Kelleher To Offer 180 Volume US Collection In September Collections Sale

Received this in a Linn's email:

Wow. This was one person's collection? Imagine the time, effort, and $$$ that this represents.

It has really piqued my interest but the question on everyone's mind is probably "why is it being sold as one lot instead of being broken down". Quality, consignor instructions or something else entirely?

The last intact collection of this scope that I remember seeing sold as one lot was several years ago when Siegel sold a WW collection of hundreds of volumes, and the quality was excellent. Sold for around a million dollars to Mystic. In that case the consignor stipulated it.

It certainly cuts down on potential bidders. Someone is throwing some money away.

But it is said to be "virtually intact," so at least some "good stuff" has been removed, possibly a lot. For "virtually" not to be false advertising, is it 99% intact? 95%?

you have to consider the source of the description "virtually"

"Virtually intact " if you took 5% of the stamps out of my collection ,then you removed 50% of the value . So if this collection has 150,000 items and you remove 7,500 items ,then it is still virtually intact .

The biggest negative is the wording "every variety imaginable " that opens a can of worms in my thinking .You can have binders full of common U.S. stamps in every variety imaginable .

Fascinating. In addition to the "virtually intact" question, is there any significance to saying it was "originally housed"? Meaning it is no longer in those volumes???

A "Greatest Generation" collector. Is that between the Lost Generation and the Love Generation?

I too noted the "virtually intact" and "originally housed" qualifiers and given Kelleher's penchant for hyperbole and Creative Writing 101 while ingesting massive quantities of caffeine, I cannot wait to see the scans which of course is the result hoped for with the teaser email.

To expand further why would you dismount many thousands of pages from their binders? Damage, shipping considerations, consignors misstep? I don't see Kelleher doing this themselves since it can only make life more difficult. The picture shows 180 binders so what gives? Why worry about shipping costs if it is a million dollars collection? What type of damage? Am I reading too much into this?

The "virtually" part is more intriguing in my mind and obviously stated for a CYA reason. What party made the "virtually" necessary? Was it Kelleher pulling the cream or the consignors retaining some cherished components or simply covering bases in case the buyer finds something that should be present missing such as a page of 1869 Pictorial issues.

I will go out on a limb here and make some unfounded predictions.

I predict that quality is going to be a real issue as is lack of certifications. This prediction is based upon absolutely nothing and hopefully I am wrong and this turns out to be a philatelic auction sales date for the history books.

Breathlessly awaiting the catalog to be published online so as to sleep better.

PS: Who was/is Gatsby or is it a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Great one.

The F Scott reference is a hostage to fortune, given Gatsby's association with hubris. I never know why auction houses come up with these silly names, eg the large "Hermione" French collection sold by Spink a while ago or its "La Fayette" (sic) of a few years earlier. Some great stamps in those, of course.

I suppose the are all better monikers than "The Fruit Salad Bowl" collection.

My thoughts exactly. Looking for a key piece for a collection and this type of consignment leaves a lot of us out in the cold.

Agreed, so sticking with F. Scott maybe call it the "Tender is the Night Collection"? More nuanced, right? A little complexity to cover the "virtually" and "originally" questions. Maybe I should go to work for these auction guys to help with the title creation.

Why is it not being broken down? Over and above those possibilities already mentioned? The time element, just to begin with. To do so might well require several months of work on the part of the auction house. Which might mean disregarding all other work in the meantime. Just going through and cataloging a single album collection properly can take several hours work. It is much more labor intensive then simply viewing a collection at an auction; actually writing a description means checking almost every stamp with any modest value if one wants to be accurate. But I do agree that a collection of this magnitude would have to be looked at with something of a jaundiced eye; it really is not a lot for "amateurs".

That's where it is. The Depression/WWII generation.