Cv (Catalog Value) Versus Reality...

Catalog value is like any other price guide for any other thing... A guide. Period.

Technically SCV is market retail for a truly fault free, VF stamp with good eye appeal. Some stamps that meet that criteria will bring SCV all day long (or more, much more) and some won't.

I'm rather fortunate in that my main collecting focus is in a VERY narrow area so I'm able to gauge the market VERY well and have a darn good idea of what stuff is worth that I collect.

I earn my money in the car business and deal with customers who swear that their trade in is worth KBB or NADA when it's not. Stamps are no different. Just as cars are often worth above or below "book" so are stamps. Same goes for coins... Try getting "sheet" for common date MS64 walkers and watch what PCGS VX-XF Barbers bring. Sheet? PCGS price guide? Lol! Take an 09-O quarter in PCGS 40 with nice original skin and you can burn grey sheet. Who would pay SCV for a true VF 1950s $5 Hamilton? Yeah, didn't think so. Now, on the other hand, find a true VF 1861 5 cent buff or heck even a true VF nice 3 cent 1851 from a dealer for SCV.

Catalogues that reveal what the stamp or stamps are, have been put together by some full on stamp people or groups of people. For me in this area I have a great deal of respect for the stamping people who put the Australia KGV stamp info catalogues together.

But the catalogues for price of stamps is something else and will always be an argumentative position in the stamping world.

I have yet to read one adverse comment about Stamp Store.

Here's one for you. I've never saw so many mis-identified stamps as at the APS stamp store. You would expect APS members to have a much better chance to get it right than the general public on ebay. But no ! Then at the very least you would expect the APS to monitor and correct it when items are blatantly mis-described. But No!

ebay has done more for any stamp collecting resurgence in the last decade than any other entity.

At least for the US, Scott provides CVs for other grades in their Specialized Catalog. I started the discussion with an example where a stamp nominally described as "F/VF Unused OG" only brought about 55% of SCV.


In my experience (narrow, but not limited--I've made hundreds of purchases on ebay, and watched countless other items get auctioned) the rarer the item, the closer the auction price will get to CV.

One can point to all kinds of ebay outcomes that don't make a lot of sense. I commonly see auction items bid up above what a price some other dealer as set as a "buy it now" price for the same item.

But we're not discussing the occasional oddity but rather the pervasive tendency for ebay prices to be systematically below CV. Other than wishful thinking by dealers or catalog publishers, I'm not sure anyone has yet offered a good explanation for this phenomenon.

Afterthought: Year after year, Scott will discuss make changes in CV for a nominally few stamps, especially the rarer ones. I have to wonder if Scott doesn't do a more systematic and complete revaluation -- downward -- of its CV's because of how upsetting that would be to the industry/hobby. After all that has been said in this dicussion -- and it has been interesting to read the many thoughtful replies -- the sense seems to be that "everyone" knows CV's don't mean a lot, but no one wants to do anything about it.

Agreed 100%, at least in my case. I've simply acquired a great many stamps on ebay that I likely wouldn't otherwise have, and it gives me an easy outlet to get rid of my duplicates and unwanted stamps. I'm able to take the money I get from selling there and put it toward better stamps that I might not otherwise have gotten. It's a really good outlet for me to dispose of common stamps in bulk lots - the kind of stamps that every collector needs but dealers don't want to mess with. Would I still be collecting without ebay? Probably, but I'd be enjoying it to less than full potential, and I'd be sitting on a mountain of duplicates that I'd have no idea what to do with. But at the end of the day, ebay is just another avenue to acquire stamps, as I also buy from price lists, on approval, and from sellers advertising in Linn's.

Very interesting read! Here's my 2 cents. As in any retail industry there is the manufactures suggested retail price, which is the result of comparison research. Then it gets wholesaled and then retailed. The retailers make their own price based on the margins they are looking with an influence by how much backstock they have vs demand. Hot items are hot and usually high priced, but I have too much then I want to clear the backstock, so I lower the price.
Now ebay is a fluctuating market that has no predictability, yet can create a baseline average of the going rate. I can get similar info from bidstart, But I can't go to bidstart to create my price then expect that from ebay, and vice-a-versa. I can ake anaverage of them both and get an idea, but it really boils down to who's looking at what time willing to pay how much. ebay is time sensitive, and desire driven. The same buyer may not be on next week.
The catalog price, as mentioned before is for exat qualities of a stamp, and takes no consideration for market fluctuation. It does give on a perception on value variances between grades though, and details not readily available on the auction sites.
Personally I agree with others here, ebay is the most lucritive venue for acquiring and unloading stamps.
I really dont like ebay, but I use it regularly.

On ebay with a BINBO item, you can get away with an average of 30% off the BIN price at times. On bidStart, stamp prices are so much more reasonable for the most part, that difference shrinks to about 15%. It will be a hot day in the Arctic before I go back to ebay. On auctions, especially with no reserve, I wonder if sellers on either site are taking a great risk on getting as much of a stamp's value as there is to get. I wonder if these things make the SCV virtually irrelevant. I use SCV as a number to just "not get too close to".


