Spain Collection Just Acquired

I just acquired a collection of stamps from Spain in cards. I have not received them yet but I have some pictures. I would like someone that is familiar with Spain stamps to take a look and see if I got a good deal or not and give me some info on what I bought. I know very little about stamps from Spain. One way to learn is to spend a little money and dig in.

http://www.ckstamps.net/images/O23E8.html

Jaxom, the photo quality is not high so it`s difficult to judge whether these are fair prices. So many are priced between 20 and 40 cents and you certainly can`t go wrong with that! I spot checked the more expensive ones and the listed prices look reasonable to me. Mind, you`re not getting any bargains with the higher priced stamps--from what I can tell--but you seem to be paying fair prices. I think that`s good for both parties.

Your collection looks like a nice smattering of early Spanish stamps. My interest leans more towards the Civil War period, but I would be happy to have these stamps.

Thanks KGB. My cost was $190.00 US. I plan on selling some of the items to try to get my money back and put the rest in my collection. On lots like this, I try to look the items over, spot check the higher value ones, do a quick add (rounded off) of some of the higher items and hold my bid at 10% of the rounded figures I came up with.

You paid $190 right? The prices marked seem to be Scott catalog values.
I quess you'd have to add all the catalog values together and see what % of catalog you paid.

Oh hey, I recognize that collection. You just bought part of lot #687 from Rasdale's last sale. The writing on the cards is a dead giveaway.

This was a collection/accumulation of stamps in 102 cards in forty red boxes. I actually viewed the damn thing. As is usual practice for auction houses, they showed you most of the goodies in the catalog pictures -- there were maybe ten actually meaty boxes, and thirty boxes of familiar stuff. ("Familiar" is the polite auction house term for stamps that are common as dirt.) One of the boxes was filled with 102 cards containing CTO Mauritania, Mali, etc., not even in complete sets. Wasn't too impressed.

But, since I like keeping my stamps in 102 cards anyway, it was a good supplies lot for me. Many of the cards weren't even marked. So I was a bidder -- but because the stamps weren't anything special I wasn't willing to go any higher than $2500 for the lot (and most of that is just the retail cost of the boxes and cards). I was outbid by a paddle I assumed was the agent for one of the big Internet resellers (noblespirit, nystamps, or CKStamps -- these three eat up a lot of the big lots at stamp auctions nowadays). No doubt they had resale dollar signs in their eyes. They don't, however, know much about stamps. They just saw that this was a really big lot and somebody else was willing to bid on it.

I was okay with that, since I figured I'd see them list the red boxes on ebay in a couple months, and then I could bid on only the better boxes. Saves me money in the end. So I've been watching. The China, Norway, Netherlands, Italy have all gone already. You got the Spain, and there are some goodies in the Spain. I wasn't a buyer at $190 but you got some nice stamps there. CK's running out of good stuff from the original lot though -- I think there was some decent Britain and Germany too, but the catalog values on those countries is even more make-believe than most the others.

I'm kinda interested to see how CKStamps does with the weak boxes. After all is said and done, they might make their money back, but after ebay fees there won't be much profit in that lot for them.

Maybe I should have told them I was bidding mostly for the cards?

I just added up the value marked on the cards. I skipped the telegraph stamps (with the holes) and the remainders with the 3 bars. I came up with $3144.85. Paid $190 so that is 6% of marked value. I think I came out good on this one.

Sounds fair to me,

jaxom, that's great!

Nice lot.

The key is to always check out the cards that claim to have stamps with major premiums. For example, the first stamp I checked was the card labeled Spain #69 at $425 -- 12th picture, top card. That card is more than 10% of the lot catalog value (disregarding remainders and telegraph cancels, which you wisely did not include).

This is clearly not Spain #69 as a postage stamp, since the colors are wrong. The picture isn't sharp enough to tell, so you will need to check, but it appears to be a color essay (which would retail ~$25?). Otherwise, it might be postal stationery (don't have postal stationery catalog) or a forgery.

Even if you counted out that stamp, you are still under 10% cost, and there are some nice 4-margin imperfs in there. So still good.

And when determining value, you would want to calculate some percentage as having faults.
Don

Unfortunately I had made the same observation as khj concerning #69, but I didn't want to break the bad news. It's a shame that those high-value Spanish in general are so troubled with either telegraph usage, obsolete bars or forgeries etc.

jaxom100 - You still did a fine purchase, lucky you. The design of those Isabellas are simply so beautiful and classic. Some nice cancellations to.Congratulations - and more importantly - enjoy

Your #69 is actually a color proof, and usually sells in the $5-10 range. Neat to have however.

Yea, I had noticed that the #69 had colors a little too sharp and the edges cut a little too well centered and straight.

What about the 180 and 183?

The #209 has a telegraph punch so is only worth about $20, not the $410 listed. But it is a great space filler. I did not add that one in the totals.

There are a lot of mid range values that have promise.

All in all, a good start to studying some Spanish stamps.

It would be hard to tell anything without a 1200 dpi scan of the individual stamps.

FWIW, I had this very collection on my watchlist. I was going to throw out a low ball bid because there was a couple inexpensive items I thought were neat.

I believe you got a great deal; a great collection of older Spanish and newer Spanish women in traditional dress and costume. The women would be an interesting set to put together. Good selection considering that my collection consists of mainly common Francos. Check out a Scott catalog from your library to see the true value of your stamps.