The 100,000 Stamp Club

Not a crazy theory at all as I've got a similar one. I've even gone to lengths of creating a mathematic formula for it, LOL.


Re, ads of large scale worldwide collections. My local mail order company is offering world collections of 35,280 different (mounted in 5x64 page stockbooks) for 1,360 Euro. I confess I've been tempted to buy a set of these, but the price is way out of my out of my regular annual stamp budget

Here's an auction I wished I could have attended. The Dr. Claiborne Johnson, Jr. collection.

He collected over 220,000 different stamps through the 1990's housed in over 100 Scott Specialty albums and Scott International albums as well.

While I doubt I would have been able to actually purchase anything, just being able to view the techniques he used to store the collection would have been interesting to see.

Here's the link.

http://stampauctionnetwork.com/f/f59.cfm

I think the whole collection sold for around 3/4 of a million dollars


Lot #529 Worldwide modern mint collection in 8 scott international albums and 10 specialy albums went for $4,250. The albums and mounts probably cost him at least half that.

Here's another interesting collection that was on ebay two years ago and the description of it. It sold for about $1,400. It was interesting that it was done with Harris pages.

"Up for auction is a thirteen volume set of Harris worldwide albums containing an estimated 37,000 stamps. The binders and pages are in beautiful condition considering that some are nearly thirty years old. The collection is clean and odor free. The stamps are protected by virtually new glassine interleaves between all facing pages. To give a clear idea of what is included, more than 500 pictures are provided.

The owner of these albums began with a 1983 edition of the two-volume Standard Album (the largest made by H.E. Harris at the time) and added annual supplements each year through 2008. The U.S. and U.N. sections are single sided pages taken from the Harris Liberty album. There are an estimated 5,000 pages in these thirteen volumes with spaces for more than 200,000 stamps. Matching new 4" maroon colored binders can be added as needed about every four years from Collector's Supply House of Canada at a cost of less than $25.

In viewing the pictures of the albums you will note a strong United States section where the face value of mint stamps exceeds $500 and many valuable older (and newer) stamps are present. The United Nations section contains more than 950 stamps (most are mint) and includes a mint copy of #38 (catalog value $95). Other countries with more than 500 stamps include Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand and Turkey. There are numerous stamps from the 1990s and 2000s, usually absent from worldwide collections on ebay."

LAND.......Thamks for that link to Dr.C.Johnson sale of his stamp collection.It proves a point made earlier that there are very few who ever achieve that level of collecting.Interesting sale many of his stamps had to be purchased as singles due to the high values.Very impressive that he reached that level,consider that most collectors think winning a gold medal at a philatelic exhibition is the highest level of achievement in the hobby .

i like to think that we build "worldwide" collections for our own pleasure..i do not intend to sell during my lifetime..so I have taken the value issue out of the equation !!

SCB--------I would like to see your mathematic formula,im sure it would be interesting to a few of us .......as you can see from LANDOQUAKES posting, that ebay collection was at the bottom end for price at less than four cents per stamps,even if it has a few nice items and maybe recent complete sets....it just sounds low to me .

scanstamps- Eventhough my main goal is to collect the world, I also keep interesting cancels and other curiosities. For the stamps that I have mounted on Steiner pages, I have added these stamps to the pages as well. For the stamps in stockbooks, I have placed a copy or two behind the nicest looking stamp. So really my count is not absolutely accurate because I do not count these extras, but it is close enough for me!

Quote; It sounds LOW to me.

Floortrader, Well guess what - 99.9% of stamps are WORTH NOTHING. Please read this 'Reality truth' about collections, most collectors, included me, have 'deluded pie in the sky' personal collection valuations.

http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/...on-worth.php

I doubt if any worldwide collectors focus 'strictly different' only. Heck, even major catalogues (Scott, Michel,SG,Yvert etc) can't agree what to count as different stamp.

For example my collection has roughly 72K different items if using Michel major numbers as argument. But the actual number of stamps in my collection is notably larger because I've got all sorts of variations, freaks etc. I just haven't counted them.





Hear,hear! I collect with the same philosophy.






This is really simple: for each 10 000 different stamps in collection, add value by 1 cent per stamp. For example my collection of 72k different worldwide would be worth around 2,960 Euro/$. The below cheatsheet shows some milestones with their "values" if using this formula:



The only situation where I think this breaks down big time is when you reach really high numbers (say 600,000 stamps and above). This is where the "big value" stamps are more than likely to come in. And yes, this is heavily progressive (like taxes )

But even on best of occasions, this is just an handy cheatsheet/tool to set a "potential base value/price" for collection. Every collection is different, and IMHO metrics like quality and spread (of countries/eras) affect potential value/price much more than the sheer count of stamps.






Actually my blog post says "99,9% of all issued stamps".

If counting only the different ones, then 98.5% of different worldwide stamps are catalogued in less than 200 Euro value (if using Michel's Valuable Stamps Of The World catalog as a metric).

Scb, absolutely NO problem with your assessment, very reasonable figures.

Imo, if every stamp, without a single exception, is 'Very Fine Used' and perfectly presented, then quite reasonable to double+ your estimate.

Thanks for posting your formula for pricing ,I think the value per stamp needs to increase by more than 1 cent as the numbers goes higher over 150,000.....it becomes much more diffucult to find stamps without paying for individual stamps.At over 230,000 the pricing factor shoots up and each stamp becomes a pricing factor.

It's possible, but I doubt. I know there are:
- roughly 81,000 different stamps issued in 1840-1940 period.
- roughly 413,000 different stamps issued in 1941-2000 period.
- and 127,000 different stamps issued in 2001-2010 period

Now how many of those stamps are "common" and worth $0.05 or less in real world markets if bought one by by???

I have a hunch it's pretty high numbers. Even if as low a figure as one third was used, it would mean 206K stamps. However, I suspect the percentage is higher (maybe 30% for classic era, 75% for mid period, and 30% for modern era - meaning somewhere around 370K stamps), and if being patient/persistent then even higher (450K stamps)... But this is just my personal hunch. Hopefully in few decades time I'll know a lot more about the practice. LOL

SCB-------I agree with you there are many stamps that are not worth 5 cents each . My quess would be there are about 120,000 different stamps that would fall in that group . Then there is another 80,000 that would be worth 10 cent each or less. But as you move above 200,000 different than your looking at another 100,000 that would sell at $1.00 or less . Now that doesn't mean you can't find better stamps in mixture lots or bulk lots but then again it also means some of those cheap stamps are never seen or never found in mixture type lots .I think you would be surprised how many of those "cheap" stamps are missing in my collection and I been buying bulk lots for 50 years ,some stamps are never seen but the price in the catalog is mininium.
I believe every worldwide collector some where in his collecting life always goes out and buys better stuff and adds nicer material but at the same time continues to look for cheap stamps and enjoys both . As for myself I recently purchase a almost complete NEW REPUBLIC collection for $3,000 at auction ,so even a worldwide collector has better material to show in his /her collection.

Here's a Big Blue Auction to drool over...

http://db.kelleherauctions.com/php/...=2144&lang=1

At $21,000 it might be one of the higher valued Big Blues I've seen. Even this guy didn't complete the album, but you can tell he had a lot of fun!