China-Why Such A Big Difference?

Concern : China PRC 1952 gymnastic set - 1st issue-MNH
cotation for the 10 blocks of 4
Scott#141 to 150: 360 USD
Michel#146 to 175: 1500 EUR

Wherefrom is that difference ?

Thank you

To be honest, I think the best test of value is to consult auctions and see what these stamps are worth in the real world.

You are probably looking at an older Scott catalog. PRC stamp prices tend to be quite volatile (mostly up).

The 2016 Scott has the original mint set listed at US$1900 and the reprints at US$52.50.

Reprints are not uncommon and if you don't know what the originals are supposed to look like (color shades, paper type), you can be easily fooled.

Scott has always undervalued non-US stamps as compared to catalogs published in other countries. I used to do very well on ebay buying early Russian stamps which sellers valued according to Scott They sold for multiples to non-US buyers.

@khj
I have the Scott 2009.

The problem isn't with the catalog. The problem is that you are using one that old. The runup over the last 7 years (2009 catalog would have been published in 2008) for Chinese material has been ginormous. Using any catalog that old is going to be useless when it comes to volatile areas. For stable/stagnant areas, it may be fine, but for any area that has shown a lot of action, it's not going to be accurate.




In most cases, it's more like "Michel/SG/Facit/etc. always overvalue non-US stamps as compared to actual market prices."

Seriously though, I get what you are saying, but in many cases Scott is far closer to real world prices than Stanley Gibbons or Michel. Sometimes those values are so far removed from real prices as to be laughable.

Scott might be off by a factor of 2 or 3, but Stanley Gibbons and Michel frequently overstate values by a factor of 5-10.

China and other extremely volatile areas are a crapshoot, as just about any catalog is obsolete/inaccurate almost immediately.

@revenuecollector
But on which chinese catalogue ( even issued in 2015) can we rely?

None. As KGB mentioned, completed auction results are likely more accurate than any printed catalog, given the lead time to publishing.

And according to your experience, which countries have dynamic prices like China?

I don't know that we have seen an area recently as volatile as China has been.

It's not just volatility, but if a country or area has seen sustained increases (or decreases) over a period of years, it becomes more critical to use an up-to-date catalog. For example, I would LOVE to be able to buy U.S. revenues based on 2009 Scott catalog prices; there have been some major increases since then.

That's why for the class period collector, the Classic Specialized single volume catalog was such a great innovation. Buy one of those every 2-3 years and you're covering all the bases. Of course, if you collect post-1940 material, that's not an option.

This is where a subscription to an online catalog that gets updated in quasi-real-time (as opposed to just being updated once a year) would be phenomenal. I don't see that coming from Amos Publications at any point in the near future.

As lomg as a catalog is overvalued by more or less the same factor on everything, it is still useful, you just have to do the math.