The Sun Will Still Come Up Tomorrow After Scott Lowers Many Values In Its New Specialized Catalog.

My US collection; 1847 to about 2006; is inactive. Meaning that I'm not adding anything and almost all of the classic stuff that I have has been in the collection for 10 years or more. So, I'm not real concerned about what the new US Specialized says.

I sometimes wonder, however, where they get their valuations. Auction houses? Few months ago, I noticed my very fine, mint-no gum as issued, copy of Angola C20 dropped from $900 few years ago to $625 in the current regular Scott catalog. The scarcity of the full set (C10-20), mint or used, remains as far as I know. So why a 30% drop? Nothing in the Portuguese literature about a major new discovery (as happened last year with the Mexico 1934 University sets).

The 2015 Mundifil/Afinsa catalog for former colonies, which is the current one, shows the C20 stamp cataloging at E 820, which works out to around US $950. So, go figure.

Climber - sounds to me more like lower demand for Portuguese Colonies in the USA is softening values in the American market???

Meanwhile with Portugal's economy on the rebound after the Great Recession, the market there might be much stronger.

just looked on ebay - a Portuguese dealer has the whole set of 11 airs unused no gum as issued selling at US$3200.00.

DJCMHOH: good thoughts about the US market. You could well be right. I don't track ebay; mainly due to US dealers selling colonial stuff priced too high, or stuff is damaged (from my limited research). I'll have to review ebay Portugal, and also England.

Angola Scott values have been historically stronger than, say, Mozambique. Macau went through the roof in late 1990s and early 2000s with the growth in China and Hong Kong issues. Whatever, my set of C10-20 is now complete; mint or used; thanks to getting C16 used, and a couple cheaper lower values mint, from a Portuguese dealer when I was in Lisbon last month.

climber - actually the ebay listing was on the USA site, but the dealer was based in Portugal. I don't *think" there is an ebay.pt for Portuguese speakers since it is a small market

After sitting through the Schuyler Rumsey sessions yesterday and today, to me there does not appear to be any softening, especially in back-of-book material.

Some random comments:

People going after graded material continues to pump certain material into stupid money territory, IMO. As much as we lament the practice of sacrificing multiples to create high-grade singles, it appears to be paying dividends, so the practice will sadly continue.

The Officials, especially the covers, were VERY strong... some incredibly so.

I didn't get any of the 4 U.S. revenue lots I planned to bid on. They all went above what I was willing to pay, one insanely so.

Sigh. Oh well, it frees up money for Chicagopex next month.

Rev - I was watching the bidding at Schuyler today and was also surprised at how strong the realizations were. Hopefully when I actually bid through SAN tommorrow everyone will go to the bathroom when my lots come up.

I want to ask about this point made earlier in this thread:

"But for stamps that exist in small numbers, or moderate numbers but few truly in VF+ condition, certified to be authentic and not reperfed, regummed, repaired or a forgery, prices will always be strong and probably grow stronger as those collectors who can afford to "upgrade" items to a better condition chase a smaller number of stamps that truly are in that condition or simply do not exist in large numbers in any condition."

This says that stamps available in limited numbers in very fine condition (etc) will "probably" increase in value/price. But why? If collectors are chasing a "smaller number of stamps" then either there are more collectors buying stamps -- or the number of stamps available is declining. Which is it? I haven't heard that there was a smaller number of stamps. And I certainly haven't heard of any significant increase in the number of collectors. In fact, all the claims are that the number of collectors is gradually declining. Price increases in collectibles like stamps should be caused by either a scarcity or an increase in demand. If the number of such stamps remains about the same and the demand doesn't change much, why would prices automatically increase?

Many people claim that stamp collecting is not growing, but gradually aging and shrinking. If that's true, that means there will be fewer collectors over time, not more. Or maybe the remaining collectors are getting wealTheir? Has someone surveyed collectors incomes?

I know some auctions suggest dramatically rising prices. If you've sat in one, you'd sometimes think that all stamp prices were doubling in value. Sitting at an auction and watching bidders bid "crazy" prices may be typical -- or it might be very atypical. Maybe these bids are coming from a very small number of aging wealthy collectors determined to fill their collections before they die? Or maybe it's buyers bidding for clients' "portfolios" purely as investments. I've sat in auctions where a stamp which catalogued at, say, $100 got bid up to $6-700 for no known reason I could see. I've spoken with bidders who said outright that they were acting as agents for others who were putting rare stamps into investment portfolios. But this is a rarified and very tiny segment of stamp collecting, one that can't be typical across the board for stamp prices. The overwhelming majority of stamps are not purchased at auctions. Most likely they're purchased on ebay.

If Scott bases its pricing mainly on auction sales, they're nuts. They certainly need to include other stamp sales and that should include ebay since ebay is where most stamps get purchased today.

