Worldwide Stamp Collection Sells For $96,000 .

" A last-minute consignment where our lack of time equals your gain," etc most likely means someone needed money fast and just wanted the collection gone. If the collector were very old and didn't want to burden their family with having to sell it, why couldn't they give the auction company at least a few months to go through it carefully? So I'd guess it was not an older collector themself who had this sold. It was probably an estate sale. Those in charge of the estate, the children perhaps, just wanted the money quickly and easily. Hence selling it intact which likely yielded a much lower price than if broken into parts. Good for buyers, not so smart for the sellers.

There seems to be a dearth of good mid-level worldwide collections in recent years -- an interest of mine since in my retirement, I'm slowly (much too slowly!) building one. There are occasionally these sort of high-dollar collections. And at the other end of the market, there are lots of multi-album lots of little value, probably put together by the auction house, not by a collector but still sold as a "collection". Those latter items are almost always hodge podges of low-value stamps.

But where are the middle-level collections, the good ones with a lot of moderate-to-high value items and some degree of completeness of many countries' common stamps? Those seem to have disappeared. The few collections I've bought abound in incomplete sets and too many damaged stamps. I think the better collections are all being broken up by sellers on ebay now. But where those sellers find the collections in the first place is a bit of a mystery. I hardly see any, and the sellers must themselves be running out of collections to buy and break up. How long can that last?

Even ebay has become a bit of a wasteland of common stamps and mediocre collections, a good place to buy common items only. Except for sellers like 'Noble Spirit' of course who insist on listing good collections for unbelievably high prices in the multiple tens of thousands -- but he never seems to sell any.

With the collector community getting generally much older, will there be a fire sale in the next decade or so of most of the remaining large worldwide collections? If I can hold on that long, I'll be buying -- as my last gasp attempt!

What are the chances Kelleher bought the lot through Richmond?

Stanley Richmond still has a financial interest in Kelleher ,from what I know of him he has excellent contacts in Europe with all the major dealers .

Just a guess but I think Michael Roger bought it to liven up some of the lame auctions he has been having on the internet ,watch his next few auctions to see if things pickup ,I been buying from his auctions but he needs to step it up to better stuff [BETTER STUFF means stuff that gets bids].

Michael Rogers Auctions are a subsidiary of Kelleher Auctions, aren't they? So the lot could have been transferred to the subsidiary for auction if Kelleher so desired but I don't see why Michael Rogers would bid on and buy this lot at the Kelleher auction.

Kelleher could not unilaterally transfer the lot once consigned to Kelleher itself for auction. Both parties are bound by the consignment agreement.

Did anyone hear the call of the big collection? Maybe internet listeners don't hear everything but if you were in the room you would know David was clearly not happy that Stanley bought this lot and it's certain Stanley was not buying on behalf of Michael Rogers or Kelleher.

Maybe Stan saw something in that collection that the describers missed or didn't understand .

Is MR still with Kelleher, or are they just using his name?

Thing about a $96k level collection - there are a limited number of potential buyers, unlike a 9.6k or even 19.6k level collection.

Unless it was a million dollar item, that is very unlikely. Hugely successful dealers in their mid to late 80's do not buy lots like this, it's not worth their time and trouble. Act as an agent, sure.

Agree REV ....Stanley was acting as a agent maybe even a banker for one of the many small stamp auction firms or a seller on the internet .

Or a dealer. There are a few who have the clientele to use a collection like this.

To answer DrewM above .....a part of your question the answer is ----It takes a very lot of time and a lot of money, both to build a decent collection . There also needs to be a love of the hobby .Without all three you quit somewhere on the journey .

And the most complicated of the three always seems to be money.

Question for floortrader: I highly commend your efforts to build a world wide collection. The question is....... do you have a cut off date? As in, your collection stops in 1970, or 1980, etc.?

DrewM's description of mid-level world wide collections fits with what I had until about three years ago: a decent world wide collection from 1840 through the 1960s (mostly centered on Parts 1 through 5 of the Big Blue International album series).

Love of the hobby became an issue for me, as did money. I really love my several specialty areas (Portuguese, previously mentioned; Mexico, Poland) and prefer to spend money there. But my "love" no longer extended to a desire to "collect the world," within that time frame. Hence the major downsizing that has taken place. Lots of stuff given away; my French area collection went to auction; and I've retained some secondary interest areas (US, Canada/Newfoundland, German speaking, couple other Eastern Europe, etc.). Still some areas to be decided on (the "love" isn't completely gone, I just have to get "tough").

Floortrader mentioned the Michael Rogers online auctions at Kelleher. Later this month; after the 15th; I'll write Kelleher about hopefully consigning some items for MR Online. These will be items that had too much catalog to just give away to the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library. An example would be the first four Japanese national park souvenir sheets, with folders, starting in the late 1930s.

To answer the question about my cut-off date ,my Blue International's end with 1970 , every little is mounted and kept after that date .

Every WW collector has their own method to develop their collection .It doesn't take long for most collectors to realize buying mixture limit your expansion and buying country collections is fine for 10 or 20 years. But after that a collector starts buying specialize collections again for 10 or 20 years . Then a collector goes thru this whole process and starts looking at Gems and wants "eye candy" in their collection .


That "eye candy" is the level I am at now I try to pick up one neat item each year like the Rhodiesea twin heads set ,the U.S. Colombians to $5.00's ,the Candanians Jubliee set, the full WIPA sheet and other key items that we all read about that was maybe in the $96,000 collection .