Appraisals?

Hi Folks, How does one go about having their stamps appraised? Is it worth having it appraised? If I'm only looking at a couple hundred dollars for the 10A stamp I found I don't know if it makes sense to pay to have it appraised. Do they "SLab" it like coins? Thanx in advance!

Fred

Fred, personally I have yet to own a stamp worth enough to be appraised, so I do not know. But for what it is worth, why don't you post a scan on this forum?
Also, if you really want it appraised, the subject has come up lots of times. You can search this forum. or maybe go directly to the APS?

Peter

Thanx Peter. I did post it here https://goscf.com/f/15 last week.

Appraisal is usually done by your insurance agent. Now if you are talking about expertisation that is done by a number of reputable groups.

Expertisation of US stamps is best done by:

Bill Weiss - http://www.stampexpertizing.com/
The American Philatelic Society - http://stamps.org/Stamp-Authentication

Expertisation + Grading services are provided by:

The Philatelic Foundation - http://www.philatelicfoundation.org/
Professional Stamp Experts - http://www.psestamp.com/

Certificates from all of these expertisers are regularly seen in stamp auctions.

While you can get stamps slabbed, that is FAR less popular for stamps than it is for coins.

Does an appraisal usually result in an evaluation with regards to value where as an expertization usually results in an authentication that it's the real thing ?

What does "slabbed" mean?


-IBFS

Enclosed in a small plastic casing.

Jogil: I think an appraisal of almost any stamp is only going to be a rough guess. Like any collectible, it's worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Rough ideas of value can be found by reviewing the catalogs of several auction houses for prices realized. That is best done over a period of several years, especially for houses that may have only a few auctions per year.

An exception might be specialty auctions. As an example, Nick Follansbee does only one auction per year. But if you're into Mexico; which is all he does; reviewing 3-4 years of his catalogs will give one a reasonable idea for the Mexico market.

Appraisals are good for insurance purposes, but they tend to go off of catalog value which is often meaningless.

For example, I must have dozens of covers that cat for $350-450, and I've paid an average of $130 or so for each of them.