The Ethereal Rewards: The Icing? Or, The Cake?

The Ethereal Rewards of Stamp Collecting: The icing? Or, the cake?

"They want what ?!? For six dollars, I can see the New York City Ballet!"

It was my mother that taught me how to, well, evaluate value; from the ticket prices, you can tell it was a long time ago.

I recently launched myself into collecting GPU (Genuinely Postally Used) stamps, but only on cover or card. Since I now have every hole to fill (are you spending too much time on the internet?), I've been pawing thru the bargain boxes.

Recent adventures pawing thru a $1/item box (more selective) and a 25c/item box (less selective) both ended-up costing me about twenty bucks an hour.

Don't anybody tell her, but I am equally aware that dinner-and-a-movie-for-two also ends-up costing me about twenty bucks an hour.

If I walked-out of the bourse, and tossed the cards & covers in the trash, I'd feel it was cash & time well-spent.

Taking the treasures home, and sorting & researching (& scanning & posting to SCF) dramatically reduces the hourly rate that I am paying for my entertainment.

A few years ago, tired of pawing thru close-out racks & garage sales, I started buying brand new hardcover books at full retail. I read slowly - and I stop & think & call-to-discuss & re-read - so the hourly rate I was paying for reading brand new hardcover books was a bargain compared to, say, renting a movie on DVD.

After all, two bucks an hour is two bucks an hour.

But I am not sure that the hourly rate analysis only holds for folks beginning a new topic or country. Even if you are spending, say, an average of U$D 100 per stamp, you also get those hours of shopping & checking & bidding (&, G-d Willing, scanning & posting to SCF).

Evaluated on an hourly basis, compared with other ways you could be getting your entertainment, and what they cost per hour, and what you have once that cash is gone, you could probably just as well shred the little treasures when you get them home, and call yourself even.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Interesting approach; it allows you to establish a formula to determine how to bid or pay for stamp(s).

A = Start with how much you can current afford to pay per hour of pleasure it brings you

B = Next estimate the Number of Pleasure Hours the item will bring you

C = Catalog Value of Item(s)

D = Percentage of Catalog Value that similar material usually sells for

(A*B)+(C*D) = maximum to bid or pay

Of course this adds the 'fun' value on top of the catalog value; this makes sense in some ways since some percentage of catalog value is what everyone else considers that the actual market value of the item(s).

But I think that many people do not want to add the 'fun' value, they want to have that embedded within the percentage of catalog value. In other words, the 'fun' value should be included at no cost.
Don

And after you buy/scan/post/... your new item, you then spend more time adding it to an exhibit (or creating a new exhibit) and the time it takes to create the exhibit in Word or Publisher, mount the exhibit, bring it to the show, show it (force a few stamp friends to look at it while you explain how great it is), go to the awards dinner (shows in the U.S. have dinners), take the exhibit down and then after listening to the judges and redo the exhibit a few times, even a $20 cover can end up being 50 cents an hour.

Granted, there is more money needed for the ink to print the exhibit pages, buy the mounts, …, $ for gas to drive to the show (might have been going to the show already), ... it may cost you more but the one cover can end up being 'cheap' per hour.

Larry

HaHaHa....the fun begins when I die...LOL!!

But would it work for the hole-filling crowd?

They (presumably) are aiming for some sort of anxiety-reduction benefit (in the end), but the interim purchases might be accompanied by an anxiety-augmentation effect.

After all, how good can it feel to know that you've *only* got the multi-thousand-dollar stamps to go, and that you will never buy another cheap addition to your collection, ever again?

Its enough to drive a man to collect Yemen miniature sheets.

Maybe it already has ...

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I eat the icing first and then have the cake after the dinner is served and eaten. Clean up crew I am. Haw.


51studebaker,
I like the formula. Neat.


malariastamps,
I like the design process of an ebay or other listing, photos amd text added below the reguylar picture and title (designed also). Is that like the show displays kind of? I haven't displayed or competed yet at all myself.

The stamp club here did put on a learning process about displaying but I didn't attend.






I have so many holes to fill now, after reading and being on Stamp Community for a while that I just get what I can and have learned to appreciate what I have while I have it.

here is my thoughts. I love antiques. and now getting back into stamps. I love to meander around a store looking at what they have, I enjoy the time alone or with a few friends who like to meander and talk but not to much. it's time spent with no one pull at you, asking for help, turn the cell phones off and get lost. almost a vacation. same with going to an auction. bring a chair , cooler of pop and sit back and watch. maybe get a bargen. but when I am out side or away from home, I am not thinking of the laundry, or washing dishes, cleaning the carpets, Dusting... so spending time on my self is priceless, finding an antique I did not know I needed is even more priceless. so it's like having your cake and eating it to..... (not much of an icing girl, way to sweet) so I can't put a price on a mental time out

I am leery of any formula that looks anywhere but backwards because, in this instance, backwards is where all of the hardish data is to be found.

Estimating future happiness opens the door to that Great Underminer of financial analysis: optimism.

I think that Diane, for example, could give us some pretty good numbers on the total amount of money that she spent on her last coupla bargains, and the total number of hours that she spent shopping, and viewing, and watching the auction action and that, from that hardish data, she could tell us her hourly rate.

So to speak.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

my first reaction to my hour rate question would be. oh baby you can't afford me. hehe lol. but to be serious, I think of it this way, if I drove across town to save 3 cents per gallon of gas, on a road that is nothing but stop lights. in the end would I have really saved the 3 cents. no, that is where my thoughts on money lay. I would rather send the extra 3 cents, and I only have a 15 gallon tank for saying .45 cents was that worth my time no.

doing something for my self, having a day off as where I could spend it having fun. I would put a cost of maybe $25.00/hour.

so having a great day is that really a waste or a paycheck (to ones sanity) it's a paycheck to my sanity, and brings me enjoyment, can you really put a price on that.

what would cost me money would to see an advertisement that said garage sale, items selling house hold, old stamp collection all before 1910. you get in the car and drive there, get in there easily. stand in line and when you get to the box and it's nothing but 1990 stamps all use torn of cover and you ask about the add and they say it was a typo.... now your talking about costing me maybe $30.00 per hour. so unhappiness cost more and then you go home and yell at the first person because it didn't pan out.

not sure if that answered your question.....

Answer, shmanswer, you had fun telling that tale.

What seems to be the most common approach is that we are buying a stamp, that it has a price, and what we get, in terms of value, is the stamp (cake) ... the other rewards (learning, shopping, etc) are a bonus (icing on the cake) that comes along with the stamp.

What I have been doing is to look at the hours of entertainment (learning, shopping, etc) as the cake - the core value proposition, as they say nowadays - and the stamp (or other philatelic item) as the icing.

So I gave the example of the real value being in the hours pawing thru the bargain box (versus watching another movie or re-run), even to the extent that I could throw my new treasures in the trash, and go home calling it a day & cash well-spent.

The main advantage of this approach would be the death of the investment meme, op cit.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey