More Philatelic Materials Than Collectors

Does anyone know of any older issues in which there appears to be more philatelic materials out there for sale than there are collectors? An example, I was told are the U.S. Prexies.

Penny Black? Not exactly scarce - look at the numbers available and the high prices being asked. Personally I feel the Two Pence Blue to be a much nicer stamp.

Terry

I would agree about prexies. I offered on ebay a complete set including coils, minus the $ values (they were used), MNH mounted on pages and it only brought $3.76

I would guess that 95% of all stamps now fit into this category thanks to the internet, which enables everyone to sell their stamps. I routinely pay no more than 10%-15% of catalog price on sites such as Delcampe, which indicates to me that supply far outweighs demand.

I agree with Jenny that 95% of all stamps now fit into this category thanks to the internet. I would add that overproduction certainly is a major factor, as has been the case since at least the 1940s as highlighted in this thread (Uncle Sam's Stamp Factory):

https://goscf.com/t/36641

What if you receive a cover (or a postcard), really circulated by mail to your address, franked with a personalized stamp (maybe with no additional stamp) from a philatelist from any of the tens of countries that currently offer personalized stamps?
You can be sure that the total print run of any such personalized stamp is much, much smaller than the total number of stamp collectors/philatelists still alive today, worldwide.
Some say that there are at least 100 million stamp collectors today, the majority being in PR China.
The smallest print run of personalized stamps I know of is 10 (ten), for example in the Netherlands.
In USA it's 20 personalized stamps, like from Zazzle.
I am not talking about systems where you can print yourself, at home, a "label/stamp" with a chosen denomination and in quantity of only 1, if you want, with a design chosen only from a pre-approved, very limited and boring selection.

So, what if you receive on your mail a modern-day personalized stamp from Netherlands (thus demonstrating to you that it has indeed full postal value), knowing that it was printed in only 10 copies?
Do you appreciate it, or not?
Why, or why not?

DC3,

I think you have great insight. Your post begs the question: what stamps being produced and franked today will be considered desirable, collectible, and dare I say rare, in the coming decades?

In response to your question; Do you appreciate [personalized stamps], or not? My answer is no. Few years from now (I don't dare say decades) personalized stamps will be seen as ephemeral as the first digital postage was a few years back. What if people started printing their own limited edition (10 copies each) baseball cards and started selling them? With high-resolution printing technology at everyone's fingertips today, everyone could be a limited-edition collectible producer of some sort. But what collector base will support value rises in the future?

That's the thing, isn't it, desirability? Many modern stamp issues are just poorly designed and unattractive bits of coloured paper. One of the reasons our hobby began was because stamps were beautifully designed and printed, they were desirable "miniature masterpieces". How many new issues can be so described? I gave up on GB stamps years ago when Royal Mail raised the number of sets issued each year and lowered the design and production criteria. There are exceptions of course and I still collect the few modern stamps that appeal, but mainly it is the classic era that draws me.

Terry

Edited for typo. TC.

Two years ago you could buy very recent Australia kiloware at auction for $10 per kg. Now I am bidding over $100 per kg and can not win a lot. Lots with stamps from up to 5 years ago are now selling for $80kg + for good quality kiloware. This area is still my hardest area to get constant good quality stock but I am working on it.

You are making a huge mistake thinking that what has happened in the past is a currant reality.

Try sourcing top quality high value Australia stamps 2000 to now. I have and you are going to pay 200% cat to get any our stock.

Try top quality Australia International Post stamps 2000 to now. Some sell up to 300% + cat. Stock is almost impossible to get. Prices in this area alone will sky rocket over the next 12 months and beyond.

We are Australia Personalised Stamps on ebay. Try buying our stamps that are going out of print in the next 10 days. Last night alone we spent $1,072 on 60c & $1.20 Pstamps. We are not doing this as a spur of the minute decision.

All our profit that is spare goes to constantly buying high value stamps. We have a system where we are invoiced monthly for our stamps. Most of our sellers have found us. Nobody is selling Australia 1990 to 2013 on ebay like we do, nobody! Because nobody has the stock to do it. It has taken us over 10 years to get the amount of used quality stock we have. We know our seller contacts are Gold.

Buyers are still to catch up with these modern trends that I speak of and our stamp prices in some areas are not selling but this is only a short term issue.

It is very much a situation of welcome to the real world! Things have changed so much in the past 12 months that buyers are in for a huge shock. What has happened to the prices & stock availability in the used Australian stamp market has not been realised fully as yet because the changes have been so huge. It seems unbelievable! But not for much longer!

The end of current mailing stamps looms.........

Recent used US is also no longer as easy to obtain as it was at the start of this century.

Getting back to the original question, one thing in big oversupply is US FDC's from the 50's to the 80's.

I remember the basic principle from my Economics 101 class - "supply and demand". Sure, supply will be low if you print 10 (or 20) personalized stamps showing your newborn, but unless you're famous, who's going to want them, outside of your family?

I remember being at a show a few years ago, and a gentleman was offended when dealers were offering 65-70% of face for full panes of commemoratives from the 1960s. One dealer showed him a whole box of those sheets he was selling for face value and hadn't been able to move for years. He even offered to sell this gentleman as much as he wanted to buy for 70% of face value. I can only imagine this man's disappointment when he pulled out a catalogue showing the 5-cent stamps to be "worth" ten times that, but to not be able to even recover his initial investment over 40 years later.

Not only U.S. FDCS, but FDC's from the United Nations or anything from the United Nations for that matter. Most dealers throw it all in their $1 box and just maybe a few will be bought here and there over time.

Thanks eyeonwall.





Most Australia stamp issues are very common from 1930's to 1995!

Australia Personalsed Stampss are interesting. The latest Status auction saw some sheet sell for very high prices.

This has been popular!

Perhaps I am missing something. Personalized stamps by definition are created by one person to fill his or her needs. How can there be very many of them? And how can one possibly collect them except almost by happenstance. If I were to decide right now to begin collecting personalized stamps, I would have no idea where to even start. There can't be a catalog, can there??

The fewer there are of these things the better.

Terry

Ignorance and intolerance is showing up in the comments.

We have 80+ different Pstamps and they are called my wife's special and much loved art work!

Many people have complete set from us of the Pstamps that have been released. Some have to be left for a time to let the colour set.

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