Nice "Big Blue" Offered On Ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fantastic-S...em1c3278624d

Big Blue 1840-1940 from Aden to St. Vincent- looks like 12,000+ stamps with many smaller countries represented.

Currently @ $430, with three days left. No doubt, will go higher than that.

But for Big Blue collectors, or for those that would like to jump start a WW classic collection, this one might bear watching.

Ok. Now I'll know what I'll be dreaming this night, LOL.

12,000+ stamps is quite the jump start (though the description doesn't say how many). Its missing Hungary and Switzerland (at least) going by the photos.

What do you estimate the catalog value to be for such a collection? Somewhere above $10,000 I would imagine. That's the trouble for me. I can't begin to think how to estimate the value except to count the stamps and multiply by some nominal value per stamp...not enough experience with these WW collections to come up with a reasonable bid.

How many spaces in a big blue vol 1 album? I recall seeing somewhere there were 48,000 spaces. One nearly complete collection sold for around $16,000 at auction I think.

This is one of the better Volume Ones to appear recently on ebay. To follow up on some of the earlier comments, a Volume I contains approximately 35,000 spaces. Assuming all of the countries are present (and as been pointed out, some like Hungary aren't showing up in the photographs), Aden-St. Vincent represents about 75% of a complete Volume I. (I assume from the description that there also is no US.)

The total catalog value of a complete Volume I is unclear, and, of course would vary not only upon condition, but also the ratio of unused to used. Nevertheless, my guess is current catalog of a complete album could be $150K. While most of a Volume I consists of stamps that catalog under a dollar, Scott helpfully (!) provides spaces for hundreds of more expensive stamps, with several over $1000+. An almost complete Volume I sold recently for $18K including the auction house's cut.

When I first started my Volume 1 collection, a good rule of thumb was 3 to 8 cents a stamp, with the per stamp cost rising with the number of stamps. That is, an album with 3000 stamps might have gone for $100 or less where as 10,000 stamps would be more like $600-$800. My impression is collections in the 10-25,000 range are more like 10-20 cents per stamp these days.

So how many stamps are there in this album? I think 12,000 might be a little low if for no other reason than there are a lot of stamps beyond what fit in the spaces provided. My Volume I collection consists of around 21,000 stamps and it looks like the page density of this one is a little less. But then there are a lot of extra stamps. Maybe 15,000?

One of the problems is that while the seller provides a good amount of photos, there aren't closeups of most of the higher priced items. And while there are key stamps such as a Penny Black and some early Canadians, we don't know their condition. And a lot of key stamps are missing, such as the two Cape of Good Hope triangles.

But no matter, there aren't that many collections of this size on ebay in any given year so it will be interesting to see how it does.

If this is likely around 75% of your Vol. 1, would you adjust the 15,000 by 75%?

You think I would have learned by now not to attempt to do math. If my album and the ebay album were at the same level of completion, then the ebay album would be around 15,000 stamps (75% x 21,000). But since it doesn't look quite as complete, perhaps the ebay album contains 12-13,000 stamps that belong in the spaces that Scott has provided. But there are surely several thousand additional stamps in the album and that is how I came up with 15,000. But who is knowing how accurate that is (especially since we only have photographs of some of the album to work with and don't know what countries are missing).

It's fairly easy to acquire 5,000 different stamps, and the truth is, that would keep a stamp collector busy for many months of spare time examining them, maybe researching the countries a bit, sorting out varieties, etc. A couple hundred dollars, basically the price of cable TV for a couple months, could give a collector enough stamps to have a fine collection, as long as value isn't a factor.

But after that it gets harder. The next 5,000 stamps will cost perhaps twice as much as the first 5,000, and for the most part they can't be acquired simply by buying an old album, which will likely have pretty much only the stamps from the first 5,000.

The third and fourth 5,000s are much more difficult. Smaller lots will have to be purchased, or larger ones bought and culled through. The price per stamp will rise, up to as much as $1.00 per stamp exclusive of such rare items as Austria 144, US Zepps, etc.

It's fairly easy to acquire 5,000 different stamps, and the truth is, that would keep a stamp collector busy for many months of spare time examining them, maybe researching the countries a bit, sorting out varieties, etc. A couple hundred dollars, basically the price of cable TV for a couple months, could give a collector enough stamps to have a fine collection, as long as value isn't a factor.

But after that it gets harder. The next 5,000 stamps will cost perhaps twice as much as the first 5,000, and for the most part they can't be acquired simply by buying an old album, which will likely have pretty much only the stamps from the first 5,000.

The third and fourth 5,000s are much more difficult. Smaller lots will have to be purchased, or larger ones bought and culled through. The price per stamp will rise, up to as much as $1.00 per stamp exclusive of such rare items as Austria 144, US Zepps, etc.

The lot went for $1,550, with five people sniping in at the last second, according to my reading.

US $1,550.00
US $1,525.00
US $1,278.00
US $1,083.33
US $1,060.00

$1550. Interesting. I went back and checked my notes for large International collections sold since 2012, and this one came in at the bottom. Two smaller collections of around 12,000 stamps sold for $1600 or so on ebay in March 2012. This album surely would have done better if the seller: 1) had given a rough count of the number of stamps, 2) verified that all the countries between Aden and St. Vincent were present, and 3) taken closeups of the more expensive items.

But would it been worth the time spent? For collectors like us stamps are a hobby. For a dealer, every minute spent has a price.

As a worldwide collector with 9 International albums to 1969..what this album realized ASTONISHES me ! I enjoy filling spaces in my worldwide albums..but I have no illusions..because I have purchased Internationals and Global Supreme albums that someone has spent many hundreds of dollars on for 75 or 80 dollars at flea markets and small auctions ! I have my fun but I remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return !

I think the question about the realization for me was the trend over the past several years is for collections like this to bring more.

For example, on 2/13/13 a collection described as "Stuffed Scotts International Album - Hi Value Collection - No reserve" sold for $2,551.01 on ebay. I estimate that it contained around 18,000 stamps, no US.

On 3/11/13, a collection described as "Scott International Junior 'Dream' Album with 18,850+ mint and used Stamps $$$$$" sold for $4,850.00. Again, no US, but a fairly high percentage of unused (hinged).

A couple of weeks later a similarly named "Scott International Junior 'Dream' Album w/ 18,350+ mint and used Stamps $$$$$" offered by the same seller sold for $3,450.00.

Of course, the collection that sold yesterday was smaller than these and not A-Z, but still....

I must admit that those other collections (18,000+) were considerably more impressive for me- no doubt bacause those extra 3-5,000 stamps is what caught my eye.

I actually recall meeting the dealer of this lot, as it turns out,at Westpex in San Francisco last month. She specializes especially in Portuguese colonies (She speaks Portuguese). She does a lot of business through the stamp shows that are attended, not just ebay. I was quite impressed with her overall stock.

But I agree that the ebay lot was not promoted for WW classical collectors as well as it could have been.