So They Tell Me The Stamp Market Is Crashing?

The classic beer stamps did very well; for some reason the post prohibition beers did not in many cases. How much the lesser design quality plays into that is anyone's guess, but some very rare stamps did not sell today. Since the major revenue dealers declined to bid, my assumption is that there are no major players out there right now willing to spring for the later material at a show either. I expect that sooner or later the people who went after the earlier material will get around to them.

"First of all. people do look for them".

People don't usually sit down with 500 or 1000 mint or used examples in a box looking for graded examples very often. As I said, they look at whatever shows up in front of them. So at a major show they might see 100-150 a few times a year. And even a very active dealer will only see a few thousand a year; there must be at least 50,000,000 mint examples if not more even now and a few hundred million used ones.

Irrespective of issuing authority a good looking well centred stamp will invariably fetch a premium over a less attractive example of the same stamp. Often a MNH example will fetch double (unwarranted in my opinion) that of a similar lightly mounted mint copy.

However this preoccupation with grading that can propel even mediocre examples such as the ragged-perf 5c blue that started this thread into silly price territory seems peculiar to collectors of US and to a lesser extent Canadian stamps.
Could it be, that because most US stamps were printed in such enormous quantities, that very few US stamps are actually very rare or scarce, so this emphasis on grading seems to be a way of artificially elevating the scarcity factor of otherwise mundane stamps.

Clive

Partly, but I think it's also a challenge to collect only the very best for those that can afford to. If you're a genuinely wealthy person (multimillion $ net worth), just buying any old copy of a stamp isn't much of a challenge. Such a person could buy all but a couple dozen or so rarities in one fell swoop, pretty easily. What's the fun in that? Collecting only the finest available is much more of a challenge. If I had stupid amounts of money in the bank, I probably wouldn't mess around with merely VF stamps, either. Again, there would be no challenge in it.

I bid on three beer stamps at the Siegel auction. Won all three. Thought I would be lucky to win one with very strong bids. Ex-Scarsdale, Ex-Hinman and I faired quite well. Surprised me.

"...there must be at least 50,000,000 mint examples if not more even now and a few hundred million used ones."

This is a joke, right?

Did Bill Gross focus on graded stamps?

The wonderful and complete Bill Gross collection of nineteenth century U. S. stamps was formed largely before the graded era, so I doubt if there are many (if any) graded stamps in it. He completed his collection with his trade for the 1 cent Z-grill circa 2005.

"This is a joke, right?"

I hope so.

Rhett: When meaning complete collection, does it mean complete according to the Scott catalogue numbers?

Why should it be a joke? That number is less then 1/30th of the total issued,or just over 3%.

jogil: To the best of my knowledge, that is exactly right - the Scott catalog numbering system was the completeness criteria.
revcollector: Your reasoning is not compelling in the face of the reality of surviving examples. No one knows the survival rates for these classic stamps. You originally guessed that 0.01% of the 2 cent Columbians survived in a never hinged condition that would grade 98; the actual % may well be 0.0000000001% or any other percentage for all we know. What we do know is that only a very few are known to us today. Very, very few. For the 15 years of the graded era, there has been a tremendous financial incentive for folks to find such a condition anomaly and, regardless of what you think, people do look for them constantly. The market recognizes what it knows, not some guess as to how many of the 2 cent Columbians that were issued were of a certain centering and were never in their lifetime hinged and managed to survive.

That market doesn't go looking for anything, the buyers of graded stamps simply wait for them to show up at auction. As for how many 231's are out there, I break down and catalog large lots and collections on a regular basis, so I have some realistic idea of how many I see in a year. All we know is that only 385 have actually been graded. That breaks down to about 25 per year, 2 a month. BTW 0.0000000001% would be impossible, since it would only equate to about 1/8 of a stamp. Even if 99% were used, and even if 99% of the mints were ungradable, and even if 99% of the gradable were less then 98, that would still leave nearly 1500 examples for those top two grades. If you want to think that a stamp with such a huge printing has almost no superb examples, more power to you. I will continue to think that only a fool would spend $2100+ for one.

Bill gross sold his scott #1 and #2 collection in 2013. I don't think there was one graded stamp in the collection.

Prices that were realized in the sale were just as high as graded stamp counterparts/equivalents....if not higher!

it's much different reviewing his collection with all the great cancels, double transfers and plate varieties , and color variations. Today many of the collections being sold are focused solely on highly graded stamps. (Clipper city, Hanover, etc).

I prefer to get my inspiration from Gross, but no doubt the Graded stamps are beautifully centered and nice to look at.

I wouldn't be surprised that at least half the stamps in Gross collection that were sold in 2013 now have graded certs.

revcollector, the fact is that only 31 of the 2 cent Columbians have been graded 98 or higher by PSE and none by the PF. That makes any of these 31 stamps scarce in my opinion. My opinion is that others will be found in the future but the trend won't change much; that trend is averaging about 2 stamps found per year over the past 15 years. The one in the sale is graded 98J (and only 3 of the 2 cent Columbians have graded higher at present), which is assigned an SMQ value of $2950. That is an opinion of value that is generally accepted for graded stamps; the value of course has changed over time and can change in the future. The fact is that, for this stamp, someone paid $1800 hammer which equates to $2124 with the commission added. In my opinion, that person bought this stamp at a bargain price when compared to the SMQ of $2950. In my opinion, that does not make this person a fool. I recognize your opinion is different on this and you are entitled to it. (For the record, I did not buy this stamp.)