Value Of 1993 Elvis Presley Stamp Sheets

A friend has offered to sell me these stamps for FACE VALUE!

Roughly how long do you estimate it will take me to turn these around and sell them again for face value? Please see attached.

100 Elvis Presley Sheets of 40 Uncut 29 Cent Stamps in perfect mint condition (.29 X 40 X 100 = $1160)
- Uncut Sheets straight out of package they came in from the post office have never been removed from the post office pads
- Stamps show no evidence of dents/bends or humidity damage and stamps have never seen the light of day due to dry storage environment since Jan 1993 when purchased.
- Date stamped on pad is 02 Sep 28 ’92 MB-42

That is the most one should ever pay for these stamps. If I recall this is the most abundantly printed commemorative stamp ever issued by the US. Most will sell at a discount to face value (40-80% depending on volume).

This will not increase in value in your lifetime.

Is the booklet version of the Elvis stamp more valuable? Instead of Elvis, the booklet stamps have Elvis Presley on them.

Good question jogil. There is no difference in value in any of the varieties of the Elvis stamp.

I don't think I'd go higher than $650-700 on that, if I wanted any chance of making any money back. Even that would take quite some time.

Buying for face value and then selling for face value won't get you anywhere. It will still take a long time, you tie up your money and also face the risk of loss during the process, and most any auction site will charge fees to sell, so that you won't really realize face value.

My two cents.

Sometimes, out on the Great Plains, you drive up to a rural crossing and find a train lumbering by, 35 mph, a train which seems to stretch into infinity.

Those refrigerated boxcars are full of sheets of mint U.S. commems. They were run out of town in Topeka, by threats to be tarred and feathered, and so they are grinding their way toward Des Moines, but the same fate awaits them there. The canny old station-master at Minneapolis has posted a switchman 24/7 to divert any such train to Milwaukee. And so it goes.

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I spoke with a Chicago dealer on Thursday - their next quarterly auction will offer $180,000 face value in discount postage. Sounds like just one boxcar, hardly worth getting flustered over unless its freezers go on the fritz.

For some stamp issues especially some modern ones, there are more sellers than buyers which lowers their price. This reminds me of the story of this guy who want into this stamp shop and told the dealer that he had 100 sheets of a common issue that he wanted to sell him. The dealer gets back to him and says that he has 1000 sheets of the same issue that he could sell him. Such a situation is not ideal, but it happens with many new issues that are hoarded. When, one wants to sell later, they find out everyone else also has the same ones and wants to sell them too. The winners are those looking to buy discount stamps at below face for postage.

Here's an example of just how popular (not) they are as collectibles:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MINT-ELVIS-...em27d4036261

At a BIN price of $9.50 (about 82% of face) or an auction price start of $7.00, NO BIDS at all. Supply exceeds demand, simple as that.

As a practical matter, if one had the need to use stamps on mail for postage, the value is still 29-cents per stamp, but since a stamp today requires 46-cents postage and there are no 17-cent stamps to make up that rate, one would typically have to use one 29-cent Elvis stamp, plus a 10-cent stamp, plus a 4-cent stamp and a 3-cent stamp to make up the current first class rate. For most people, that's just too many stamps to manually fuss with placing them all on an envelope to make the use of them for postage worthwhile.

Back in 1992 someone paid $1,160 for these 100 sheets of 40 stamps.

Had they put that money into a savings account that provided 7% average return per year, then today this initial deposit would total $4,488!

Smauggie, Thank you for giving me a range to work with!
CJD, Thank you for giving me an idea of how long it would take to sell the stamps even at 1/2 price!
Doug2222, I'll never forgot the image you placed in my mind of how plentiful U.S. commems are!
Jogil, thank you for giving me an idea for what dealers may be willing to pay for commems.
Wt1, thank you for giving me an image of how silly it would be to purchase these stamps for normal everyday use. Stamporator, thank you for giving me a less risky way to invest my $$

You have all helped me make my decision. I'm soo I asked the experts before wiring the money.

Turtle, you are WELCOME! I might add that the Presley stamps have an extremely glossy yellowish gum, and if you so much as look at them cross-eyed, they STICK together.