I Found A Facinating Match Stamp, Lets See What The Members Can Tell About This Stamp.

So,



Jim

I do not have a catalog with the prices for M&Ms. I check the quantity minted and make my assessment from there. I have searched online for a price listing and found nothing. So I try to determine what it is worth to me based on mintage. If someone knows of an online price list, I would be grateful.

The Scott Specialized has them listed. Specialty dealers like Eric Jackson and Richard Friedberg have retail listings. Match & Medicine values are something of a specialized area because of how the stamps were used. Some higher catalog stamps are often found in FVF condition but are popular while some low catalog items are very hard to find sound but show up damaged all the time because they were put on the packages with affixing machines. Still other low catalog stamps are only found infrequently and almost never sound but are not especially attractive and so are not particularly popular. And the intro to the section in Scott does nothing to help.

reference books and lists of the m and m's exist and are not scarce. check out the american revenue association or the aps.libraries. both of the previously mentioned revenue dealers (in revcolletors post) would also have the references for sale. the rest of the statement is also correct but I do not expect any changes from scott in this area of the catalogue.

Scott has out-priced themselves on their catalogs. I do not want to buy a specialized catalog for approx $80 just for M&M prices. Scott's prices are not realistic anyway. Stamps usually sell for 15-20% of catalog, generally. I have been trying to find online info on values but not had much luck. The few books on M&Ms are rare and expensive. I do not trust dealer's prices as values. I have seen too much variance for that. So for now, I have been buying them at what I think they are worth to me according to mintage. After all, a stamp is only worth what you are willing to pay for it. I really like the M&M stamps and I am working on a decent collection of them.

No M&M's ever sell for 15%-20% of catalog. They bring more then that in both large and individual lots at auction, let alone retail. Truly high quality large lot collection remainders can sometimes bring as much as 85% of cat on occasion. One lot did just that this past year. It sold for $23,000.

I look forward to hearing your idea of value for RO48. There were 8,400,000 issued, so I am sure you would expect to pick it up anywhere. It catalogs $6000, and with good reason; there are a tiny handfull known to exist today.

I would never pay $6k for a stamp with mintage of 8.4m. You never know when a half million turn up in a box somewhere and kill the value. I am more concerned with the low mintage and low value items. That is where I would get in trouble. A stamp with high mintage and high cost would not interest me. M&M values would help me immensely.

jaxom,

As others have tried to explain earlier in this thread, there is a difference in the way postage stamps and revenue stamps are used. The visible result today is a miniscule survival rate for the proprietary stamps. Revenue stamps were applied to disposable packaging materials in a way in which they are typically torn when opening, then discarded. One doesn't save a bunch of match or medicine wrappings the same way one saves a stack of love letters.

It's hard to collect any area if you don't invest in the literature on the topic. The price of philatelic literature is cheap when compared to the cost of ignorance when buying.

Small terminology comment: stamps are printed, not minted.

If you actually expect some large quantity of a stamp such as RO48 to suddenly show up after 150 years, all I can say is good luck. It was printed on tissue paper and used on boxes of matches. People tore it open to get to them, and there were few collectors around at the time to save any. BTW, it's not a wrapper despite having been printed like one. It was used as an adhesive stamp; since American Phototype only had a contract to print wrappers, they were forced to stop producing it. Byam, Carlton then had to have Butler & Carpenter produce a stamp for them, which was RO49.

I understand that most of the revenues were destroyed. But that number is an unknown amount. Because only 15 are known does not mean the rest were destroyed. They could be in a box in someone's attic waiting to destroy the value of the known copies. As far as some of the books, if they were at normal book price they would be good. As rare collector items, the cost is crazy. Try to find and buy a copy of Neinken's book. Limited desirability causes less printing and higher pricing. Given time, the information will be available on the internet.

As far as terminology, stamps ate printed, not minted but the total printed is the mintage, not the printage.

Actually the total printed is the "number issued". Stamps are not minted, coins are. And since Byam, Carlton was one of the largest match manufacturers, they had stamps for the entire length of the tax (1862-1883). ALL the stamps they got in 1862 or 1863 when RO48 was issued would have been used on matchboxes. And nearly all would have been destroyed; matches were a common necessity for everyone at that point. There is no "box full in an attic" waiting to be found at this point. There might be a few single examples in old collections that have not been seen, but that's about it.

Hehe... heheheh..... HEHEHEHEH.... HAHAHAHAHA....BWAHAHAHAH!!!

Stop it, man. Yer killin' me!

Man... I wish could find the U.S. revenues I need for 10-15% of Scott. Maybe if they're badly damaged, I suppose.

You can download a copy on the USPCS webpage for free https://www.uspcs.org/resource-cent...nic-library/

Membership in the USPCS not required, but a great bargain at $35 per year.

All I am saying guys, is that with my very limited knowledge in M&M stamps, my only method to determine value is qty made. So if I err, I do so in my favor usually. I will find the information that I am looking for eventually. In the mean time, I have having fun searching for the different papers and types. I am trying to get some scarcer ones without paying too much. But the stamp from the original post here would not have caught my attention. I would have saw the issued number, I would not have given much for the stamp. I would have been wrong, but ... I try to learn without getting burnt.

I have the online copies of Neinken's and any others I can find. I am trying to find some pdf books or other info on match stamps.

The rarer stuff you will not find that far below catalog, but many are available for the low range. When the price gets above 20%, then take a closer look and see what someone else sees.

But I do not want to distract from the original post.
That stamp's value would have fooled me. I was looking for doubling or something to make it rare.