Beware Of The Stamp Collector

The magpie-like academic stealing his way through the archives

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...onal-archive

Nobody here like that.




Ugh. I always hate to hear that.

Happens all the time . Security is lacking. No safe guards to checking out material and the return of material after viewing .

So he stole not for personal gain but to be a big time donator to a college he worked at .

At least he did not come here to ask about the value of and best way to sell the material he:

inherited
Was given
Asking for a friend
From a storage locker auction (this is a quite popular location for much stolen material)
Bought at a flea market
Discovered in a vacant ____ (fill in the blank)

Well he did die in 1987, so there's that.....

Another piece on the rogue professor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8v7rr8gj2o

I have found stamp collectors to be honest. In saying that you will always have a few that advantage. The biggest problem I have encountered is with online auctions. When you are successful the items are lost in the mail system. I think mostly by being mishandled by the carrier delivery to the wrong address. Then when you notify the seller they automatically think you are pulling a fast one on them. I guess they have been took by some in that manner where they say they never got it. If I have a lost item of little value now I just take the loss on myself. In saying that at time I was successful in an auction with the final price being fare below it value and the seller saying the mailed it untracked. In some cases I do not believe the seller ever sent it.

They are many ways the dishonest will find to take advantage, but over all I find dealers and collectors to be honest.

Honesty can be in the eye of the beholder, and it depends upon how you define honest, I guess.

You don't have to go far to find a hundred examples of:

"Lost" certificates
Undisclosed faults
Reperforated stamps
Manufactured postal history
"Repaired" stamps
"Misidentified" stamps
Trimmed stamps (think US 315's by the baker's dozen and revenues)
Regummed stamps

And then there are the bid rigging and other cases that the DoJ and SEC has adjudicated over the years against some very well-known parties some of which continue to operate.

@Uknjay

Yes, I've had the "lost in the mail" caper, and variations of it, happen more frequently in recent times.

Never take a loss, regardless of its value. Hold the blighters accountable, name and shame, and never deal with them again.