Stamp Grading - Of Value To You Or A Marketing Ploy?

People commenting here should remember...the thread of this conversation is "should one grade their stamps"?

A number of members have said "no". I could not disagree more and have cited concrete examples of real life situations where grading has generated significant monetary gains at nominal expense. My opinion is to do the grading yourself with professional grade tools. Why rely on the visual opinion of others when the human eye can not make the appropriate measurements.

My answer is without question yes you should grade your stamps. But do not do it through the overpriced professional services. You can do just as good a job as they can and the tools exist in the marketplace to do a good job at it. People can all disagree regarding whether a fault is minor or major, a perf is short or not, whether the stamps I posted are this or that, etc etc. The commenters here have all made understandable points about the "condition" of these stamps. What no one can disagree with as far as I am concerned is the precise centering of any stamp I grade. Be advised that is also professional appraiser approach, where everything starts with centering. There are then deductions and additions from that starting point based on the other subjective factors (is a fault minor or major, is the stamp "fresh", etc.). If you have no clue as to the precise centering fo your stamps, you are lost. My humble opinion.

So sad that the philatelic world outside the US is lost. Like being outside the elect, I suppose.

revcollector, your comment

"But if you've got Way Cool Sooper Dooper Stamp Measuring Software(tm), you can make up all the grades you want, and even print out your own certificates for that elusive "Fawesome 98.663"!"

is not worthy of you. Why? For a simple reason. If you present me with a grading document that you believe is bogus and overrates the centering of your stamp, what do I care? If you are selling me your stamp, I will run my own analysis to confirm your claim, unless I am absolutely familiar with the software you are using. I will not even buy a PSE certified stamp without doing my own grading as I do not trust them and I have no idea as to the quality of the person doing the stamp grading. With the tools I sue, all the precise dimensions of the stamp are displayed and measured. There is nothing dubious about it.

And if you produced a grading document off some jee-wiz software program, I would say that that is a ton better than someone just believing an unsupported verbal claim that this stamp is centered such and such. In my previous test, I listed three stamps. one of each Very Fine, Extra Fine, and Superb in centering. Only one commenter took up my challenge and indicated that he thought all three were Extra Fine to Superb. In the end, he was close, but he was not close enough at all. He was unable to indicate which stamp was superb and that was a potential $200 error. This is a serious problem in stamp collecting but also represents opportunity.

As I said before, I would refer that people do not grade their stamps. I will beat them in the marketplace the vast majority of the time. I will not overpay for overrated stamps and I will not sell stamps at prices below where they should be priced based on their true grade (as I have evaluated quantitatively). This is an important part of what creates value in my collection.

Please post a couple of pictures of some cool stamps that you have in your collection. I will grade them and lets see how they look!

Well, enjoy "beating people in the marketplace" since I guess that's what's important in life.

Me, I'll ignore professional grading, thank you. With very few exceptions, it is generally eschewed in the world of revenue stamp collecting.

Different strokes I guess... happy beating.

Alright - so here is my take- I understand taking into consideration centering. Eyeballing can take you pretty far. Example- https://www.mysticstamp.com/info/my...-guidelines/
I don't buy into the numbering. It's way too subjective. I look at a stamp. I say wow its really nicely centered, cool. But then it suffers from being tired, has toning, bad perfs, a heavy cancel. At this point, it is no longer "attractive". Personally I try to buy attractive stamps, but definitely not superb/gems usually. As I mentioned, it is not in my interest to obtain a perfect stamp, but rather a "good enough" specimen. The price difference between XF and Superb or to Gem, is often big and I feel I'm a middle of the road guy with collections. I am not putting together a collection of gems or collecting to invest.

The material I am buying these days are mint color omit errors. Because of their scarcity, I need to jump on what material I can. If I try your methods of scrutiny, I mentioned I'd never own anything. If there are only 50 stamps in the world, and I have 1 and it is a VF, I'm probably ok with it. First, I probably only know what 10-15 of the others look like at most, based on say Auction history or cert searches. If I see a bunch that are worse, and a bunch that are better I baseline. The seller is largely in control here. He generally knows supply is low, and nitpicking on the price based on a grade isn't going to help much more than.... how about I give you $350 for your $500ask you are looking to get out of it for a $800 SCV. Applying the scientific method is great and all, but the human condition gets in the way of the deal. Most often, they will say, "Glad you think its a F grade, but I am still looking for 60% of cat, because there's only 50." It becomes a take it or leave it. If you leave it, you have to wait, potentially a long time for it to resurface through another venue, which could not necessarily reward you a better sample, or a better price.


What software are you using SewallH?

Ask Nick Kirke how that worked out for him.

Here is one for you.

These aren't my best... But I will pick 2 recent pickups at random that I enjoy, at opposite ends of the album.

