Woohoo! I've Got A Hot Date For Chicagopex!

Tomorrow night... before the show opens Friday morning... I'll be spending all night in a clandestine torrid affair with...

10 stockbooks of U.S. revenues!

I'm meeting up with one of the dealers tomorrow afternoon at the hotel and he's letting me take his fresh new material and look through it ahead of time so as not to have to spend time during the show.

So I'll be sequestered in my hotel room burning the midnight oil with stamps.

(Hey, it may not sound sexy to you, but it sure does to me! )

Wow! I hope you can show us some of your (hopefully) new findings!

Peter

It's funny how you get to know people after a while. I knew exactly who created this post before opening it.

Sounds like fun.

Lucky dog....

If you could add in food and TV, like George Costanza, then you'd be on to something.

I shouldn't have looked. I know it happens and it's a reality, and maybe I'm naive, but I'd rather not know that a dealer's stock has been picked through before the show and all the best stuff is probably gone before I get there. Although I admit that if I was given the chance to do this myself, I'd jump at it.

Rustyc - Just think the dealer picked through it before it got to a customer, the stamp collector picked through it before it got to the dealer. It's all one gaint pick fest. Those who are really good at it, such as the author of this thread, can turn it to their good fortune.

smauggie, I know that. I'm just an ostrich who pulled his head out of the ground for a minute. Plus, of course, I'm green with envy.

Of course, the fear that the best stuff can get picked before you get to it presupposes that stuff is selling, period. Further, that there is an advantage to picking thru the stuff before others pick thru it reinforces that thought. So, if the stuff is selling, how is the hobby doing?

I don't know that you can extrapolate to "the condition of the hobby" as a whole, as certain areas/pockets are vibrant and others are stagnant.

The U.S. revenues category appears to be enjoying active status and has been on the rise for a number of years now. The biggest complaint I hear from dealers is that anything new they get sells rapidly, the problem is that they can't find material to replace it. Of course the best and freshest material goes to two dealers (Eric & Richard), leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.

At auction, when I get either pushed beyond my comfort zone or shut out entirely, on a regular basis, that tells me that stamp collecting is alive and well, at least as far as the U.S. revenue areas I collect (1st-3rd issue, proprietary 1st & 2nd issue, illegal/improper usages). Bart can likely speak more to the general state of things in those areas I don't collect, as there is a HUGE realm of revenue stamps that I don't even touch. What I hear is that reds and greens are also enjoying popularity, as are match & medicines.

You guys are assuming that everybody is picking out the same stuff. That's not true .

Absolutely! I've sat side-by-side with collectors at shows, both of us collecting similar areas, and we each gravitate towards different items. Heck, I've looked at items that I *KNOW* I've seen in their inventory in previous years, but this time a different aspect appeals to me or I see something I missed before, either due to cursory examination the first time around or my having learned more since the previous time I saw it.

At the end of the day, there are no assurances that it is "fresh" other than the dealer's say-so, and we all know how that goes. Did he have it at a show last week/month? Did he pull material for wantlists or inventory?

"Fresh" just means that I haven't seen it before, and thus it's fresh to me.

If I came off that way, that was not my intent. If you know what you are doing you can still pick up nice stuff.




Eric was at our local APS show this summer for the first time and according to the scuttlebut he did well and plans to return.

Well... less than an hour into CHICAGOPEX and I'm effectively done buying for the whole weekend. Why? After going through the not 10 but 12 stockbooks of 1st-3rd issue revenues last night, I broached the possibility of buying the whole kit and kaboodle, and after some give and take we came to terms.

Easily the largest and most expensive revenue accumulation I have purchased to date. No heavy hitters (although the seller found an $800 imperf I hadn't noticed) or key items, but just mountains of material. The previous owner was a flyspecker and had an obsession for silk papers and plate varieties, so there are lots of varieties and possible varieties throughout. Many of the indicated silk papers are bogus, as he didn't differentiate between wood pulp fibres, flotsam, and real silk threads. Also he ignored paper type and cancel date... so the majority are bogus. That said, there *ARE* more than a few legit silk papers throughout.

Lots of cancels. While most are of the normal bank and insurance type, there are also mining, railroad, playing card, proprietary, and even a half dozen Pacfic Mail steamship cancels.

Pictures will be forthcoming before I start breaking it down, but it will be a while. There's probably in the area of 10,000-15,000 stamps in the lot.

My credit card aches, but man it's going to be fun!

When you start finding duplicate plate varieties remember that I exist. :-)

I thought a meme was appropriate for the occasion.