Do I Bid On 1.7m Cv Album On The Bay ?

They're asking 250K , I don't think my wife will let me sell the house. That would be slightly crazy , right ?

Link to the Noble Spirit listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292412782890

I still enjoy buying albums under 1K and feel comfortable and challenged and satisfying . But if I had a spare 99K ….

The catalog value is not in the scans, lots of nice items ,lots of below $5.00 per item . There must be a lot of duplicates to push that catalog value up to 1.7 million . There is also the problem of spending a week to proper I.D. and inspect condition .Plan on spending $2,000 to $5,000 to have someone just to inspect this collection ,that is not to certify anything but to give it a once walk thru before a purchase is made or your told it has problems on the first day .

My guess it will go thru at $150,000 for a $1,700,000 collection at best .At these prices condition is a big issue .

First, it's not bidding: You can have it for 250k, and you have an option to offer less and see if the owner agrees.

Secondly, how many here will be satisfied with getting such a big collection effortlessly? Where is the accomplishment of putting such a collection together and remembering special events and thrills in obtaining a particular stamp? A true-blooded philatelist might find him/herself sitting by this album and feeling "ok, what's next"?

All great insights Rob , I just completed my 1st full year in International stamp collecting . Thanks

Good point. I do regret buying a MH collection of RW1 through RW56 all at once.

There are a lot of forgeries tucked away in there, and the key item they show three or four times (the £5 QV) is a fiscal use, not postal, but I bet they have catalog figured as postal. :) A good buy at half the asking price.

I'm a small novice WW collector, having only 50k different stamps, so my standards might be very simplified. I just saw an offer of 100k different stamps at eBay for 6,500 GBP and I know that I'm not likely to either reach 100k stamps or afford the 6,500 GBP. Yet I keep buying and trading small amounts of stamps, and rejoice over every new stamp and every new historical story associated with it.

I wonder if NS obtained this as part of a consignment? If so, one wonders how long it might sit on eBay for, and therefore how long the consignors will have to wait for their $$$ (and when it comes, how far off from expectations will it be)?

There are hardly any postally used copies of the QV £5 - its primary use was for the Post Office's internal accounting processes. The multiple cancellations reduce its attractiveness. There's an attractive one here

https://www.warwickandwarwick.com/a...logue/282363

Yep, there's two in the New South wales section alone, plus the 3d laureate cover that's missing a stamp, and a lot of fiscal cancellations.

Overall there is some nice material and the collection looks clean, but they won't get 250k for it.

In summary ,at this point -----We all agree that it is a nice collection .

The biggest factor is the need to view the actual collection ,looking for Forgeries and damaged stamps .Remember just having 121 certs doesn't make the stamps good , I got a lot of cert's that say Forgery.,defect or damaged ,so CERT'S mean nothing .

I question the organization of the stamps on the page , very poor layout ,sort of like someone's made that album for presentation . Hard to follow the layout .

Price wise I think a few of us would agree half of the selling price is more realistic ,like $125,000 to $150,000 at most ,trying to get 1/7 of catalog is too far ,a better price for this kind of material would be 1/14 of catalog ,giving the new buyer a chance to sell what he doesn't want and factoring in the forgeries and defects .


When I look at these scans I don't see country collections ,what I see is a hodgy -podgy of expensive stamps from many different countries but clearly not "Country Collections " . Would I like it sure ! but it is to add material to present country collections ,but remember from my other postings there is going to be a lot of extra material like cheaper stamps ,covers, stamps on piece{for the cancel}, plus forgeris that are worth a few bucks each ,

Over all I can find better stuff to buy at those prices .

Some good points above. Certainly impressive, strongest in Central Europe it looks like. Condition on some looks not great, and a lot that need checking for authenticity. Wouldn't touch it without a full review, as others have said, up to 7-8% CV.

I'd think they'd get more value out of it by breaking it out into country collections.

I wouldn't assign any cv percentage to it because the stated cv is likely irrelevant. People have pointed out that there are forgeries but you can bet the real stamps cv's were counted towards the total.

The biggest point for me is that if this collection is full of good quality high cv singles why have they not been lotted separately? For the same reason that a Kelleher or Cherrystone sells things as a unit. Condition issues and forgeries.

In summary, forget the 1.7 million number. I will bet that number would be halved after a careful review. More like 900,000 at best at 5-10%, so between 45 and 90 thousand. And after spending that you have a lot of faulty stamps.

That is why it is on eBay and not featured in a Siegel sale.

I did not count them all, but the lot pictures about 220 images of different album pages, with a ballpark 20 stamps per page. Both numbers are approximations.

So, in my opinion, the collection includes about 4,400 stamps. Someone please tell me if my estimate is way off.

The many detail images of the album pages make it look like there is more there than there really is.

At 1 cent per stamp, 4,400 stamps = $44.
At 10 cents per stamp, 4,400 stamps = $440.
At $1 per stamp, 4,400 stamps = $4,400.
At $10 per stamp, 4,400 stamps = $44,000.

Maybe throw in $1,000 or $2,000 as a wholesale value for the covers and cards.

As lotted, this lot might be the seller's Plan A.

Plan B might be to break it down by region or country or colony, but that would be a lot of human work.

As stated previously, the condition of the high-catalog-value stamps is what matters.