What Did You Do Philatelically: Today Or Recently?

Stamps temporarily set aside while I worked my way through three auction lots of cigarette cards - most since confined to ebay, with twenty lots on their way to Illinois. Then returned to plodding through some recent auction acquisitions of Madagascar (pretty mixed condition), post-independence Algeria and French Polynesia.

Flexing my trigger finger for the bid button at Cherrystone today. Closing in on completing a particular section of a particular country and this will be a big step. Stay outta my way I tell ya.

Went through my German States collection and found their Scott # in the catalogue. Wrote the Scott number under the bottom flap of the hingless mount. That was about it.

Why do some of the lots in the Cherrystone auction have sold for $XXXX while others say "closed until public auction"?

Had a nice windfall today. A couple of weeks ago I purchased a stock book crammed full of British Empire and Commonwealth stamps from QV to early QE. It had belonged to someone who dabbled in dealing, as some were duplicated 4 or 5 times, and he had marked selling prices up. The book cost £37 with commission. Spent a while checking and integrating into my collection, then found a Tanganyika overprinted GEA sideways watermark, identified as a normal stamp. The normal catalogues at 20p, the sideways at £2250. Sold it to a dealer today for a decent percentage of the cat value.
So the lesson is - always check watermarks!
Best regards
DavidR

Well done, David! Now if I were only any good at seeing watermarks …. My windfalls have tended to come from things I don't really collect, but have bid on in the "miscellaneous" sections of stamp and cigarette card auctions for a bit of fun. My best turn was a sheaf of WWII printed matter that I paid £30 for, and disposed of on ebay in the next couple of weeks for £400.

Stephen, I don't know any specifics about this auction or whether you are viewing this on SAN or not, but many times any auction lots not sold are designated as "Closed" post-auction on SAN.

Rhett, yes I was looking at the Cherrystone auction via SAN. Looking at prices items sold for and kept coming up with the closed designation in the midst of others with prices realized. Wondered why there was a difference. Guess they didn't want to say "Passed". Thanks for your response.

Mounted classic:
Fiume
Dahomey to 1944
Diego-Suarez*
Dominica to QE2
Eastern Rumelia*
Epirus*
Eritrea

*very small number of stamps

Mounted classic:

Danish West Indies (4 pages, 10 stamps)
Danzig (25, 228)
Denmark (26, 223)

next up is classic Czechoslovakia (including Bohemia and Moravia, and Slovakia)

I participated in local auction. bidding for India independence series lot. Hoping I will be lucky.

Finished mounting Czechoslovakia proper through 1939 and back of book through 1959. 47 pages and 476 stamps. Had to modify several pages. Used up at least 10 packs of mounts in the past few days. Might need to restock some sizes.

Well awaiting a few stamp orders before taking a haitus from buying stamps for a few months (well if I don't get tempted!). One ebay was lost in the mail but got a refund.

Awaiting following:
USPS Meyer fruit coil stamps - just a few from each coil (from ebay)
A 1929 Blacksmith stamp from Turkey MNH and quite nice looking
2020 Latvia's 125 anniversary of cinema commemorative stamp
A whole bunch of post 2009 Icelandic stamps ordered from Icelandic Post.

Hopefully the USPS will cooperate and I will receive these in good condition. Most of my orders are under $50 so except for Icelandic Post, the sellers do offer tracking due to the low value of the items. I wonder, do any of you encounter this? If so, do you simply hold off ordering until you have enough to reach a value that would have the seller send it with a tracking number?

My ebay experience as a seller is that the lost-in-post rate is about one in a thousand. In years of buying in ebay, I've only had one purchase not arrive. Too many tracked and signed items, particularly those not sent abroad, merely represent an unnecessary cost.

My experience as an ebay and HipStamp seller is similar to GeoffHa.

I would only add that USPS delivery service is very erratic and can be VERY slow. Four-six weeks from USA to UK or AU is no surprise. It has been this way for two years.