What's Overvalued/Undervalued And Why?

Hey everyone,

I was looking at the blue 1$ fisherman stamp #302, 10 years ago it was listed at 100$ for a NH-VF copy. To my knowledge, it's one of the rare Canadian stamps that worth less now than it was 10 years ago. It now worth only 60$. Was it overvalued? Is it now undervalued? What explains that "sudden" decrease in price?

My understanding is that since the internet/Ebay/auctions, things have changed in the marketplace pretty dramatically. I've looked at different issues of Scotts some three years apart and found little or no difference in the values for the majority (80%?) I've also seen a number of occasions where dealers have suggested a 'charitable contribution' or 'give them to the kids at such and such a school' for someone trying to sell their grandparent's collection, and so forth. So it's back to the basic marketing issue; it's worth what a buyer will pay for it and what the seller will take for it. Only the technology has changed.
That's my 2c anyway. Good luck.
Art

The piece of paper called a collectable stamp has no intrinsic value.
When more sellers appear and fewer buyers, prices go down.

Also - Art is correct, the marketplace is more efficient these days so artificial catalog prices are less influential stamp business.

10 years ago the balance was more favorable for high prices.
[20 years ago even moreso]

This stamp sold for $14.05 on ebay September 21. It was listed as Mint NH and attracted 14 bids from 6 different bidders:




I find that ebay and Delcampe provide more reliable information about a stamp's "value" than do catalogs.

Yes, exactly, except that the catalogs are still the baseline/guideline the dealers (and most every one else) use.
What's Delcampe? (I feel another learning experience coming on.)

Delcampe is an internet auction site in Belgium. I have been a member for nine years. Most vendors accept Paypal. I have had no problems with my transactions.


Here is the URL

http://www.delcampe.net/page/main/language,E.html

Thank you.
Art

I have used Delcampe for a number of years now together with ebay for my topical collection of stamps with monkeys on them. Delcampe is good for "continental" issues - there are a lot of stamps of overseas territories (France, Portugal, Belgium)and the site also sells other interesting items. It can be a bit tricky searching since some of the defaults that ebay has are lacking (you need two searches for "monkey" and "monkeys", for instance) However, there are bargains and unusual items. Many traders there also use Moneybookers for payment - I have had no problem with them either, having used them many many times without hassle. In short, Delcampe is worth a good browse. But don't forget if you want a particular issue to search "local" ebay listings - I often find items on ebay UK, Germany, Netherlands or Austria that do not come up when you use ebay (US). Happy hunting! Cobie

I bought a MNH one on ebay for $20 last month; sounds like I paid too much.

regardless of CV it is a nice looking stamp though - at end of the day value is all about what someone is prepard to pay on a given day

It's just a simple supply-demand issue.
Supply for this stamp is probably the same now than ten years ago.
But demand might have went down considerably now.
That is one of the reason why the price of this stamp is lower now compare to ten years ago

I think this and a few others that were also used for official purposes with G overprint or OHMS overprints at much higher values got caught in the shuffle. There are tons of fake overprints and these may have been bought up at higher prices just for that purpose. Quite a few of these forgers or the sellers have been arrested in past years so may be an indicator. One of the few I am missing with the G official in my collection but waiting for a steal.

O27 was one of the last G overprint I got, don't remember how much I paid, but it was a fair deal.



The O9 was there last one missing, took me a while to find a well centered MNH copy at an acceptable price.

The catalogue values, are with no doubt, four o even more times higher than real market prices.
Anyway, do you think that the relative prices (not absolute prices) in catalogues can be considered good?
I mean, a stamp priced as 1 in catalogue costs 5 times more than another catalogued 0,20?
I ask your opinion because many swaps between collectors are based on catalogue prices.

Regards

Recent price declines are probably due as much to the supply side as the demand side. The number of extant copies of any given stamp hasn't changed, of course. But it's far, far easier to find any given stamp now. Not only can "Joe Collector" easily sell his own duplicates (or entire collection) on ebay, but one can find dealers selling the item - either on ebay or elsewhere on the web - that one may not have even been aware of before.

It's a much more perfect marketplace than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Let's say there are 1000 copies of a given stamp available for sale from all sources at any given time. A collector today can probably find over 500 of them without too much difficulty, without leaving home, opening a magazine, making any phone calls,sending a single letter, or belonging to the APS or other societies. 20+ years ago, a collector might have been able to find a couple dozen of them if he was lucky, and finding even that many would have entailed much more effort than finding 500 today. This has greatly increased competition and put downward pressure on prices. A collector in days of yore might have had one or two or five or 10 dealers that he bought from. I bet I've bought from 100 different sellers/dealers in the past couple years and I've barely scratched the surface.

Thats the whole problem..Ebay is dictating the price of stamps..Not addressing the quantity left in the real world, the scarcity, the demand..it is a shame..IMHO