What Did You Snag At Kelleher - Bill Langs Estate Auction?

I only got 3 out of about 50 I bid on, though I only bid seriously on about 6 or 7 items. I picked up a 16, 27 pair, and a 30 pair which tidy up a few gaps.

What did you all think of the prices/action and flow?

I think people are bidding/buying everything in sight! TBH, I was surprised how few lots had no bids. Not sure if this a short-term covid trend but the sheer quantity of material being matched up with $100s/1000s in bids tells me collecting isn't dead yet.

Yes, most realizations were quite amazing, making it look like Bill's prices weren't as outrageous as most people thought. Apparently the grade of most of his stuff is VF/XF/Superb and commands extreme prices. Many items went for more than catalog which surprised me (I'm a novice at "real auctions", so please forgive my naivete).

Is there anyone here who can explain the prices for the 5-9's in particular, all of which were fantastic to downright extraordinary. Catalog be damned all over the place there. Most items went between 10-30% of catalog, but most 1-29's went for much, much more as I recall.

Classic US is always popular.

I suspect that Kelleher went through the Langs' stock and snatched out the best stuff to make up this sale. There may be specialized sales upcoming, like errors, but I don't know for sure. At some point, there will be a sale of cartons. What we are seeing currently is only the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, I believe the timing could not be better - we are currently in a spike of interest in the hobby. COVID? Maybe. There are probably other explanations, but that would be where I would put my money. We will only really know if it is temporary after the COVID gets beaten. I suspect there will be all kinds of people getting back to their normal non-philatelic lives. Hopefully, the hobby can hang on to a few. I expect there are 'newbies' that may get hooked (like most of us when we started) and prices will remain robust, at least compared to a year ago. But maybe all that is wishful thinking.

I tend to think that those folks driven to, or back to collecting, by COVID and are buying hundred and thousand dollar stamps are not fly-by-night. They are serious. If indeed that is who is driving the enthusiasm bus.

I'm only speculating, but it would seem that to get that good a sell-through would require some dealer support. Before covid, it often felt to me, in areas I follow, that dealer support appeared thin often, and when present, it was often Bill himself.

I have to believe this increase in stamps sales to people staying home is carrying over to wealthter people who are not going on vacation.

Just read a few different postings in other sections on this board about how auctions have jumped up in interest .

I was surprised to see several stamps described as reperfed sell for over Scott. I don't understand.

Maybe Bill was bidding somehow? I wouldn't get it either. A perfectly centered stamp with one side reperfed is not a perfectly centered stamp. Perhaps the reperfing job was pretty good and someone thought they could 'misplace' a cert and sell it as an XF/S example and make $$$. Maybe Bill isn't quite gone afterall.

I think mootermutt987 hit the nail on the head. It's unfortunate for the hobby, and only dealers themselves can clean it up the practice.

I'd think it would be interesting to know what percentage of the lots were, in fact, purchased by dealers. Kelleher would never divulge that figure, so we can only speculate.

The one part of the auction I wanted to play in the most (1851 1¢) was over by the time I got home from work. I watched and listened to the banknote portion and most started at prices higher than I was willing to bid. I did see quite a few lots being passed on. Looking forward to tomorrow's (Friday) session since my Thursday at work is booked.

Quite a few Langs items that were genuinely good to great are not in this sale and I cannot help but thinking that they went to new homes via private treaty. This sale was definitely not the best he had by a long stretch.

Agreed.
Threads like this often end up with speculations about speculation.
Don

Sort of a side issue on this topic ... I was looking at the Trans Mississippi's that go up today and notice that most (all?) of the mint $2 Eads Bridge have large areas of oxidation in the color. Wouldn't this be a huge negative or are there techniques to "change" it back to a pure orange brown? The bids don't seem to be impacted by this but am I not seeing things correctly. I notice the used ones look OK. Thanks.

https://stampsmarter.org/learning/H...idation.html

Don

Sometimes some buyers buy stuff based on who the seller is. Some dealers or collectors can get away selling some stuff in some conditions that others cannot sell for the same or higher prices. Famous name sales or auctions can usually do this.