Here is why it makes no sense for me. The PB dinosaurs grade horribly from centering perspective, maybe VG to F barely. Ok, its' price is going to be purely based on rarity, and not grade. I think its qty 100. You don't get to knock points off if you can't find a better one. Others I see at auction are not the PBs (maybe only 4 out there?) or have similar/bad centering. I rather get the PB, in this case, than a better than avg block. Here, if you know it's a subpar grade (duh), you can exact a better deal. But you don't need software to get you there. The seller also knows and priced it as such. Exchange some words, throw a few numbers back and forth, and see what sticks. I may have paid ~400 (probably highish - but find me another one...)

My c86a, I doubt it's superb, maybe vf, but it's qty 100, but overall they're found in this type of condition. I typically see them trade for below 50% of scv. I saw one recently go - Scott $800. Estimate $400 - 600. sold for maybe $225 at Kelleher. Demand is gone for modern EFO, and these rarities are going to ultimately be sought after again. Great buying op. All the details of grading, isn't going to impact me a bit. I can focus on what I like and love.

Here:

I concur. There are many stamps, cancels, and usages where the only known examples are either faulty or very poorly centered, especially in the field of errors. The "grade" of the item in these cases is moot. If you can find ANY example, you want to jump on it.

stallzer,

Your 1893 US #239 stamp is graded at Very Fine 81. This is a precise and exact centering grade. 11% of the stamp area is in the margins, so it does not meet the 20% level to be a jumbo. As well centered as your stamp looks, it is not Extremely Fine.

On centering, The left margin is the largest (100), the top is 88, the right is 80, the bottom is 93. This means that the top is 88% of the size of the left margin, the right margin is 80% of the left margin size, the bottom margin is 93% of the left margin. I could provide the actual measurements in millimeters or pixels, but it is not necessary.

If Very Fine is the grade, the catalogue value is $81. Note that if the stamp were only Fine, the catalogue value is only $60.50. This shows you how grading can make a big difference. If you said to me this is an Extra Fine centered stamp, I would immediately know that this is an erroneous claim. (If you had priced the stamp on that basis I would not buy it. If I wanted to buy the stamp, I would send you a message explaining its proper grade and make an offer at a lower price to reflect this.)

Now one must factor in condition of the stamp and the cancellation. In your case, I think that the cancellation adds value as it is a totally cool cancel (some may disagree with this viewpoint). Stamp color is solid and the perfs are okay. If I were to sell this stamp, I would price it at Very Fine.

Regardless of whether anyone agrees with my final judgement, the starting point for this stamp is Very Fine and people can work up or down from there.

I would have guessed 82.45 with 12.9% in the margins.

rismoney,

Your 1973 US #66a (Progress in Electronics), olive and vermillion colors omitted, is a fantastic stamp regardless of the grade! What a great stamp!!! I wish I had one myself.

All that said, this stamp is centered graded at Very Fine 83. It is not Fine nor Extra Fine. It is Very Fine 83 exactly. At mint not hinged, this is a $821 catalogue value stamp. If you thought it was only Fine, then you would undervalue it at a $621 catalogue value. If you thought that it was Extremely Fine, then you would overvalue it at $1026 catalogue value. These numbers show the importance of having a precise centering grade for a stamp. The difference in $ value between each grade level is a mere $200 in catalogue value.

rismoney,

Your fantastic 1989 dinosaur plate block with black omitted (including the 25 cent denomination in black) is graded Fair 19. This too is a great set of color error stamps. I am not sure that the grading makes too much difference as I am uncertain as to the extent of the rarity of this item. Some items are so rare that it just does not matter what the condition. If the plate block were graded Very Fine or above, it would be totally incredible and the price would possibly be significantly higher that a set of "Fair" stamps. that is something that you would probably know better than me. All that said, your block is graded Fair 19.

The issue of grade versus rarity is a good topic of discussion. In many cases, if there are so few items, a stamp can be a terrible grade and still command top dollar that is close to or the same as a higher graded version. This is a completely different issue than the question of grading in general. Stamp rarities are a whole different beast in many cases. However, your Electronics stamp is not in this group. There are clear catalogue values based on the grade of this color error stamp, so knowing the grade is imperative. As it pertains to the dinosaur stamps, I have no clue as grade versus value. All I know is that the stamps are Fair 19 grade and that's a fact.

Sewall - There is so much more than measurement of centering to establish a grade for valuing purposes. You keep tossing out catalog values. How are you arriving at values for the eye appeal, perfs etc.. You just assigned values to some stamps. Did you deduct for the short perfs, pulled perfs, gum bends, gum skips, inclusions, internal tears and on and on? The whiz bang software is nifty but old news. Grading is so much more than measurements. I am not getting the point of this exercise. Why do you suppose that the big auction houses do not use your methodology in order to stop leaving all of that cash on the table giving away stamps that they call vf but actually are 1 point into xf territory?

rodgcam,

my initial guess was on the #239 that the grade was Very Fine 83.45867489457 and 11.458479437455% in the margins.

LOL.