I Snagged A Syria 106c!

Was able to finally find and purchase a Syria 106c.
For those non-Big Blue collectors, it's been quoted in several places that this is the hardest stamp to find that is listed in the Scott International 1840-1940. The 25c overprint is supposed to be on the 5c orange Sower stamp, with the 50c overprint on the 10c green Sower. The 106c is an error, with the 25c overprint on the green 10c Sower.

With a Scott CV of $240, and MNH, I bid almost double CV in a recent Rasdale auction for the stamp, and I think I was the only bidder, and snagged it for $120 plus fees and shipping.



Thought I'd post this, showing all three stamps in the album, and gloat a bit...now if I can only find the other almost 9000 I need to fill my Big Blue!!

YOU ROTTEN NO GOOD CLOWN -------You were bidding against me. It was me who dropped out at $110.00. I though I would have to bid higher on the Syria overprint airmail which was the following bid at the same auction . That was a stamp I really wanted but ended up getting it for the same $120.00

Curse your name until I die ............CONGRATULATIONS anyhow !

Great score. A Big Blue classic.

Congrats! Bought this one last year from a French dealer on Delcampe for 100 euros - they don't come up very often.

I do think it earns its reputation as the hardest to find. I'm surprised they don't go for full CV when they are up for sale, honestly - I feel like there's a good resale market for the compleat BB collector!

again -- congratulations Ray

This is a sample of the dilemma most of us stamp auction buyers face everytime we get a stamp auction catalog.
Here is the story ------ There was two stamps at this auction that I wanted ,but I had already spend my annual stamp money or funds at the Rummsey Auction during the California Stamp show recently ,actually spend more than I had. So I was broke for purchasing .

Was working on my Syria collection and at Rasdale auction two stamps pop-up .Both very difficult stamps to buy . One was 106c ,which I always wanted with a catalog value of $220.00 and the other was C6 another hard stamp to find it catalogs at $450.00 .

Ok ,so I am broke and had to decide which I wanted ,both nice to have but would like both if they go cheap . But had to make a decision , I push the 106c to half catalog but someone keep pushing it higher ,so in split second decision decided to push the next one up to half catalog and let 106c go and go after the higher catalog item to $250.00 .

Surprise ......Surprise I get the higher catalog stamp at $120.00 not $250.00 ......Started screaming at my wife that I got screwed out of the 106c because it went for $120.00 .....so you see I could of taked both ......what I couln't know was the c6 would be gotten for $120.00

So you can see the dilemma .

Glad Ray got it .

That's the thing: hindsight is almost always inaccurate. We have no way of knowing what maximum bid "the other guy" would have stopped at. It might have been the next increment or it might have been 10x what the stamp went for.

While knowing nothing about the area, the question does come to mind "how often is this OP counterfeited if it is so difficult to find?

You all might enjoy viewing and reading these:

http://romanoauctions.blogspot.com/...76-1930.html
http://globalstamps.blogspot.com/20...in-blue.html

A 106c block from the auction referenced in my links above:

The joys of auction participation:




In this case, $480, twice catalog was "the other guy's" then top bid. But even those can creep up before the hammer.

Now the question is, once spending north of $490 for the 106c, would floortrader have had money for the C6? It seems that day, that auction, those bidders, the money was there for only one stamp win that day. Tomorrow, both lots could be a pass.

Now if we could only personalize the order in which lots sold, life would be easier, right?




1. I'll pass, the block does not fit the space on the page.
2. Oh wow, a block; but I'll still need a single.
3. Which one will I use as the single and where to sell the leftovers.
4. I'll make it fit on the page.
5. How hard are blocks of the other two, I'll buy this and find out.
6. Gee, I should have bid, the lot was passed. I wonder why?

Interesting articles. I do notice that the single is not one of the 4 positions of the block. Obviously there should be a number of other positions.

There was a block of eight sold in the Romano 2013 auction as well, but the images are no longer available on the web.

Floortrader, that was Syria C6. I bid $110 on that stamp. That's ridiculously cheap, but sometimes you can grab something that no one else bids on. If you were bidding $250, I obviously never had a chance. Congratulations. I like Rasdale's auctions.

This is an odd one. The people interested in the stamp will be those with a French Colonies or Syria collection. But most of the demand flows from people with little or no interest in the stamp - they simply want to fill a space in a mis-designed album. As a general French Colonies collector, I'd keep the stamp if I found one, but wouldn't go to any lengths to find it (or any other error). If I had the block, I'd keep the miliseme pair and dispose of the other pair to a passing American.

I think that is a considerable oversimplification. I collect plate varieties such as double transfers and foreign entries, which are not spaces in any album, but do fall into at least the general concept of "errors". There are certainly people who collect errors regardless of country. Robert Cunliffe had a wonderful collection of inverted centers of the world, for example.

Congrats Ray Mac, if you have 9,000 to go for the Big Blue Pt 1 then you would have about 24,000 stamps in that album no small feat either. I'm assuming that people have asked all the big dealers looking for it. Champion, A& D, A-Z, etc...

The secret that Cornyn and Geller had when they collected the world is that a dealer let them comb through album runs that came in and they paid a certain price for what they pulled out. It still didn't snag them a Syria 106c but it was a big help. Of course it helped to have a large brick and mortar store nearby with new stock coming in.