Unitrade Pricing Oddities..?

JR1960: the "she" you are referring to as Editor of the Unitrade is a "he".

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Well wert I guess I'm one of those who isn't as fixed on catalogue
prices as you are.

The "purpose" I use catalogues for is info regarding
technical details such as designers, engravers, printers,print
methods, quantities issued etc. All that boring stuff.

Look at this Austrian stamp from 1962. Minimum value type of stamp.
Dime a dozen, like most Austrian stamps from the fifties on.
Common as trash, totally worthless, no monetary value, can't even be
used as postage since the Euro replaced the schilling.

Yet I find it a beautiful stamp as are so many worthless ones from those years when the Austrian
engravers where surpassed by none.
And by using my old,ratty,torn Michel Europa Katalog I find
out that it was designed by Adalbert Pilch, engraved by Rudolf Toth,
printed in dark green-grey steel engraving by the Austrian State Printer in Vienna,
comb perf 14 1/4: and print run of 3 million.
Value? I dont care.



Then again I collect stamps because I really enjoy looking at and researching about the stamp(s) not to see how much they are worth.

Excellent post lithograving! I agree with you completely!

Hi lithograving...If what you say is true and the stamp (and no money value) is what you are into stamp collecting for...And if money is not the main driver for your hobby, can you tell me honestly that you would rather have your Austrian stamp from 1962...OR would you rather have Canada's first (scott#1) stamp...Obviously it is far more valuable, and if you had lots of money to purchase this Scott#1 ...would you..??

Hey guys..Not trying to start a fight, just good old fashion fun..ok.

I think we can all agree that there is a difference between caring about value, and being "fixated" on it.

I agree with wert, that everyone cares about value to greater or lesser degrees. I can not imagine any collector, when it comes time to part with specimens in his/her collection, not considering value when deciding what they would like in exchange for it.

Born on the 97th anniversary day of the Penny Black and collecting stamps uninterruptedly since March 1942 I would answer the question "If you had lots of money to purchase Great Britain S.G.#1 in mint condition (which would satisfy me from an aesthetic point of view) ... would you ...??" rather heretically in the negative even though I much admire its enlarged image on the monitor. I have never craved to own any expensive stamp.

I've always been trying to avoid having too much of any good thing, as for stamps in the end resulting in excessive vastness of the collection, but have treasured items for their artistic, cultural or historic value, no matter how small their monetary value, not collecting stamps for investment but cherishing them for the rich panorama of all sorts of vivid memories I've had them associated with in the course of time and which are brought back once the stamps meet my eye.

My enjoyment of the mini collection of my dreams has never failed me. And what's more: the older you get, the more you appreciate what once left an indelible mark on you.

Re-arranging a little my "treasures" in the three stockbooks where I keep my all-world gems, re-matching the stories behind them, colours match colours and create new harmonies enlivening and brightening up the whole. With each noteworthy stamp your mind's cinematograph starts showing a film full of memories ...

The magic of finely engraved stamps consists in their miniaturized, yet magnifiable form which makes it possible to concentrate them into a small space where you can explore your experiences of the world, either direct or indirect, as the latter materialize in a flash via the stamps on your stockpages or on the pages of your stockbook.

Actually you can hold in the palm of your hand the minute object evoking in you your own experiences of history, art, foreign lands, all the world's beauties, joys and sorrows. All that being projected on the screen of your mind and making all sort of associations appear through the stamp creators' art ...

Omnia mea mecum porto, in a way.

I do understand lithograving's attitude and welcome him back again.

Catalog publishers are about 20 years behind the times. It is detrimental to our hobby to require 'special knowledge' or some customized formula to understand the true market value of a stamp. In this day and age it simply reflects horribly upon our hobby that no publisher has stepped up and started to put into place the foundation to present true market values to stamps. It isn't rocket science, places like Travelocity are able to harvest and present values for plane tickets and hotel rooms. Amazon is able poll for hundreds of thousands price changes daily for hundreds of thousands products.

Frankly it is not a stretch at all to have Amos or other catalog publisher to do the same thing. They simply have to standardize on how the way to exchange the information. It is even quite easy to build a link that presents the 'completed/sold' information on any web site. For example, I do this with my online catalog here http://dd-designs.co/PNT/PNT_home.htm. Simply click on Scott number button and then the link under the "value" field. It opens a new window with complete sales for that Scott number.

So now imagine how this would work if you were Amos or another catalog company. Not only would you exchange value info with ebay, but also with any other online source that sells stamps and covers. You would be offering people true, real-time market value. A tool like this would also be able to calculate trends over time.

I have no idea why these publishers are clinging to the past. It is like they consider they value they have as some kind of proprietary worth.
Don

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Wonderful post florian! You articulate much of what goes through my mind regarding stamp collecting. Oh, the years of enjoyment!

