Cornering The Stamp Market?

What ever happened to the guy who was trying to corner the stamp market on Canada Scott/Unitrade # 1407ai souvenir sheet variety of which only 10,000 were issued?

He was able to acquire 9,000 of them and hasn't sold one! +]

haha funny in a grim sort of way..

I would say a (greedy) lesson well learned...

sorry I am not familiar with this story. Is there more to it?

I would think that making a corner in a stamp market is especially unlikely to succeed because almost every collector you will ever meet is already accustomed to the idea that there are rarities they can never afford.

Your beauty just becomes one more item that will be unaffordable-for-life. Big deal.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Unfortunately, acquiring 90% is not enough to corner the market, i.e., manipulate the price.

Please read my article published in the Canadian Philatelist on this.

Nobody ever tried to corner the market !
Year : 2010
Volume : 61
Number : 6
Page : 361

Le feuillet signe de CANADA 92

The fact that Lighthouse would not put it in his album, killed most of the market.

Good article Stampvamp. Thanks for pointing it out. Very clear as to what happened/where they went.
Interesting that forgeries have also appeared.

There are 7 s/s offered on ebay presently.
1 to bid on, starting at $43.50
6 buy-it-now at $41.24, $46.70, $47.00, $56.95, $101.74, $105.00 (all shipping included.)
Quite a range.
Unitrade lists it at $125.00 which is 25 times the regular price.
Sounds like a cornered market to me.
I can't see how a Lighthouse inclusion would affect the market much.
Glad I got it in 1992.
Forgeries must be very easy to achieve.

sak, the OP was referring to a belief that the market was cornered from the get-go. The article states clearly that this was not the case, though a number of dealers did buy up some larger lots after the Exhibition closed (a few also before it closed).

The article mentions that they sold off the remaining 33% of the SS in lots of 100. The lowest price achieved was around $3000 ($30/SS), the highest was $5000 ($50/SS).

Since then it has been a matter of supply and demand. Some of these dealers may still be waiting/hoping for the price to rise.

The reason the album entry would have helped is because collectors do not like empty pages. Without that page to fill, demand decreases. At the time, the album maker took the position that it was not an official Canada Post production, hence, no page in the album.

Finally, I believe the signature sheets are all on a special paper that the others are not printed on. They can be detected if you know that. However, not many do.

I bought a copy at the expo in 92, if my memory serves me well it was 10$, it also came with a little book, or maybe the book was from the expo itself. I was 15 at the time, I don't think I've ever opened the book to see what's inside, I still have it.

Also, I think that particular stamp went up to 300$ in Unitrade at some point, but came down to 125-150$ and "stabilized" around that range.

To this day, I still think I should of bought more than one.

I am wondering if it was Canada Post which did the overprinting or was it done privately?

Also, it seems to me that a listing in Unitrade would have a much more positive effect than an album producer. Did other album makers follow Lighthouse's lead?

All I got is a 1st day cover. I should have bought a couple signed sheets too....

I bought mine direct from Canada Post Office through the philatelic sales. I think they charged a premium for the signature sheet but I don't recall what it was. That was getting close to where I quit collecting modern stamps both US and Canada.

Does anyone have a copy of the above article since the RPSC only has it available to members online?