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

Happy to read on here the activity at Siegel Auction was so positive on top of the vast worldwide collection at Kelleher . Both auctions are telling you there is a demand for collectible stamps in 2018 .

The idea of using hammer price relative to Scott catalog value to determine the strength of sale/hobby from a scientific standpoint is absurd.

Think about it... if Siegel sells my collection of flawed, poorly centered stamps and puts Scott CV next to each one, it will sell at 10 percent CV. But those prices still could be strong if most of the stamps were in poor condition and 3 years ago would have sold at 5 percent. You have to look at each lot individually and compare to centering/conditioning that is equal/similar to previous sold lots. That is only way.

The US economy is getting stronger, unemployment is down, and business optimism is higher; makes sense that sales should be good at this time.
Don

Don It is not the economy ,it is all the government money printing press are working overtime .But do agree with you the number are looking better ,now only if the stock market cooperates .

A little story here would help ------Back in 1979 while working at the Board of Trade in Chicago . I read a story about the quick raise in Silver prices and how the Hunt brothers were one of the few groups in the world with $400 millions dollars cash to buy Silver and control the market .
Now we got OVER 2,000 different people or groups that can put that amount of cash into anything they want . With that same $400 million they could serious effect any other hard asset. That can cause some serious price changes in our small world of philately .

I am not an economist but do know that my wife just got herself a new car with the additional money in her monthly paycheck (plus bonus) from the first of the year.
Don

You're both right. The government is printing even more money that it doesn't have, but at least it is giving some of it out to citizens. I got a very significant paycheck increase as a result of tax reform. I will definitely put some of that money into the stamp market this year!

I seem to remember that the Chinese inflation stamps issued in the 1940s right after WWII were very common. You could find full panes of these easily at one time. They were issued in a few millions. However, there are more stamp collectors in China these days than there are copies of these stamps which means that not everyone might be able to get a copy anymore. At one time, buyers from China were buying all of the Chinese stamps that they could find outside of China and sending them to China to resell.

Speaking of the economy, what would have happened if the sale happened the day after the 420pt Dow Jones freefall after steel tariffs were announced? There would have been some dropout potential bidders I'm sure, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And you don't/cannot put back an announced auction date just like that. But that would have also affected just the one sale.

An extreme example of reaction to the stock market was the Gibbs sale of Rhodesia Double Heads two days after Black Monday 1987. Few serious bidders showed up.

jogil, the inflation stamps are still very common; you can probably have all you want, very cheaply.


Where does this come from? It's not true at all. Real stamp collectors of China is a small group surrounded by a lot of speculators including the nickel-and-dime type. This is why the China stamp market has been largely boom and bust, over and over, with speculators still holding onto a lot of stuff (PRC) that is supposedly scarce.


Not really true. Nobody there wants relatively cheap stuff like the inflation issues you mentioned. US collectors and dealers were sending China stamps to China for many years.

One of the most positive aspects of this sale for me was that there were so many very well centered stamps that were not graded yet they received bids of 4-10x cat. That shows that people are willing to pay for great stamps and not just a grade. I managed to get one nearly perfectly centered bureau stamp that was a hole I've been trying to fill for a long time. I'll be very happy to display that stamp and won't at all feel pressured to get it graded.

I do agree that looking at the total prices and comparing to catalog is meaningless. Off center or stamps with tiny flaws selling below cat is not weakness. Look at the near perfect stamps and the multiples were through the roof.

One interesting tidbit I thought was that the inverted Jenny, which seemed near perfect to me, sold for less than the inverted pictorial by over 100K. Interesting.

Part of it was from the following: https://www.express.co.uk/finance/c...inese-stamps

Well, I too found the Wingate prices healthy, but was thrilled to get the second Scott #5 in the catalog (the one described as "appearing unused"). Unlike some of the material that brought multiples of catalog, and is ultimately headed to PF and PSE for grading, my lot brought under Scott catalog value, despite the fact that it is one of the prettier used #5 examples to hit the market in some time. Yes, high-grade, fault-free singles did exceptionally well, some even were mind-boggling. But, simply "pretty" collector stamps, I believe, were in line with predictable levels, if not even on the cheaper side. Quite honestly, I didn't think that I would buy my stamp for under $50K, but I was pleasantly surprised when I actually did. I guess we all have different perceptions of "strong", but I largely found prices commiserate to the quality of the stamps and the end-goals of the respective purchasers. My overall takeaway is that our hobby is still very healthy with ample money chasing rare material.

Congrats on your pick up of Scott 5. That's a serious stamp with lots of history, debate, and backstory.
After you receive it, please start a thread with some good scans and your opinions after examination.

I would love to know if it's used versus unused as it seems to be highly debatable.

Congrats again!

Congrats. That's a very nice stamp.

The small thin spot and also the chance that it is pen cancelled is why you got it for sub 50K. I think its well worth it, and its a very worthy 7R1E.

Impressive! I sure wouldn't hesitate to put this stamp in my album!

Several of the Wingate items are showing up on ebay now.