Newfoundland Collection - How Much To Bid?

I've posted a couple threads here about how and how much to bid for collections.

This Newfoundland Collection is from the current Vance Auction:


Note that "catalogue value" refers to "Current Scott" and mint mtamps are assumed to be hinged unless specifically designated NH.

Vance's estimate of C$ 500 is about 27% of the US$ 1835 catalogue value.

How much would you bid for this lot?

KirkS

I bid on Canada and Newfoundland stamps and collections on a weekly basis and never pay more than 15% of cat value for items in this condition. What they fail to mention is whether or not the cat value of $1835 accounts for the VG centered items (meaning the adjusted cat value is less)

However, over the past two years, I have participated in a few Harmer-Schau auctions and was often shocked at the prices realized ... there seems to be a huge disconnect between those of us who buy online vs those who do not.

If the picture is representative of what's in the lot (f/vf centering), I'd bid no higher than $250. My guess is that it will sell for $400-$450.

Brian

Knowing nothing of Newfoundland,
but assuming the stamps have been collected well,
If I wanted a Newfoundland collection, I would bid (up to) $600.

I have this theory, good collections, come with beautiful stamps
generally, mint and "fresh", barely tampered with, and generally
in a consistant condition.
This warrants the extra value, as does the saving in buying part pieces
and paying shipping costs.

Thanks Brian & Rod:

I did bid on this one, but my bid of $255 was closer to Brian's than Rod's. I don't feel strongly about owning the stamps. I collect Canada and thought this might be a good way to dabble in Newfoundland. If I were more serious about them, I would have bid more.

In a week or so, they'll publish the winning bids. I'll try to remember and post them here as a follow-up.

KirkS

I look forward to it!

As I collect Romania, I have a fair idea of every stamp,
its parameters of value, and what I reasonably could expect to sell at
should I have duplicates.
You kinda get to know how often they come up, and the boundaries to stay within.
You get to a point where one is entirely comfortable to see a reasonably
rare example pass by, because of unreasonably high price.

Armed with this sort of knowledge, buying is fairly mundane,
with the Newfoundland, it would be purely a guess,
but paying 30% of CV shouldn't get you into too much trouble.

I thought you might find this interesting, if not helpful, Kirk.

Newfoundland C6-8, Mint-hinged, VF-XF, Cat $150. Price realized $42.50 (28.3% of cat value)




Purchased by me 3 weeks ago.

The margins on the highest valued stamp (C8 - cat $95) pretty much tell the story. 20th century Canada (& Newfoundland) are readily available in high grades at reasonable prices well below catalogue value.

If you intend to start collecting Canada/Newfoundland stamps of the 20th century, and are willing to spend ~30% of cat value, don't settle for average centered stamps. VG - F/VF stamps from this era are a dime-a-dozen and I can't give them away ...

Brian

Excellent feedback, Brian.
Thanks!

Has any one else noticed or is it just me ? I notice that when an item has an estimated bid amount it goes for more than when a catalog value is specified !

One thing with alot of NFLD is not really the early issues or later high values but some of the middle sets are hard/ expensive to fulfil - Like Brian mentioned you can get some great quality reasonab;y priced material and the majority of the lower values to any sets are a dime a dozen but try completing the Gilbert set, the 3 pictorial series ,( 2 different prints then one on watermarked paper) and you either have to step up and spend or really really watch a ton of items. The full caribou set will set you back as well. You can certainly find a deal but if your missing 1-2 values from these sets you may have to pay 50% or more for singles. As far as scarlet/ orange pence issues from the begining there are more forgeries than originals and many of the values were not in proper usage for the time . *pence was printed for Can to US rate then it dropped to 4p before they were even issued thus many were bisected (good luck finding one of those at a bargain) . Its pretty well a small amount of stamps to complete but for the true classics its either a huge expense or accept those holes are not realistic. You can obtain all of the pence issues relatively cheap in the rose colors which still make a great looking set.

There are definitely exceptions to the rule. Anything from the 1865 series through the early 1910's are tough to find in VF (or better), and the caribou set normally has terrible margins so you're almost always stuck with F - F/VF. Outside of those, I haven't had much of a problem finding VF stamps. I won't buy airmail stamps (from C6 on up) unless they're in VF. They are far more readily available than most people realize and, in fact, have steadily gone down in value over the past decade (even after the big " ebay price correction").

Brian

To further illustrate my point (that Canada stamps can be had waay below cat value), take a look at this collection housed in a Schaubek album. Not everything in the collection is shown, but what I can see catalogues for ~$1000.

The collection sold for $51.88 plus shipping.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Canada-Clas...p=true&rt=nc

I went back to check on Vance's Auction Results....

They do not publish a list of the prices realized for each auction. Their definition of "results" means by entering my bidder number, I can see if I won or lost any lots, but I can NOT see the winning bid. That's disappointing.

KirkS

Wow ... that makes it tough to get a feel for the market. Have you tried contacting them for the information?

Bad luck Kirk :(
I was looking forward to see the result.