Strong Bidding At Kelleher Today

I thought that the bidding was very enthusiastic. Very, very few passed lots. Several of the lots that I had flagged went for well above or multiples of estimate. I did win one but paid dearly. Overall it made me feel good about the state of the hobby. Lots of interest, lots of bidding and healthy results. A good sign even if I wanted to pay less! It was the same for Siegel earlier this week for the most part. It seems to me as if we are in a period where a lot of nice collections are hitting the market as the older collectors shuffle off their mortal coil.

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I got the 2 items I wanted but I paid! Were you on the floor?

I won one lot and did bid on 3 others ,that is fine I am a happy camper .

Just as a side note ----Did notice many of the worldwide collection lots were there was a group of albums together as a set did well .

Ken - No, I ended up not making it. Were there many floor bidders? I did see a lot of SAN bidders pick up quite a few lots. A France and Colonies collection I was looking at went for four times high estimate. Some Italy collections I wanted had strong bidding as well. I was going to jump in on 134 and 135 but it quickly went too far North for me although 134 was not as aggressive as 135. A Latin America collection I was hoping for went for double estimate. I ended up getting lot 529 at double estimate. No doubt I overpaid, perhaps a lot, but it is a fun project to keep me busy for awhile.

I tried for Lot 144; since I have some odds & ends of British Commonwealth hanging around through the downsizing; and didn't see anything in my three main specialties that "rang my chimes." . Placed an online bid yesterday for double the high end of the estimate. Went for $150 above my bid, not including the buyer's premium. Guess I'll "crawl back into my hole" for a while to re-assess.

Put lot 529 on watch a few days ago as it looked interesting but ended up not bidding (US auctions in general the exchange to CAD is too painful) - looks like good pickings could be in there.

For those bidding, were you buying for personal collection or resale?

Angore - Speaking for myself it is both. I pick what I would like to keep and the rest will eventually head back to auction.

Buy from Kelleher break up and sell on ebay.

Angore---For my own collection at this auction . At the last auction picked up those 17 cartons {I thought it was 6 carton from the picture on SAN} .Have been breaking that all down and mixing with other material I have into salable lots . I got back half the money already and we sold half of it ,the ebay seller is happy to have the material from me ,but I pulled out some nice material for myself . So far a fun lot to break up.


Interesting note ---As mentioned above the prices were high with strong buying and that was a surprise to me because this was not a "name" auction it was what I call a regular quartely collection auction.

I didn't look at their catalog and haven't dealt with them before, what would you say is their strength: U.S. stamps, Worldwide, British Colonies, Asian; individual stamps or collections?

Angore: I no longer buy big collections. Already have too much stuff. If I was to get a small sized collection, like #144 in this Kelleher sale, I would keep it for my collection.

If there were a few duplicates, I'd send those off to the APS Stamp Store; or if cheap, package as a donation to the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library. I have no interest in ebay. When I've visited certain sellers in my main specialty areas, I've found stuff to be often way overpriced and occasionally mis-described.

Kelleher is one of the top dealers across the board in my opinion. Especially strong in US but plenty of world as well. They recently moved to a bigger and nicer facility in Danbury. They also are connected with Kelleher & Rogers which is in Hong Kong and specializes in the China and Asia markets. They have a low-end eBay-like wing called Michael Rogers which I don't quite get.

I finally won a nice large collection to refill my inventory for ebay. Probably overspent, but at least I'm back in business. By far my largest purchase to date. Should keep me going for quite a while.

RISNY --Congratulations ,winning a large lot makes for many hours of entertainment.

I am going to Kelleher tomorrow to pick up my lot and hopefully take a look at some of the upcoming Flagship stamps.