Stamp Market Low?

A stirring defense of the free market.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

revcollector, you are arguing with your own misinterpretation of my words, not with me, based on your preferred definition of terms, not on the basis of what I said. You are welcome to argue with yourself as much as you like, but I am not going to be involved in this meaningless conversation.

Revenuecollector,

You are absolutely right. And this is approximately what I meant — before there was an attempt to ascribe another intent to my words.

One cannot rely on dealers' descriptions, and one should make buying decisions on the basis of one's experience and personal judgement. All those "VF", "FVF", etc., terms in descriptions are misleading most of the time, at least as long as pre-WWII stamps are concerned.

The actual percentage of this "cheating" or "misinformation" (call it what you want), be it conscious or unconscious, intentional or not, may vary, depending on the area of collecting, though in my area, which is 19-th century stamps, it is no less than 80%, and usually is approaching 95%-98%.

I never asserted that my experience is somehow "scientific." There was no talk about science here, and my mentioning of the approximate percentage value does not automatically mean that I am pretending to be a some kind of the stamp market statistician.

It is my experience of more than 40 years in classic philately, whatever it's worth. Of course, if one collects mostly spaceships or dogs on modern stamps, this collector's experience would be vastly different.

ikeyPikey,

Would you rather have government bureaucrats control our stamp market?
Free market is far from perfect but anything else is much worse.

Believe me, I know. I spent first 27 years of my life in a country of triumphant socialism, where collectors tried to trade in the shady "under-the-radar" market, but as soon as somebody would create a really valuable collection (but had no valuable connections), the state officials would come with the police and expropriate his stamps or coins. This sounds better to you, I presume?

"triumphant socialism"????
There is a phrase. And what country was this? It was either communist or some form of military dictatorship, but I doubt it was "socialism", the most misused and misunderstood word in this country, both politically and socially.

We are getting off topic have gotten off topic.
Don

And the problem with this is????

This really is the heart of the problem with philately today, too many collectors see the hobby as a way to "invest" for later years and expect their collections to rise in value so they make a "profit".

Just enjoy the hobby for what it is, a hobby, not an investment scheme for retirement.

I can't help but be a bit concerned about what my kids will get from my collection, be I realize that if I really wanted to increase their wealth, I should get a paper route. And make sure I die soon, before I use up all my retirement money.

Don

Sellers tend to be optimistic. Big deal.

Just to return to the topic, one of the things that we used to trust our local dealers to know was "the going rate" for any given stamp.

With the explosion in the number of sellers, each of whom has a different level of knowledge, a different level of patience, and a different level of motivation, the price of any given stamp is volatile (one is tempted to key "chaotic").

This, in turn, discredits every price list, every quotation, and every seller.

Understanding that sellers can no longer be trusted to know every price at every moment does not, in & of itself, indict them as untrustworthy ... the task has moved beyond them, through no fault of their own.

Expecting or demanding that every seller conduct a market survey before pricing every stamp - and refresh that market survey frequently - imposes an impossible burden that will never be met.

Instead, knowing the current price for any given stamp is a burden that has now shifted to the buyer, and no amount of nasty talk about sellers & dealers is going to put it back where it was.

Best to get over it?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Hmmmm. Seems to me that people are worshipping far too much at the feet of the ebay "gods." When I go online, I use the APS Stamp Store almost exclusively (I'll also buy online occasionally from reputable dealers known to me). The big difference between Stamp Store and ebay is that APS stands behind its product where many ebay dealers do not. I have seen many threads, some here and many at the other SCF, of persons having difficulty with ebay dealers.

Example: I was interested in a Portuguese colonial crown stamp from 1877 at APS a couple years ago. Upon closer examination, I determined it was a Fournier forgery. I reported it and the stamp was promptly removed. Try that with a small time ebay dealer. I've noted on other threads that when I go trolling for Portuguese material, the stuff I've seen on ebay is either way overpriced, or faulty material being passed off as good.

Only downside for me with the Stamp Store is that some sellers price their materials close to full Scott catalog. They get no sales with me unless it's a rare something I totally and absolutely must have.

STAMP MARKET LOW ?????? ---Gee you guys were no place to be seen back in the late 1980's and 1990's when I use to go to major stamp auctions. For many years back then I would fill up the back of my Chevy 4 X4 for $300 to $400 being the only bidder or with some other bidder who was some 80 year old who bid against me . I would fill the whole back end with large boxes containing albums ,stock books , and new issues still in the original issued envelopes , seriously hundreds of thousands of stamps . My wife was nuts ,holling to throw out the binders ,empty stock books , even nice Scott Internationals ,Scott speciality albums , and boxes and boxes of supplies like dealer cards and glassines .
Once even went to Gregg Mannings Auction New Jersey and for $12,000 ,had delivered half a UPS delivery truck of large boxes .I had so many boxes of unsearched stamps from various auction firms that for months I had to park my car outside because the garage was so filled and couldn't process the new material fast enough .
My rule was if a stamp didn't catalog over $5.00 or was a broken set it went into a lot that I was selling thru Linn's Stamp News . Sold thousands of WORLD WIDE CIGAR BOXES at $8.00 each and over the years sold them sometimes 20 a week ,the price went to $18.00 a box .
At auctions like Richard Drews and Regency they would call me after the auctions and if they had any bulk lots left over they would give me a "special price" just to take the huge lots off their hands or not wanting to haul the stuff back to the store .Those were the days of CHEAP STAMPS . That all changed when ebay came around .
How much I got from those days ......well would you believe I still got boxes of unpicked over material in a storage place, that I still plan to work on 20 years and hundreds of auction lot purchases since . THAT WAS THE GOLDEN AGE OF CHEAP STAMPS.

On ebay, I do not see a race to the bottom. Some do price to move but material is priced all over the place and now with a price a person has far more potential buyers.

As said earlier, why go to a show and be restricted to seeing a handful of copies of a stamp when you can see many more online and also do business with dealers online. In fact, I buy a lot from a traditional dealer that sells through his catalogs and ebay.

I am not concerned about the future market value of my collection. My stamp collection is a pastime, a hobby, and I spend on it only my disposable income. When I "invest," on the other hand, I invest in real estate (i.e., my home) and an index mutual fund. I invest serious money in those two things.

I encourage others not to "invest" in stamps. If you do, your return is likely to be far less than if you had invested in a more traditional investment asset, e.g., stocks. Also, stamps can be stolen or damaged, must be insured, your heirs may not dispose of them wisely, etc.

I can only speak from personal experience, but ebay's sellers hub does provide some insight into traffic. I just recently finished up an auction of 63 lots of U.S. stamps (single stamps to bulk lots). All started at 99 cents. 61 of 63 lots sold. 38 buyers with 17 orders over $20 and a few over $100. I did a whole lot better than expected. I normally sell covers, but had the stamps lingering around so I thought best to send them off to ebay to make space. ebay tracks the number of times an item appears in searches, views, etc. I had over 32,000 impressions with many items with more than 100 direct views and over a dozen watchers. Activity was very robust - more so than I've experienced with some cover auctions. I don't know if the market is low or not, but it felt pretty good to me.

"Just enjoy the hobby for what it is, a hobby, not an investment scheme for retirement."

Even for "just" a hobby, I would like to get something back.