Bill Langs Passed Away

Sad news. (Just found this thread). I bought a handful of proofs and things from Bill. His inventory is huge including many extremely rare items. It is an extraordinary holding he has left behind. I see over 78,000 active listings on billsbargainstamps on eBay. What a mammoth business he had.

I asked Mark Rosenberg, owner of HipStamp, if sales from Bill's listings were still being filled. This was his response:
"Bill's store has been taken over by his son Brad, and Bill's team has continued on to run his HipStamp store."

I've heard that consigned items are starting to come down off eBay (and presumably off Hip)

I have heard the stuff he owned has been consigned (although last I saw recently there was still stuff on eBay, so perhaps it is an agreement to consign the stuff after a certain date or the person handlimg it has not had time to take it all off eBay). I heard an eyepopping $ number and insane quantities for some well know stamps. I am not saying the number or the auction house since I didn't hear it first hand. My point in posting this is to say it will be coming to market sooner than later (estates sometimes take a very long time to come to market).

Unless the family just wants it gone for whatever reason, it seems that this material will have to be sold across many sales so as to avoid flooding the market in some areas.

Kelleher's will sell it. Estimate is ten million dollars. Retail value (Lang's) was thirty million dollars.

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...e-hit-market

Given Lang's pricing, the auction estimate seems a bit high.

Well I know where my upcoming stamp budget will go, unless the Rasdale pricing kicks in. I had made offers on some if the eBay items the last few weeks, but I received no response. Was not sure if that was because I was offering realistic $$ well below his price or because they were not monitoring the offers. Guess I can try my luck at auction.

Probably worth starting a stand-alone topic for the Lang sales given the interest and scope. This is a big event. The Gross sales are huge dollar wise but limit the participation by virtue of the types of items offered and their limited area of interest, the United States. So many more people will be engaged in these sales.

I wonder if the material is consigned or if Kelleher purchased the material outright.

My only thought regarding the auctioneering of the Bill Lang's estate is that this is going to be an absolute bonanza for the expertizing services. Bill had an a amazing inventory. If one chooses just one Scott number 70c, Bill had virtually all of the unused copies that one saw offered on line. However, if one reviews all of those copies most were offered with either no certificate, a certificate noting faults which counterbalanced the "gem app" description, or a clean PF cert but from the days of John Hall and Louise Boyd Dale as chairman. This latter category did not turn me off and I tried for a few years to get Lang to moderate his price on a used Scott 142 with a clean 1956 PF cert. I was unsuccessful in this endeavor and never quite understood why Lang would prefer to tie up money in inventory as opposed to cash in the bank. And while I am perfectly satisfied with a clean but old PF cert as a collector, I take it that many on the forum would not be and immediately resubmit for an updated cert, leading back to my initial statement.

Contrary to Coogle's rosy narrative regarding sales prices I see this mass dispersal as having a negative impact on retail prices for some issues. You cannot dump multiple copies, in some cases hundreds of copies, of scarce/semi-rare or highly sought after issues and not depress prices. In particular I believe that the proofs and essays market will soften after this sale given Lang's massive inventory of these items. Expect James Lee to scoop up all that he can and resell them slowly. This will be fascinating. I am extremely curious about the balance lots and material that Bill had that was not gone through. Maybe he did not operate in such a way that he had lots of this material. Anybody have any insight?

The proofs and essays market has been soft ever since the members of the old Essay-Proof Society passed on and the society disappeared. Specific items always are popular, but overall auction prices have not been particularly strong for many years. It's possible that this material coming out will stimulate some new interest.

He refused to negotiate on material he acquired for fractions of the price. I never quite got that greed. Who turns down near catalog prices to have it sit for years with bigger uncertainty. Now I am sure his estate won't get as much back out of it at the lofty pricing he purported as bargains for decades. His auctions are bittersweet at this point. It will be curious to see how many stamps he hoarded and didn't put up for sale, given the enormous of current onsale material.


I am sad for his family, and my condolences, he knew stamps better than anyone.

There may be some bargains when the auctions begin, but there will also be a lot of hidden scorpions. I advise anyone to spend the time it takes to carefully search the PF and PSE databases for certs that aren't mentioned, and probably not even known to Kelleher. I don't care if a stamp has a relatively recent, clean cert, if the PF says it had a crease or thin 30 years ago. I'll take both opinions into account.