My own experience may not be typical, but the higher value stamps I've finally been able to buy recently are selling at the same prices they sold at 4-5 years ago. These include the U.S. zeppelins, #1, #2, Columbians, and some key foreign stamps. I've seen few increases over that time. So, from my perspective at least, prices for higher priced, higher quality stamps (not rare, just more expensive) have plateaued. In some cases, they've even declined by 10-20%. My experience may not be typical, of course.

the one area where stamp prices will go up steadily is genuine rarities as well as stamps close to being rare, because of investment value in someone's "portfolio," not for purely collecting reasons. Such stamps may or may not go into actual collections but into safety deposit boxes.

I'm a lot more interested in the pricing of the other 99.9% of stamps that collectors buy. If their catalogue values rise, why do they rise? Are stamps declining in numbers? How can that be? Are there more collectors buying stamps today? There doesn't seem to be. Are there more stamp sales today than there were a few years ago? Has there been any survey of this? And if there is, is it primarily the easier availability of stamps online that's increasing sales of stamps? This last possibility may be the key.

If ebay sales were included prices would tank.

ebay would be dismissed as not retail for the mythical dealer.

Drew you kinda answered your own question when you say "not rare, just expensive." There are thousands of nice mint hinged FVF centered Zepp sets in the market, more than the number of collectors who are looking for a set in that condition at current price levels, so prices will drop until it reaches a level to bring in more buyers.

Now MNH XF centered Zepp sets on the other hand, are not hugely common in the marketplace, and probably not in enough quantity to meet demand from collectors who want the set at that rarified level of quality. Thus for that small subset of zepps prices continue to rise, even if for the vast majority of zepp sets prices are depressed.

Thus except for the small % of an issue that is in exceptional condition or has some other remarkable trait, the majority of even "expensive" issues of the USA are being depressed. Scott actually adresses this quite well in its "graded stamp values" section in the middle of the US specialized which shows just how much of a split between "standard grade" and "exceptional grade" there is.

Do you think Scott values accurately presents the market?

No catalog has ever reflected "the market" and never will. Why? There's no such thing as "the market".

A catalog can accurately reflect a SEGMENT of the market.

What is "the market"?

Auction house sales?
Stamp show dealer sales?
Brick & mortar sales?
Mail order sales?
APS circuit sales?
ebay sales?
Delcampe sales?
Collector-to-collector sales?
etc.

Catalogs are priced at full retail in a specific grade, so types of sales at the top of the above list are likely to be more closely correlated to catalog values than those towards the bottom.

My point was intentionally vague. The discussion of Scott prices has to define what market (segment or another term is channel) is being priced.. It would be interesting to know (no data) on the sales volume for each channel but ebay is a likely influence. It may be ignored in the pricing despite the transactions (number of sales not value of sales).

Credentials - I am a "lurker" and a nearly lifelong US and UN collector (with the usual hiatus during the child rearing years) and more recently a Canada collector as well.

My impressions of stamp values are that UN has virtually fallen through the floor - I have been able to get nearly a full collection of UN MI blocks for less than 20% of what I estimated to have paid for my singles collection (I buy mostly at auction and occasionally ebay) plus accumulated tons (maybe literally!) of extras as a result. Except for the recent new stamps the UN issues, there is basically no value - so I am glad I like them to look at. I actually started collecting UN in the mid '60's because I thought they were very colorful. BTW, the entire UN collection is VF or better MNH except the Timor stamps which are CTO MNH.

As for my US collection, I have not added anything except new issues as I see the prices always a bit lower than the last time I searched. I do not buy into the hype of the "graded" or "SMQ" because I think (especially as pertains to ebay)that dealers try to "make a market" on certain issues. Why else would a dealer buy a stamp from me on ebay and then turn around and sell it for 20% more than I sold it to him for? And once even used my same pictures! I know Columbians and Zeps and a few others will always command a premium if only because we couldn't afford them as kids thus making them popular to have (of course printed numbers are very low too). I have yet to meet a genuine collector who has paid "graded" or "SMQ" prices - but have talked to numerous dealers who have the same stock year after year quoting "graded" prices and try to convince me to buy.

I have concentrated on CA stamps for the past couple of years and have a respectable collection now. I would estimate that I have spent less than $2750 on the collection but have numerous stamps and sets worth that alone if I could believe the ebay prices. Again, because of auctions, I have a great deal of extras, but do not believe I have overpaid for anything in spite of the duplications.

My main beef is the cost of mounting - which in my case has cost way more than the stamps themselves. I use Scott National pages and Hawid mounts and neither go for much discount - if at all. But I have won an award for presentation, so I'm not the only one who thinks it looks good ;-)

I wrote all this because I recently had a dealer offer to purchase the collection (unsolicited) and the quote did not even cover the cost of the albums - so I told my wife when I die to to send everyone letters and bury the rest of them with me ;-)

Thanks for reading my 2¢ worth and know that I enjoy reading everyones' opinion on the many topics raised here.