Am I missing something with these. This auction just finished counting down on ebay. A collection of 200 stamps of the 29c herb collection. 40 copies of each. Five bidders threw out 24 bids for this lot, the winner paying $17.36 plus $1 shipping. I don't collect the 'modern' stuff per se, so I'll admit to ignorance on this one. So, what's the attraction. Someone please enlighten me.
Maybe the two big bidders know each other and really wanted to be the first to get a crafting project done?
Maybe a stamp show is coming up and one wants to out do the other's display project?
If the stamps you get are at all similar to the example picture I notice there are the coil stamps in the mix with the regular perfed stamps. So, hopefully, you would get a full set (or more than one) of all 10 stamps?
Maybe a project or display was suggested recently in a craft magazine or a stamp magazine or online somewhere that uses the herb stamps so there is a run on them right now?
I researched who the winner of the auction was and this person has bought groups of stamps from the same seller before. They do not sell under this name. they buy all kinds of different US stamps.
$17.36 for 200 used stamps comes out to 8.7 cents apiece for them. What would you normally consider an appropriate amount to pay for a used stamp of any other issue? 3-cents? 5-cents? 10-cents?
It seems to me it's within a reasonable range for someone who wants them bad enough. There is also the factor to consider that there are ten varieties, five different designs of the stamp in both sheet and coil formats. Some might want plate number coils, too, which could add a slight premium to a select few stamps.
The most glaring issue (in my opinion) is that these stamps were issued in vast quantities (300 million sheet variety and 1 billion coil variety, I believe) but had an extremely short period of legitimate postal use, as the postcard rate went to 32-cents in less than a year's time, which resulted in the discontinuance of the Herbs stamps in deference to the new Aloha Shirts stamps currently in use.
Once again, values are a very subjective thing depending on how bad a buyer wants the item(s).
Just saw this and what occurs to me is that although you can see cancels in the pic, nowhere does it seem to say they are Used. I wonder if the bidders misunderstood and thought they were getting postage.
[Edit: OK, I take that back. I just checked the Seller Feedback and this person sold 200 of the same for $19.99 and 100 for $11.59 on other occasions, and got rave feedback. Hm. ]
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Posted 04/24/2012 10:18 am
