel that to have good collection I need to fill this spot as Scott 10/10a are indeed classic stamps. I also believe 11/11a are absolute classics and all 4 spots should be filled in any good collection. I'm sure others may feel differently. I have trouble finding Scott 10 with 4 margins sound. However I can get my hands or bid on almost every known classic invert, multiple times at different auctions throughout year, if I want (I don't want because they are out of my price range)

In upcoming Siegel auction of Weinberg collection you can bid on complete 1000 position plating for Scott 10/10a. Incredible!

Thus according to classic coins you can get all 127 plate positions of Scott 10 in this one lot. Never seen a full plating of Scott 10/10a offered before.

At average retail of 100$ per stamp average for Scott 10, that is 12,700$... that doesn't even include the 873 Scott 10a stamps you get with this lot. At 50$ per stamp for these remaining Scott 10a stamps, it's worth another 43000$. That's about 55000$ worth of stamps at conservative estimates. Obvious condition is everything but seems here if you can get this lot for less than 20,000$ a dealer can easily double or even triple their investment by breaking it up.!!

However, condition may be real issue and it is possible very few stamps are sound so retail could be much lower

rg, I don't see the lot with the #10 plating lot...?

As for valuation of #10s, I have mixed feelings.
As someone that has recently began collecting and studying this issue, I like the market "undervaluing" #10s.
As someone that has already acquired a modest sum of #10s, a $1,000.00+ catalog value... is attractive...

https://siegelauctions.com/lots.php...er+9%2C+2016

its in the "Treasures of Philately The Irwin Weinberg collection", not the "Outstanding Stamps featuring Weinberg Collection"

Looks like Siegel splits up the stuff-- billionaire class get to go at it in the "Treasures" and the mortals bid in the Outstanding. Just a joke of course.