Ebay Prices Vs Catalog Values

When I sell a country collection I never catalog the stamps. I sell about 60 items a week and if I took the time to catalog the stamps I'd only be able to sell 1/10 as many items. Furthermore If I used catalog values in the descriptions I think bidders would expect to win items at 10% of catalog (or less). Recently I saw a collection on ebay that I really liked, it was offered at 13.7% of owners catalog and from the pictures it looked like the catalog values were correct so I bought it. The collection was carefully cataloged and I decided to track the sales price compared to the catalog value shown on the pages and the results are presented below. Unfortunately the collection was only for the P-Z portion of this nice collection.





I was surprised by these results because they were higher than I expected. Poland and Uruguay were especially surprising. Below I grouped some sales into areas;






I left the Poland items out of Europe because I thought they were outliers. To some extent the data confirmed my expectations ie. Back of Book sells higher than front of book, colonies sell higher than larger countries. I was surprised at the overall percentages and particularly surprised that French Colonies were significantly higher than British Cols.

Interesting, thank you Ken.
Don

Thanks for sharing. It is interesting. It falls in line with my own purchasing side experience. If the material is clean and it is an area I am concentrating on I will pay up to around 30%. When I go after sizable WW collections I strive to pay 10% if in albums and 5% or less if in glassines etc.. I have been going after large French colony collections for the past year or so and the competition is quite enthusiastic. BC on the other hand is getting easier on the pocketbook to buy especially from auction houses such as Grosvernor's. Cherrystone on the other hand gets strong prices for their large BC lots but the quality is usually very good. Some French colonies collections I wanted at the last Kelleher sale went for up to four times estimate while most BC was fair to middling.

Sorry but I'm confused. You say:

"Recently I saw a collection on ebay that I really liked, it was offered at 13.7% of owners catalog and from the pictures it looked like the catalog values were correct so I bought it. The collection was carefully cataloged and I decided to track the sales price compared to the catalog value shown on the pages and the results are presented below. Unfortunately the collection was only for the P-Z portion of this nice collection."

I understand that you were expecting to buy this collection at around 14% of catalogue. But apparently you didn't . . . or did I not get that right?

Also, your "sold" column means what? The price you paid for the stamps? Or is it the price you "sold" them for later? If you're reselling stamps at that high a percentage of Scott values, you're doing quite well.

Also, Rodgcam, what is BC? Does that mean "British Colonies"?

Thanks!

Yes I bought it for 13.7% and now I'm selling it on ebay and reporting the results. I agree the sales prices are strong and the reason I posted this information is to contribute to the conversation about the strength of the stamp market.


I realize this is just a small sample but after watching the recent Siegel and Kelliher sales and looking at my results I think the market is pretty healthy.

really interesting! please continue to share information like this. It's very motivating!

Interesting that colonies sell at a higher % of catalog than countries in your data. I wonder why that is - Since they are all older stamps? Harder to find collections on pages?

I'd caution against reading a lot into the data but by all means please continue.

There are so many variables involved in what %CV one gets... condition, rarity, catalogue used, cancels (if used), quality of sales presentation, luck, could name ten other factors. One needs considerable data to prove trends.

For lots I have purchased that quoted catalog prices to highlight the discounted opening bid, in many cases the catalog value was not properly calculated. The main is issue is post 1950 Mint hinged with pricing for unhinged stamps. The other is condition. Many stamps are not strictly VF, have bad cancels, heavy hinging, etc. The backside does not bother me except they use it to prop up the catalog value.

I've bid on a few of those lots--unfortunately didn't win but this collection is very nice material.