Mexico - How Much Is Too Much To Pay?

I have seen this asked and responded to in many places - and clearly this is no one definitive answer. And I am usually OK paying with what I feel comfortable with.

But wanted to roll this past folks anyway .. .I was seeking out some Mexican stamps in the Mulita series (242-291), plus a few others. I cam across a dealer on Stamps to Go and contacted him.
He sent back some nice looking stamps.

The prices, though, are about 50 percent of Scott value. I know a lot of people say NEVER pay more than 20 percent, preferably 10 percent.

But I checked this dealer's prices with those of the dealer considered the top dealer of Mexicans and the STG dealer is, in many (but not all cases), lower ...

Any thoughts?

Hi centerstage98
If you want the stamps, can afford them, and you are pleased to have them in your collection, what does it matter if you spend 50% of cat?
I nowadays take the view that if a nice stamp (or stamps) comes up that I want, I set myself a top price of catalogue value, and if I get them for any less it's a bonus (usually to be spent on more stamps)! I have missed out too often by being too mean for the sake of a few pennies or the odd pound. It's not often you have to pay near the top end for anything, unless it is exceedingly rare.
Just my opinion....
DavidR

In the end - you will have to pay market prices. To put it in perspective, how often do you see the stamps you are looking for come up for sale? - And, when they do...what are the prices?

You may find that available supply of those particular stamps are lacking....then, regardless as to what Scott says their value is, you will have to pay the price a dealer wants in order to obtain them.

There are lots of stamps/bulk and/or otherwise, that you can get for 10% of scott (or Less even for the Minimum catalog value stamps). USUALLY - only if there is a lot of inventory available...

But - try to get one of the USA Graf Zepp Airmails for 10% of Scott...could be tough.

Thanks, David and Eric ... I concur with your thoughts.

I have found that I am not one to sit and wait too long on certain stamps - I am not buying hugely priced items, though I may be buying 10 or 20 low and medium priced items and it adds up, so I do have concerns about getting a good price.

It's not as if I have spent years looking for that one stamp at a bargain price; I usually just check all the contemporary sources and see if it's in the ballpark and am happy.

I still wondered, though, if others on forum had thoughts, etc. .. so please keep up the chatter.

THANKS!

Just as an example - I have been trying to buy a 1934 New Zealand 'Health' stamp in good un-mounted mint, for a while. It only catalogues at £11 but whenever I tried to bid around £3 to £4 I was getting outbid. So tonight I upped my game, the stamp was on £2.19 with 15 seconds to go, I bid £8.80, and won it for £2.85! So by my reckoning I still have almost £6 to spend!

Way to go, David ...

I think part of my query, which I didn't make clear at the start (because I hadn't figured out my own thinking - DUH) ... is that there certainly seems to be a premium paid for certain countries, eras, etc. - Mostly just because they are more popular with collectors. Greenland and Iceland, for example, are probably pretty popular and more pricey than say, Uruguay or Nicaragua.

So, I think part of my question includes - should one be expecting - as a rule of thumb to paying at least half-price of catalogue for Mexican stamps of this era.

That said, again, congrats on your auction triumph. It must be a good feeling!

Nothing wrong with 50 percent of cat or even more if I want an item ! it would be nice to buy meaningful stamps at 10 percent..but its usually the common stuff that sells for that...i like to sell and buy at 1/3 of scott if I can !

Recently, I had an opportunity to get a strip of stamps that I REALLY wanted. I put in a modest bid and was promptly overbid. I waited until the auction had about 7 seconds to go and put in a bid of several hundred dollars. I got it cheap for less than $120.00 so I'm a happy camper. BUT, I could have been burned. Its hard to control your emotions when you really want something.

Art

Please explain; Why wasn't the price what you bid? (Haven't bought anything on ebay for quite a while.)

I don't collect Mexican stamps so cannot answer your specific question but I can comment on pricing. The first thing you need to do is learn to use available resources to price the stamps you are interested in. ebay is a best example I can think of because of the sheer volume of sales and the fact that recent sales info is public. By searching for specific stamps, e.g "Mexico Scott #242" you can see what they are really going for in the market. Forget Scott prices - I don't trust them. See what the going price is for the stamps and don't pay much more than that. Its not as easy as it sounds because stamp condition is a factor, but you ebay is the first place I would look for answers.

Now, some collectors don't seem to care much what they pay. But I hear many stories of folks trying to sell their collections late in life and bemoaning the fact they don't get anything near what they paid to build the collection. Personally, I don't want to be in that situation so I always pay attention to price. Also, I collect for pleasure and for value. Some collectors don't worry about value. Decide where your sentiments lie and act accordingly.

I believe you can get most moderately valued stamps for less than 10% of Scott if you are patient and you are willing to buy and break down collections, selling off the duplicates. Eventually you might have to pay up a bit to fill holes. It may be harder to get good quality single stamps or sets at this discount. I have more experience buying collections. But when I purchase singles or sets I use ebay to price them.

I keep saying that stamps are not a commodity. There is a large body of Mexico collectors in the US especially. It does not surprise me that some stamps garner a higher premium.

Buying stamps at 10% or even 30% of catalog means that they are common stamps and are found all over the place.I recently purchase stamps for my EGYPTIAN collection,these stamps are on the market about twice in ten years so when they came up in a major stamp auction in New York City,I fought two other bidders ,one from the Mideast and one from Europe ,we all push the price above catalog values and some I got at 120% of catalog but then im not afraid to bid up material that comes on the market rarely.Let me add that I missed out on a lot of the material because prices even went too high for me on other lots .You got to know the material before you bid .

Percentage of catalog ,doesn't mean anything ----------why people talk percentage of catalog is only half the story ,are those broken sets ,are they missing the high value,are they off-center copies ,are they heavy canceled ,or modern wallpaper ,are they recent stamps that are hinged.

All good discussion, of course.

I admit I have not spent years chasing these Mexican stamps, and I know that by not doing that, I am likely to pay higher. And, I have a pretty good understanding of catalogue pricing and why and how it exists. In general, I think it's a good gauge.

I can see all sides to this. I am a stamp collector first, so I basically want to buy and build what I like. Someone could toss out great bargains in areas I am not interested in - say revenues - and I would likely pass them by.

Though, I will say that, like Hungaryforstamps, I, too, want the stamps I desire AND get a good value, which is why I asked this to begin with.

I admit I have not tried going the big collections route, yet - buying such with many stamps, picking the ones I want and disposing of the rest. But with a job layoff less than a month away I might try that - sounds like a good way to wile away the rest of the long, cold winter in the Northeast.

I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear. My question had to do with ebay transaction processing. Art Launier stated he "put in a bid of several hundred dollars. I got it cheap for less than $120.00 so I'm a happy camper."

I asked why he acquired the lot for $120, when his bid was several hundred dollars.
Art

On ebay, the winning bid is an overbid over the second highest bid. For example, if you bid $5000 but the second highest bid was only $101.17, you'll win the item but you only have to pay one bid increment over the second highest bid - your winning price will probably be something like $106.17, maybe $111.17, whatever the bid increment is at that price level.

Not all auction houses do it that way, and you have to be careful when you're looking for new places to buy things. Some smaller houses will charge you your bid amount. Or worse, they'll say they charge an overbid but they'll "pretend" to have received a significantly higher underbid. In general, any auction house that holds a live floor auction will be honest about such things, as they can't manipulate the auction while there are bidders on the floor in the way that can happen with a mail auction.

Ryan