-IBFS

I would like to buy from the APS stamp store because I am a member, but have yet to find a competitive price to ebay on stamps I'm looking for. To be honest, I haven't purchased a ton of single stamps, but in the last 2 months I've made 5 significant single stamp purchases (actually one was a set). Each was NH in VF condition, with 2 cataloging at around $120, one for $350 and two for about $600. These were very good stamps/sets and sold for about 4035-50% Scott CV. Three were from foreign sellers, and these were the best quality when received. In every case, the APS sold for a much higher percentage of CV, often for less desirable specimens.

BidStart prices were similar, if they even had the product.

This is a small sampling, but reinforces to me at least why APS, BidStart and the run-of-the mill brick and mortar dealer cannot compete.

ebay is a wonderful place to add to a collection and one can get a general guideline to market prices for similar items. But you have to start a baseline from somewhere and that is where the catalog comes into play, it gives you as a buyer or seller a guideline or starting point.

I kind of treat it like MSRP.

Stamp collecting is such a "big tent" that it may be hard to generalize (though I'm doing so somewhat in my observations about CV). But FWIW, my recent experience with Bidstart has been positive. Now I've only been buying covers there, at "buy it now" prices, but for the covers I've been buying (US Airmails, generally from C32 to C150), I've found the prices to be quite competitive. While some sellers seem to list the same inventory on both ebay and Bidstart (and I'm not sure how they get away with that), I've purchased quite a few covers at prices on Bidstart below what I'd pay on ebay. Now determing CV for covers is even more dicey than for stamps, but there too, I find that the selling prices are generally well below what I'd determine the CV to be. Of course, as a buyer, I'm not complaining about this. I'm just trying to understand it.

It is close to veering off topic so I won't get into specifics, but in the auto repair business, you better watch out that repair shops don't charge you more, often much more, than MSRP for replacement parts. So perhaps the point is that knowing as much as you can, whether MRSP or CV, is essential to knowing what to pay for what you are buying. In my case, that works out to no more than 67% of CV most of the time, for stamps at least.

"But we're not discussing the occasional oddity but rather the pervasive tendency for ebay prices to be systematically below CV. Other than wishful thinking by dealers or catalog publishers, I'm not sure anyone has yet offered a good explanation for this phenomenon".

In a nutshell, fewer expenses, often lesser quality. Most people selling stamps on ebay are not professional dealers, just people selling a few stamps. Most stamps sell below catalog anyway, at shows, at auctions and on ebay, because most stamps are not really all that scarce. High catalog value does not automatically make a stamp scarce, just popular. For the overwhelming majority of stamps, all it takes is having the money. Stamps have to be perceived as being exceptional or exceptionally scarce to sell for over catalog. But because many people selling on ebay do not know very much about stamps, there are often seriously overpriced items for sale there as well. I see them in the revenue section daily.

Show dealers have far greater expenses than ebay dealers. Show dealers often have better quality than ebay dealers, and that quality is on display for anyone who wishes to observe it. Show dealer prices will often be somewhat higher because of it. But you know exactly what you are getting.

"Most people selling stamps on ebay are not professional dealers, just people selling a few stamps."

Yep, since I'm not making a living at it, I'm not as concerned with maximizing the selling price to the highest possible penny. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I want to give stuff away, but I'd rather sell it quickly for a little less money than to hold out for the highest price. A dealer needs to make enough money to pay his mortgage and keep his lights on. I'm just after money I can put toward other stamps. The stamps I sell aren't so much inventory as trading material in a fairly roundabout way. I'd imagine there are lots of other sellers out there with a fairly similar attitude.

There are quite a few professional dealers on ebay, but given the volume of global sellers they might be hard to find amongst the masses.

At least in my area, more and more professional show dealers are switching or adding on ebay to survive. The shows in the New York/Vermont area are not bringing in many buyers - practically dead zones. They know their traditional customer base is dying off and the older methods of have mailing lists are not working. I have thought of buying table space at a show sometime, but then when I see the lack of business I don't think I'll ever bother. I'm better off with ebay and a global market. As for the thread topic - first and foremost, I use catalogs to help with identification. I rarely have seen CV match reality so to me it's just a number on the page.

I currently have a set of Scott, 2007, and a couple of other catalogs, but like you, they are used primarily for identification.

I sell a few extra things on ebay. My pricing strategy is pretty simple - I look and see what others are charging for the same item.

Buying wise, I PREFER to buy at stamp shows. But that's not practical in Nashville, where there aren't many shows within an easy drive. So, I do buy some from the APS (online and circuits) and I've never run into the identification problems some folks complain about. I also search around Bidstart, some auctions/mail sales, and of course ebay.

The farther from "standard" the item, the more important ebay is to my collecting. For example, I collect "back of the book" newspaper stamps and can get them just about anywhere. However, as part of that collection I also collect newspaper wrappers and newspaper railway stamps. ebay is pretty much THE source of these two items. Since these items are not Scott listed and are very much "what the market will pay" items, I often engage in vigorous counter offers and email exchanges before purchasing.