Do People Buy These?

A



US $69,000.00 Listed as very scarce

I am just curious, and- If it were mint- what would you pay for it?

Louise, where did you find this ? Please give us some more info, or a link

Peter

Hello Peter
It is on ebay
US STAMP VERY SCARCE 1912 WASHINGTON SC408 SCHERMACK TYPE lll NEW YORK PRECANCEL
https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-STAMP-V...100229.m3211

I would mark the feedback for shipping as "unreasonable."

There seems to have been a burst of these ridiculous offerings lately on ebay. I've seen three or four #300's, for example, described as "SCARCE", offered at prices ranging from $1000 to $6000. I contacted the person with the $1000 "SCARCE" stamp to ask about the basis for his price. The response said that the price had been reduced from $50,000 in order to sell it, and the seller was taking a "$49,000 loss." I couldn't tell whether the seller was sublimely ignorant or working some sort of scam. Can't imagine anyone would actually pay that much for his stamp, but you never know.

And, the seller does not combine shipping.

For 250 in shipping I hope the envelope has some gold in it and signed by John Lennon.

Super common stamp.

Not only inexpensive, but this is very badly centered, creased, thinned and evidently badly oil stained. If I had a mint NH 408 Schermack type III in that condition, it would be going into the trash.

The seller's other current stamp listings are fraudulent.

No. People do not buy these thems or those.

To put this into context.

Belasco did not list the #408 Schermack with New York precancel as a known variety in his book, Guide To United States Vending And Affixing Machine Perforations 1907 - 1927 He doesn't show a New York precancel until the #481 was available.

Because Schermack was coiling stamps for customers and not collectors, my assumption is that a few sheets of #408s may still have been around after 1916 and were intermixed in their process. I have found a few 408s but only after watermarking hundreds of New York precancels.

So the stamp is scarce, but not $69000 scarce. Maybe $20 scarce?

The stamp in the auction is a precancel type 6. I only have the type 4 precancel in my collection and have sold a few, but have not previously saw a type 6.

If it truly has a single line watermark it rates scarce IMO.

Since these were being applied with an affixing machine, the centering here is pretty typical.

Schermack Perf III 408 is listed in Scott at $2.60 for a mint single and $0.70 for a used single. So if this is truly rare it is solely do to the precancel which doesn't make a lot of sense to me other than to suggest that someone ran a bunch of pre-cancels through the Schermack Perf III perf machine. Me, I'd say, "Pass. Fake. Or made to order".

Evidently, some people do buy stuff like this. I did a search of ebay sold listings (not ended listings, but sold listings) using the search term "rare" in the US stamp category and had them listed from highest to lowest price. All of them seemed legitimate until I got to this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/GEORGE-WAS...047675.l2557

This apparently sold for $500. It gives credence to the old saying, "There's a sucker born every minute!"

Note: When you get to the page in the link, click on where it says "See Original Listing."

Did you notice the listing has 27 watchers.
Maybe this is done to get attention?

Selling lots of perfume to cover up the stink.