With Wingate Only A Week Away, The Health Of The Rare Stamp Market Will Be Tested

With several marquee U.S. stamp collections on the horizon, the health and general state of the U.S. stamp market is about to get its report card. Personally, I think if a sale like Wingate can't bring serious U.S. collectors out of the woodwork, the future of the U.S. stamp market could be in jeopardy. The key component here will be the activity level and the number of bids garnered. To me, this is equally as important as the actual prices realized. Keep in mind, that Cherrystone and Spink will also be sellling outstanding U.S. collections, and both less than a month after Wingate. Finally, Bill Gross's collection will be hitting the blocks in September. Is there enough interest and money to absorb all of these philatelic treasures? That seems to be the burning twenty five million dollar question!

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Prices have been strong recently, there is no reason to think this sale won't do well.

I guess it's the quantity and dollar value of rare US stamps that will be hitting the market in the next 6 months that has me a bit concerned, both of which may be unprecedented.

Its an interesting question as to how many, if any, buyers will be holding off from this sale, in preparation for the Gross sales.

Probably for the very high end buyer, it doesn't matter, as they don't have the monetary constraints. Prior to the New York 2016 show, I noticed what appeared to be a very sparse participation in at least one, otherwise decent Siegel sale. It was pretty obvious that people were saving for the 10 year show and associated sales/events.

Personally, I think that the Wingate sale will do well. The initial Gross sale, appears as though it will target a small set of very well funded collectors.

I bid on 5 items in last Siegel sale few weeks ago... I lost all 5. I was the underbidder on 2 lots. My bids were on low end for items but I thought I would win perhaps 1 or 2. Nope. Thus, I will predict Wingate sale will do well. Most of these lots are unused. I collect used. Most lots are expected to sell above 1000$. Tough dollar stratosphere to collect in. Fun to watch. Perhaps I'll throw out a bid on something under 1000$. Really not much to choose from at that level however.

There will be plenty of collectors who can afford Wingate but perhaps not Gross, and will bid accordingly.

It will be an interesting year. Just because a collector is well funded does not mean that they are willing to bid any given item to the moon. The number of US collectors is really not known but numbers are bandied about. Let us say one million. If 1/10 of one percent were serious players on big dollar items that equals 1000 people. Lots of ways to analyze it.

The only one that really seems unprecedented in my opinion is the Gross collection. That is truly beyond beyond. But there was the Hall auction in 2015 that was at least as good as Wingate and there are the "rarity" auctions every year. I'm sure this won't be anything different. We're yet to see the full scale of the Gross collection, but that will be something to watch for sure! Not sure it says much about the overall health of the hobby, but it will be something to see how many buyers there are for that super high-end stuff.

I agree, that as a single collection goes, YES, Gross is the only single collection that is "unprecedented". My statement was that collectively, the number of significant U.S. collections over a 6 month period (Wingate, David Mace, Spink Collector's Auction and finally Gross U.S. - Pt 1) is unprecedented....or at least, that is what I meant. My interest in these pre-Gross sales is self-serving, as I will be chasing key stamps in each for my personal collection. So in a convoluted sense, I guess weaker results would be to my advantage. But in the same breath, I am concerned about the long term health of our hobby, so if paying a bit more insures our future (and creates a little momentum going into the much-anticipated Gross sale), that is not necessarily a bad thing either.

The real challenge will come when the children or grand children of folks bidding on these rare stamps today are ready to sell. How will people from the email generations value our treasures?

This may be true. All the more reason to collect for fun, not for profit.

These headlines seem to be more like modern journalism by looking at any single event as pivotal to something. I do not think anyone believes the rare stamp market is about to collapse and for me has little bearing on my hobby.

If Amos sold off Scott/Linn's to a venture capitalist company that would be a pivotal event similar to the sale of HE Harris years ago.

Sorry your opinions and thoughts don't count at this market level of the philatelic market place .

Your players here are the exhibitors who are looking for Gold Medals at stamp shows and big money people looking to place cash in something other then Treasuries or the stock market .As all you were sleeping last night the various governments around the world continued to print money every day 24/7 and send out newly created tax collectors.

The high end of the philatelic market could have some ups and downs but the trend is a steady climb as more dollars are floating around ,we are talking about a market that was said to be a $200 million worldwide 20-30 years ago . Now the market place is closer to $400 million dollars . Still a drop in the bucket to the money crowd . One rumor or news leak to the financial market place would make all the hard assets that exist surge in price .

These auctions are only going to tell me that nothing is going on now and prices which have been weak for years continue to be weak while we are all looking for the next surge to make the hobby interesting again .

floortader: yes, they may not count because of my small pocket, but at least we still have the freedom to express our opinions in a place like this form. I fear the day when those with big pockets might even take this away from us. I see a point in the future when super intelligence computers/machines owned by a few will have all of the cumulative information that we share on this forum and on related information websites so that when someone makes an inquiry they will be told the answer without our imput. In other words, our opinions will not really matter anymore after we have presented them once and they are gobbled up by a self-learning computer.

The Brigham Canada Collection was the top regarding Canada. I have not read any analysis on it but noted that some scarce items sold at high prices while others did not reach a reserve price. When many well to do collectors are selling, is it a sign of a market turn down coming since they are trying to get their return on investment while they can?

We all know that the nature of stamp collecting is changing for many reasons. There are still buyers out there, at all levels. Different segments of the stamp market are performing differently relative to the number of buyers in their respective areas, and availability of material.

When large collections come up for sale, personally, I'm quite excited, as it gives us all a chance to see and talk about, interesting material. It drives revenue in the stamp market, which keeps sellers in business (we need them!) and not infrequently, it hooks a new, well-funded collector, now for that area. This has happened time and time again.

People like Scott Trepel and Harvey Bennett made great careers out of finding major buyers - not just by putting out catalogs, but by cold-calling and a lot of hustling behind the scenes. If the Gross sale doesn't lure in multiple new well-funded collectors, then that would be a problem for the future. That's how I look at it. I think those potential buyers are still there, and probably will be, longer than any of us more normally-funded people will be.

Will a large quantity of similar material flood the market? Maybe, for a short while. Great material will always find a home, its just a matter of time.

The more interesting discussion, I think, is not so much the high end of the market, but everything else. I think it is very possible someday, that the US 1c Z-grill will fetch a new record sale price, while at the same time, a US #1 on cover in VF condition might sell for $25, or not at all, due to not enough demand - they are very common.

There is no one-stamp-market. There are many, so it is a complicated issue. The high end of the stamp market, however, does help subsidize much of the rest, so it does matter significantly to the average collector indirectly.

First, I consider myself a collector, no different in passion or interest level than anybody else on this forum. I am keeping a very close eye on these upcoming sales for the simple reason that the stamps I need at this juncture are all expensive. To treat the high end sector of this hobby like its some sort of separate entity is ludicrous. Many of us are going to reach this crossroad; each just approaches the decision to proceed differently. Strong prices in these upcoming sales are, in my opinion, important to us all, irrespective of our respective budgets.