What Does Smq Mean In An Ebay Listing?

The only answer I can find on the internet is this...

"SMQ calculation is based on the price evolution of a currency through time, any event causing a raise in the markets volatility can be identified and set apart for further analysis. This makes it a valuable Fundamental and Technical Analysis tool capable of quantifying the impacts caused by news events, the placement of large orders, cascades of liquidations, and ubiquitous unbalances between buyers and sellers"

What would this have to do with stamps?


-IBFS

SMQ is the publication "Stamp Market Quarterly". It is a price guide for highly graded stamps from expensive auction houses. Think of it as the Neiman Marcus catalogue of overpriced stamps.

Gotcha. Thanks for the info.


-IBFS

What it means in an ebay listing is hold on to your wallet.

IBFS, the Stamp Market Quarterly (SMQ) is a publication of Professional Stamp Experts (PSE) that values U.S. stamps in various grades of quality. The "SMQ" value, when referring to a stamp on ebay or any other venue, is an abbreviation for it's value in it's PSE-awarded grade in the current Stamp Market Quarterly. These values are available in the actual publication or online at the PSE website in a query format. The Stamp Market Quarterly (SMQ) and Scott Stamp Values by Grade (SSV) in the U.S. Specialized Catalog are the two primary valuing mechanisms used by collectors of graded U.S. stamps. Typically, SMQ values are used for PSE-graded stamps and SSV values are used for stamps that have been graded by the Philatelic Foundation (PF) or Philatelic Stamp Authentication and Grading, Inc. (PSAG).

If anyone has seen a "Red Book" of US coin prices, I think it's an attempt to mirror that somewhat. Coins are priced not just in one grade, but in a chart form that prices any given date and mintmark of a coin from extremely worn ("Good" or lower) all the way up to perfect uncirculated. Standard stamp catalogs only give one price, for the grade of VF, leaving the individual to guess how to adjust pricing up or down for other grades. SMQ is a price guide that includes each grade and is supposed to take some of the guesswork out of it.

Just to let you know Art, The Scott Specialized Catalog of United States Stamps and Covers does have a section I call "the yellow pages", where stamps are priced according to grade. Grades are listed from VG(50) to superb(98). The pages aren't yellow, only the edges.

This section used to be it's own catalog available annually for $20.00. That is, until Amos Publishing noticed an opportunity for greed and said to themselves "what have we been doing!?", at which point they discontinued that catalog. They then made it part of the Scott Specialized... So that anyone who only ever used the old $20.00 catalog would have to buy the entire Scott Specialized...catalog for $99.00.

A move of brilliant evil genius.


-IBFS

Not to say anything nice about Amos, but the decision to stop publishing a limited-run stand-alone item that retailed for U$D 20 may have been driven more by loss than profit.

They could have raised the price & sold fewer copies, which might only have made things worse.

Instead, they added value to the Specialized, the audience for which would, I dare guess, nicely overlap the audience for the 'yellow pages'.

Yes, people probably bought a new Specialized less often than they would have bought the 'yellow pages', so there is an upside to Amos, but if we don't keep them alive, who will?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

"...publishing a limited-run stand-alone item that retailed for U$D 20 may have been driven more by loss than profit"

...especially when (at the time) PSE was pretty much giving their SMQ guide away for free to anyone who asked or ever submitted a stamp to them... There was really no reason for someone to spend that $20. Sales must have been dismal (or nonexistent.)

Rileysan said "Think of it as the Neiman Marcus catalogue of overpriced stamps." IMO, SMQ values actually represent pretty fair retail prices for graded stamps, and the auction realizations support that comment. And they don't just cover "highly graded" items, they also price many stamps down to VG-50 (a pretty "lowly" graded item.) I assume Rileysan was just making a joke, but in case anyone unfamiliar w/ SMQ was taking that seriously...

BTW, the SMQ guide is now totally free for everyone, and can be found at http://gradingmatters.com/stamp-val...and-pop.html (where you can also find PSE census information.)

Yes, I think Rileysan was joking, but so you know...the website found at http://gradingmatters.com/stamp-val...and-pop.html gives 15 grades between 70 and 100. It doesn't go as low as grade 50. And on the stamp I tried (US No. 319, arbitrarily) only 69% of the values in the table showed up.


-IBFS

IBFS, PSE only displays a selection of commonly used grades for their web site query function. The full list is available in the print version. And they do not list values for any stamp for grades where they feel they do not have enough information to price (e.g. too little sales or no known copies in that grade).

It was a half-joke. SMQ represents real-world prices of graded material from big auction houses, but that is like saying Neiman Marcus represents the cost of housewares, automobiles, et al.

The problem with SMQ is that it does not represent real-world prices - it only represents the prices that the wealthiest of collectors are paying for the best graded stamps. But you must ask yourself - are common stamps graded Gem100 worth 100 to 1000 (times, not %) more that cat value?!?

Depends what you mean by "real-world". If a collector, wealthy or not, is paying the SMQ price stated for a stamp with the corresponding SMQ grade, then necessarily SMQ does reflect real-world pricing. I think you mean that SMQ doesn't represent average pricing for average stamps. I don't think SMQ should be denigrated just because it represents a market segment in which some SCF members don't participate.




What's an example in the current SMQ where you see this?

http://www.psestamp.com/prices/fram...ype_=1922-25 Regular Issues (551-573)

Take a look at used copies of US 551 or 552. Each one has a used price listed by SMQ (Superb 98) of $195. This represents a 780x increase over the standard cat value of $.25. I have seen gem 100 copies of these listed on ebay for $2000.

I honestly don't care if someone wants to pay 100, 1000, or 100,000 times catalogue values for an item - it's their money. What irritates me is that dealers present SMQ as a definitive price guide for graded stamps - which it is not. It is only representative of prices paid by people with no budget in NY auction houses.

Brian

My favorite is the grading of imperforate stamps.

http://www.psestamp.com/prices/fram...28575-577%29

The only thing this will drive is the sacrificing of 3 stamps in a block of 4 to get the "Gem" listing.