Feeding Frenzy In Australia Over The 2016 30c Provisionals

Individual collectors can spend their collecting dollars any way they choose, of course, but my personal thought is "Gah! Think of the nice classic stamps you could get for that!". I wonder how many are speculators, just hoping to make a profit if the price keeps going up.

Easily done, actually, as I am absolutely unfamiliar with the phrase "PONZI GAME" ...

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014...-ponzi-game/ ... but if its good enough for Nouriel Roubini, its good enough for me.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

DJCMHOH,
Is Glen Stephens involved with promoting these issues?
Don

51-stud

Glen has been selling them yes, the few that he was able to get.

My question is whether they are considered like regular stamps or like what in the US we call APC stamps? (elsewhere they are called ATM stamps or framas)

Unlike the APC stamps, they had the denomination printed on them by the PO before they were offered for sale rather than printed at the time of purchase, but I think the machine used for the printing may have previously been used just like our APC machines and I think there were earlier stamps produced by this machine (that may have been more easily available) but that they are not listed by Scott. Now I realise that we are free to collect what we want and don't have to let Scott limit us, and I further realise that your average collector in Australia doesn't use Scott, but I still wonder what the real size of the demand is.

and you still won't know then as some people won't fess up and others may well provide false low numbers




Now those I would love to get my hands on.

Thanks DJCMHOH.
In the mid 1990s I started one of the first stock day trading web sites. The two fellows doing the picks were retired Wall Street guys and their picks seemed indeed to be quite profitable. The site took off and we soon had hundreds of paid subscribers. Wall Street Journal and Barron's interviewed me and ran articles on the site which generated even more subscribers. About 2 weeks later the SEC came a knocking and crawled through my all of my stock transactions and my 401k account. Simply put, they were concerned that by publishing the picks we might be 'pumping and dumping' (running up the value of the stocks on the web site and then selling them off , leaving those who had also bought into them based on our picks footing the drop in price afterwards) . They gave us all a clean bill of health and none of us got in any trouble but it taught me a good lesson.

I am not saying that this is what is going on but the potential would make me quite leery about investing in these stamps. There is a potential conflict of interest when something is marketed heavily by those who stand to profit, especially if those people are prone to puffery. I do agree it will be interesting to watch and see how this plays out.
Don

Don,

I would suggest that you read the complete thread.

http://www.stampboards.com/viewtopi...76&start=300

There is no puffery, no conflict of interest, just a continuing record of what happened. No one knows what will happen in the future after the initial finds have been sold which was mainly on ebay.

FYI, Glen did acquire a few sets within a few days and sold them for about 1/10th. of what they were realising on ebay a few days later, no one could have guessed they would have been so popular but unlike what some other members mentioned, Australian Peel & Stick issues are very popular amongst many collectors and may most probably are the most popular material for Australian collectors of modern issues. If you check Exhibits at shows of modern material you will find many Peel & Stick entries.

The moment of truth will occur in a few months time when they will start showing up at Auction Houses although I doubt many will as ebay appears to be the best place for this type of material and much quicker for payment and cheaper.

Pagoda

Looks like this issue comes down to what EYEONWALL said "what the real size of the demand is". But 51 STUDEBAKER thinks this could be a "pumping and dumping" or as I said it is the "burning match game".
The best clue to what is going on ,is to look how past performance of these AUSTRALIAN COUNTER PRINTED STAMPS , how they have been selling . Yes they are listed in Australian catalogs and the have a collectible interest of followers ,so there is no issue that people collect them. But when you start to look at prices in the past and the "feeding frenzy" going on now ,you start to understand all the craziness needs to settle down . Past performance is the best indictator of what they are worth .
If we look at other issues and these may have 2500 sets released then a price of $25.00 or $30.00 is more in line for COUNTER PRINTED STAMPS .

These items bear no relationship to previous Counter Printed stamps as they were sold over Post Office Counters to be used make up values.

No one knows what the value will be in the future and time will tell that. It is unlikely that any more mint will be found but an occasional cover will turn up in kiloware.

Pagoda

It's a joke, and not in any way philately. Just like those Upright Jennies.

Why a Joke?

Did you read the first post of this thread by DJCMHOH?

There was a legitimate need for these emergency/provisional
stamps and they were used for what stamps are supposed to
be used for to mail letters.
In this case a 30c make up rate which combined
with the 70c previous first rate stamps paid the
new $1.00.

So where is the problem?

How so. Unlike the Upright Jennys, this was not a release planned in some corporate marketing boardroom. This was the regional head of Australia Post in Adelaide responding to an emergency situation when product customers were demanding was not available due to distribution errors with the current 30c definitive not being available at the time of the postal rate increase from Au$0.70 to Au$1.00.

Unless you think this is some deep dark plot by Australia Post higher-ups to create "buzz" for themselves by manufacturing the shortage to "legitimize" production of these provisionals. Which sounds to me like way much tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory to even seem remotely plausible.

Not sure you can compare this issue to previous counter-printed issues, since those were produced for specific local events in South Australia for the collector community and were not sold at post offices throughout metro Adelaide, only at the events they honored. This 2016 provisional issue is the exact opposite of that, it was printed explicitly for general consumers to use via purchase over the window counters at post offices which had run out of normal 30cent stamps. The philatelic community was NOT the market for these issues, they were to fill the needs of postal consumers at large during a shortage of product, and when that product was again available, the production of these provisional issues ceased, with no "extra" as far as I have read, being produced to meet possible collector demand.

Unlike the special event printings where there were 2500 sets produced for the collector community, here the number of sets produced were produced to fill general consumer needs, and while it is not currently known exactly how many complete mint sets of this issue remain, I would hazard to guess it is likely well under the 2500 figure.

I don't waste my time on this type of stuff ,The dealers will be all over them buy them up & charge the world for them as usual .