Gorgeous stamp, Lithograving, and I agree that value is irrelevant when considering the beauty of a stamp, but catalogue values absolutely, without question matter when considering whether or not to collect a stamp. If this stamp, or any other you might be interested in, were a rarity, and out of your price range, you would be enjoying this from afar and not in person.

I contend it is not possible for the majority of collectors to ignore catalogue values when considering buying a stamp.

Brian

A high catalog value certainly makes your little gems feel even more unique.

I thought I would add my own 2 cents from a different perspective.. It's interesting to compare the world of stamp collecting and valuations as compared to other collectible hobbies that have no catalogues and the determined sell prices are 100% market driven. And due to the vastness of ebay, THEY are the catalogue and it's hard to argue that this is not the authoritative editor for that hobby. And what's nice about this methodology is that the prices are constantly updated real-time, although it also means that fluctuations become prevalent and very unpredictable.

So in my case, it was science fiction statues, prop replicas and movie props, and there is no catalogue in existence for these items. The only real source for looking up values are really ebay and some of the major forums, but again even the forum prices are lead by the going rates on ebay. Prices are determined by the cost collectors are willing to pay overall, and for one-offs or extremely rare items, the movie the item is from, the artist etc help determine value, but again is only worth what a collector is willing to pay. The entire process is part of the sci-fi collectibles culture, so this is standard and adopted throughout the collecting community. The only reason this hobby even really blew up was because of the internet, so it's natural the dominant players that make these collectibles available would be key in determining the pricing.

Now in the world of Philately, the hobby was huge before anyone had ever heard of the internet, so printed catalogues organized by major institutions were the dominant point of reference for the world. There was nothing else. But like just about everything else in a print format, the internet is taking over and the population of the world is moving to the readily digestible digital format. Catalogues still have their uses, most of which are described above, but let's face it... much like sci-fi collectibles, ebay is becoming the measuring stick we use when it comes time to sell our stamps or research a reasonable expected purchasing price for a stamp we wish to acquire. And again I refer to the nature of real-time market value we find online, no printed format can hope to keep up with that. As the philatelic audience continues to evolve, this trend will only continue to increase and I think you will find that stamp prices will be determined more and more by what collectors are willing to pay than a percentage based off a catalogue value.

Now going back to what started this discussion, I would have to agree that there is certainly more to stamp collecting than the financial aspect, in fact I would think most of you started not even thinking about money, but rather history, beauty, thematic interest etc. However like pretty much any other hobby in the world, you do require a financial contribution in some way to support it, no one generally gives anything for free and if you approach the financial aspect using solid, basic business sense, then it will allow you to enjoy your hobby without worrying about debt, angry spouses or other financial strains. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending you don't care about how much things cost in ANY hobby is not a great idea. When it comes to managing your collection, selling it, or adding to it, you need to make well informed and non-emotional decisions, which is also the cornerstone of every smart business decision made in any company in the world.

*gets off soapbox*

Dan

By the way lorddenning...how much is your nice collection of stamps worth......Kidding..or am i..?

So, if almost every one out there has a Scott or Unitrade catalogue..what do they use it for..??

Aside from helping me with the financial aspect in conjunction with ebay, I use mine as a reference for the scott numbering system itself, perf measurements so I know which stamp is which, recognized constant errors, number of stamps issued and year, tagging varieties and just knowing what's out there. I mean, as far as I know there's no other way to know what you have and don't have other than a complete catalog. I use EZStamp for my inventory, but it's definitely faster to find stamps in the catalogue than trying to scroll through EZ (except for the keyword search function, which is great looking up an individual stamp).

Going back to my previous post, in the world of sci-fi collectibles, you basically have to go to each manufacturer's site and sift through their documentation to figure out what you're missing. It can be a daunting task because some companies only list current collectibles and remove older ones they no longer carry. At that point it's a matter of asking on forums and going to shows to try and figure it out. I can remember of many times that I saw an item on ebay and I would think "Whoa! Had no idea that Company X made that!". With the catalogues, you pretty much know exactly what's out there aside from color variants and non-constant errors and such.

So let's say I'm just getting started in collecting Canadian stamps. I can pick up a catalog and in one book, I can see all the standard issued stamps ever made for Canada.

Now, let's say a beginner decides to collect Star Wars figures... good luck finding one place that catalogs every Star Wars figure ever made with facts about when they were made, how many were issued etc. I specialized in collectibles from the Predator movie franchise and the ONLY catalog ever created to try and document this was actually created by me, and I spent 3 years working on it and it still doesn't list everything.

Us stamp folks have it easy ;)

Dan