Stamp Regrets

Is there any stamp that you regret not buying when you could have bought it and/or is there any stamp that you bought that you regret having bought?

Oh boy, goooood question! I think the stand-out for me was in 2009 when I was offered for sale a hand-illustrated Behrens album with a VFU , lightly mounted collection of all German colonies and Post Offices abroad, none missing. I just couldn't afford it at the time no matter how much begging and borrowing I did. Regrets having bought? Apart from the occasional duplicate which was just blowing money away, there are none I regret buying.

I'm not sure I regret buying a stamp. I wasted a lot of time with worthless CTO approvals as a kid and I wish I knew then what I know now. (That same philosophy applies to women, cars, investments and life in general).
There have certainly been times where I wished I would have bid more or reacted faster to something being offered for sale.

No regrets.
Tom

The only regrets I have are some duplicates. Many times I've bought a stamp or set, only to get a good deal on a whole collection a short time later (sometimes within days) that included the same stamps. Duplicates on "better" items are easy to sell on ebay, though, so I can usually recoup at least some of the financial loss, although I've even come out ahead on some of them. I bought a Germany collection once for $75 (less than 5% of catalog) and probably half or better were stamps I already had. I ended up selling the duplicates as singles and sets for more than what I paid for the collection, meaning the half or so that I needed were basically free, aside from the time and effort to list them.

I regret not putting a higher bid on an ebay lot of 200 covers addressed to Marilyn Monroe (fan mail). I miscalculated and only bid $200, which of course was way too low. Fan mail to other movie stars is quite common, but covers to MM are never seen for sale.

Not so much a regret but a realization after I bought a mint copy of a stamp, it was the used version I really needed and vice-versa. I guess you could say I regretted not paying more attention to my "Want List." I put it down to a function of age!!

Regrets - a lot of topicals from the dune countries that I bought as a kid, that aren't even listed in Scott.

I saw these blocks of stamps that I didn't want at first. I thought about them when I got home. I went the next day to buy them but they were already sold. I saw this two volume stamp book and only bought the first volume. I went back to buy the second volume and it was sold.

Shamelessly 'borrowing' from George Best:

Most of my money I spent on liquor, fast cars, faster women ... and stamps.

The rest I just frittered away.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

A 1864ish CSA Patriotic Cover, bearing a CSA stamp, with a straight line cancellation from Concord, NC. where I was living at the time. The cover was priced at $50.00, my entire budget for the show.

Art

I regret finding out later that I overpaid for some of my stamps. But then again I have also gotten some good deals so maybe it balances out. I suppose overpaying is part of the education!

I don't regret having the stamps, though!

My regrets have all been on the other side of the transaction. I've sold a dozen stamps over the years that I would love to have back. They were not duplicates and I suspected I would find a replacement some day - that day has never arrived.

chasa, that's a good reminder to never sell what you collect. You will more than likely not be able to duplicate what you sold if you later change your mind.

I regret buying that album full of US plate blocks when I first got back into collectiong (but not much).

My regret is not being more focused on what I was initially buying - Now I am and it is so much better