British Guiana 4 Cent Magenta Auctioned Off At A Bargain?

I was looking through some of the past auctions by Siegel and came across this 4 cent Magenta which has a close resemblance to the 1 cent Magenta. This was auctioned off in 2016 for a mere $5000, a $20000 discount from the estimate. What struck me is the signature which is from the same postmaster as the 1 cent Magenta and signed in exactly the same fashion. For $5000, I think this is a steal, especially for that signature. Good for the guy who bought this...


https://siegelauctions.com/lots.php...3&page_no=12

Even though I love stamps and stamp collecting, it amazes me what someone will pay for an old scrap of paper. It is history, I know, but still...

What amazes me more is that 2 similar looking stamps with the same signature on it can differ in value by $10 million.

Beyond my means entirely, but if I collected British Guiana and had the funds, this would have been a great acquisition.

No doubt the surface rubbing affected the price. Still, a rare stamp that made someone happy.

As "the players" say, condition, condition, condition.

Nice stamp that made someone happy they bought it .

Understand some people work hard for their money and this allows them to buy nice things as a self reward . I have a good friend who is the night manager of a maintenance crew at a local High School and he rewards himself traveling to flea markets to buy pocket knifes on the weekends .......so it is hard to understand where some find enjoyment and how they reward themselfs .

When a stamp is extremely rare with only 1 or 2 in the world, poor condition becomes less of a factor in determining the value, and the value would be determined by what people are willing to pay for the stamp at auction. If we are comparing the condition of this 4 cent and the 1 cent magenta, the former would be doing far better.

2 questions:How many 4c stamps were in the sheet? How many sheets were printed?

I have no idea how many of these 4 cent Magentas were printed, but I don't think the number of stamps handsigned by ED Wight would number by the hundreds, a few tens perhaps.

Just to clarify, the estimate was not 25,000. The cv was 25,000. Thus it did not sell for a 20,000 discount off of the estimate. It sold for 20% of cv.

These stamps were type set and printed at the 'Official Gazette' by Baum & Dallas in Georgetown. They were printed in blocks of four and were initialled before they were issued. The position of the inscriptions differ slightly on each stamp.

Not sure why the cv is only $25000 when there are presumably less than 50 in the world. In terms of rarity, wouldn't this be rarer than an inverted Jenny?

But there isn't a queue of rich Americans ready to buy it.

I think the four cents magenta or rose carmine is a scarce stamp but not rare.I think there are a few hundred out there in varying conditions.If you want one, there is an auction tomarrow.Would you put 10,000 in a stamp like this ?

Scarcity is only one of the two prongs that matter. The other is demand. Without both, it doesn't matter how rare it is.

I have several items in my collection where populations are in single digits... but their realistic market values are only a few hundred dollars, if that. Very little demand. The more esoteric or narrow the market, the less likely something rare is to be valuable.

Dollar value Columbians and sets of zeps aren't rare or even scarce for that matter. You can't swing a dead cat at any stamp show without hitting multiple examples of either. But they both have long storied histories of being "key items" that most collectors want to complete their collections; holy grails if you will.

Conversely, there are $50 catalogue value items that one might wait decades to appear on the market...