Where To Buy? Auction Or A Stamps Store?

Hello friends,
i would love your opinion on the difference between buying in an auction of a stamps store.
one thing that brought me to the dilemma is the prices. you can get an item in a MUCH lower price on an auction.
so why buy in a stamps store?

Regards,
Ohad

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

ohadz, do you mean a literal stamp "store" (brick-and-mortar facility), or a dealer who has an on-line "store"?

And do you mean a brick and mortar auction house or an online auction? I don't usually buy individual stamps or sets, and buy country or wider collections in real auctions. There are price advantages, but, unless you can get to the sale, you can't inspect the lot, leading to the arrival of the odd turkey by post. You'll also pay a buyer's premium, generally between 15-25%, and postage, say £10-20. Your £100 lot may, therefore, cist you £130-140. No VAT on the sale of printed matter in the UK, but you may have sales taxes in the US.

Hi,
any store, brick store, online store :)

I would not agree that one always gets a much lower price buying at auction. An auction, if well advertised, can bring in a lot of buyers competing with each other which can drive the price up. And a lot of eyes that can identify value that others may have missed. Whereas at a store (or table at a bourse), there is only you and the dealer. And sometimes you can see something in an item that the dealer has missed. Or perhaps the dealer knows more and can teach you.

It makes a difference what kind of store (retail) you are talking about. If a store owner has overhead costs to cover (rent, maintenance, salaried employees, catalog production and mailing, advertising etc.) then these are built into the cost of the wares sold and could well drive the cost of any particular stamp above what would be realized at an auction. If, however, a dealer is only maintaining an ebay store (for example), then the overhead is comparatively minimal and the same stamp might sell for less than it would at an auction (which would include a buyer's fee).

If you are going to try the auction route, I think it helps to know the dealers reasonably well and their emphasis on quality and how they price their offerings. I have bought most of my stamps at shows, on ebay or through direct contact with dealers I know personally. Some people don't like ebay but I've had less than a dozen bad experiences after several thousand transactions. Recently, I've been bidding at auctions and have won a few nice items. I use dealers that I know or have a good reputation - what I have seen so far is that you pay more for some items but you can also find items at auction that you won't see elsewhere.

It all depends what your price range is and what you are looking for .More information would be needed .

as floortrader says - depends on what you are looking for. Common items, or expensive items. Basic items, or specialized varieties? Single stamps or set, or collections or accumulations?

I think you would do better on ebay or Stamps2Go if you are looking for common items.

Jack Kelley

Hi,
im looking for "expensive" items, specialized varieties ect.
im comparing auction results for some rare items and their price on ebay\online stamps stores and they are higher then the price results on the auction (and I am compering condition as well)

OHADZ -------"You are chasing rabbits " if you don't understand that term ,don't read any further .
I can only tell you about my story ----I was also buying "expensive " items but it was never enough to make my collection something else ,this went on for years and a lot of money .
Then I met a guy in Hawaii who purchased cheap stamps on ebay and he build a collection of Switzerland specialized canceled stamps and he went on to win Gold Medals at stamp shows all over the United States and it was from stuff he purchased that other collectors never understood and he told me everything was cheap that he purchased .
THAT'S WHEN I CHANGED FOCUS .
Today my collection has some very expensive collections inside it like ,various printings of the Heglioland reprints , all the types of Tibet forgeries , a Central Albania collection . and a study of the various types of BLUE FLEA all written up and displayed .
Talk about expensive ? no, nothing cost a lot but the some of the total is something every stamp auction house would love to have in their catalog .

Hi floortrader,
thank you for your story.
my quest in collecting British empire stamps is to have one example of each (as much as the budget will allow).
i dont wish to win medals :)
and in this quest im kind of lost.
why buy at David Brandon for example and not wait for an item to appear on an auction?

I think I have a good example:
Price realised at David Feldman auction: 900 GBP
https://www.davidfeldman.com/auctio...item/284034/

store price: 4200 GBP
http://www.brandonstamps.com/sg114-...p-22502.html

Just looked at your roo's. If you have that sort of $ good luck to you.

Mint older stamps are very hard to keep compared to used ones.

Mint stamps can have gum issues, foxing it can be present without seeing it, insect attack, poor storage at some time of the stamps life and the stamp has fungus spore ready to grow and there are accidents as well of course.

The last time I looked around at the top end of roo's some were selling cheap as like someone needed to get the money back they did not have in the 1st place to spend on the said stamp/s.Or the prices were in the dreamer sellers area totally over the top.

If you are going to spend money on a collectibles like that I would go to this forum's sister coin forum and look around for a few months so as to pick a great area to invest collect in.

The best older stamps in Australia come from Tasmania. If your stamp has lived in humidity you could very well purchasing big problems.

KGV - thank you - interesting stuff!
ohadz - to me, the Brandon looks a much more attractive stamp, at least from the images, plus it has an imprint to the margin. But I'll keep my imaginary four thousand quid for now!