Thoughts On Paying Above 10% Of Cat..all Different Lots..

As I was going through my meager Albania collection (I have 27 Albania Stamps) I checked ebay and found a seller with 500 Different Albania for $100. For some reason, I am tempted.

This would cost me 20 cents per stamp. Now, the thing with Albania is a large number of their stamps through the years catalog well over 20 cents. But there is no easy way to tell the Cat value of the 500 stamps I would get for this $100 bucks.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/37042668736....m1438.l2649


What are everyone's thoughts?

To end up with 500 different Albania, at the rate of 27 stamps per 50,000 WW Mixed I sort through (which is where mine came from) - It would take take sorting through 1,000,000 WW stamps to get 500 different Albania!

Hi Eric,

I would check the completed ebay listings to see how many lots have been offered, if they sold and what the actual sales price was. This will give you an indication of the current market.

Dan

Sounds like WAY too much. To be worth 20c per stamp, they would have to average 75c to $1 Scott EACH. Highly unlikely. Go into bidStart where mixed lots are cheaper and look for groups of 50 to 100 at a time, where you will probably find a full scan.

Yeah, kinda of a head scratcher.
You need to know albania philatellically, to bid with confidence,
yet you won't know it till you spend the cash.
It Looks OK to me, but I don't collect Albania, yet.

You can buy 1913 -1925 and spend $950
or buy this lot for 99c
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALBANIA-196...em3f2030c658

If you are hestitating, then perhaps buy some cheap lots
and feel your way.
The way I look at it sometimes, is my "meat pie" conversion.
It's worth 25 meat pies
Are 500 Albania going to keep you happy for a few months?
Then that's a $100 well spent.

As my Romanian collection becomes filled,
I am spending a meat pie for every 2 stamps.

I think it's a good way to jump start your Albania collection. Consider it your early Christmas present to yourself !

That linked lot in the OP is poorly photographed and has an equally bad description ("as pictured" - to which you can barely see anything). Are they mint, postally used, CTO? A lot of the latter can be had for 1 cent to 5 cents each from a dealer's bargin box at a show. To me it's grossly overpriced.

Bingo! That was exactly what I was going to say, Battlestamp beat me to it. I f yo still have interest in the lot ask the seller for more pics and detailed description. If he wants to sell he will get back to you.

I agree, the lot is overpriced and you cannot even get a close up of the stamps. My collection of stamps from Albania is also very small (20 stamps). Albanian stamps seem to hardly ever show up in mixtures.

If I was to start collecting a new area, I would buy a respresentative collection on pages (Scott, Harris or similar) to start.

Thanks Guys - I did contact him and ask him about his price. He lowered it to 89.95, but I am going to ask for more pics.

I have also found a few more collections, with more stamps, that are much more reasonably priced.

What the heck - He just raised his price to $110. Weird

No response on adding more photos

That's a bit of a whoa! signal.
I saw his price at $89 and thought you may have been including shipping.

I recently won some stamps from a respected dealer for $3.25,
and he had an identical set for sale 3 days further on at $12.
No rhyme or reason, no good trying to work out people's motives,
just grab the deal when you can.

If you focus on Albania on ebay for a few weeks, you'll get a better
feel for a reasonable / good deal. Excercise patience.

Whats a meat pie ?? I have the 10 cent to 10 dollar stamps for Argentina...now I have to start feeling the pain !!

Just landed a set of Albania, 622 stamps mounted on scott pages... 35 bucks. 5.6 Cents per stamp compared to 20

I found a buy it now with a make offer, and made an offer!

And - Ended up buying a lot of 486 Afghanistan stamps mounted on Scott Pages from the same seller

(Can anyone tell I am working through the "A" Countries? :-) )

The already mounted ones save me a TON of time sorting... which, is worth some money as well. Much easier to place into my albums than having to go through a loose pile

A meat pie is the equiv of an US hamburger. (common currency)

Well done Eric, you're happy for Christmas. :)

Ever since Timbres posted a 1992 Romania Minisheet of Columbus,
I have been waiting to pounce.
I have watched 12 sold, or passed in
$20 with $8 shipping
$15.75 $6 ship
$12 $3 ship
$3.82 $6 ship

Just snagged mine $3.24 +$2.50 ship.

Now wait, tomorrow I'll see it for $1 :)

A tip about buying on album pages. If you want to raise money for future acquisitions, each time you remove a stamp, replace it with two of your duplicates. When you're done, you have a saleable product ready to list, all you have to do is count them, because that's the first question buyers ask.

And, I meant to add, remove all the damaged as you go.