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

"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."

In the case of the lots I noticed, they did haver certs that didn't mention the reperfing, so if they had an "offending" cert they had already been lost.

"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"

What makes you think they will not show up in a subsequent Langs sale?

"Famous name sales or auctions can usually do this."

or infamous as the case may be

The auction catalog for the sale does state "The William S Langs stock and private holdings" part 1. So looks like a couple more sales coming in the near future.

My only pick up from Langs - 400A NH 90J

What a beauty! I was able to get 3 of the 8 lots I bid on including a nice C15 to complete my Zeppelins, Scott 505 block of 12 with double error and a nice 454 strip of 4 with joint line and cert.

I was able to get two lots over the first today days and I probably overpaid for one of them as it has a cert identifying reperf along the bottom, but, but but ... I wanted the invert!

I don't know who was behind each paddle number, but FWIW, I counted the following "top" buyers:
Book - 272 lots
I369 - 110 lots (really active day 2)
I545 - 75 lots
I19 - 65 lots
I577 - 51 lots
Agent accounted for at least 102 lots
Telephone bidders accounted for at least 50 lots with T1 getting 12.

While it's possible that I369, 545, 19, and 577 were buying for their own collections, I am very very skeptical.

There are always dealers at these auctions - one shouldn't be surprised by that.

Truthfully, you should never lose out to a dealer. He has to buy to re sell, we are buying for pleasure.

RLSNY - not surprised by the number of dealers. Surprised that the retail buyers (collectors!) weren't sufficiently interested in so many lots.

I thought for sure with the election and everything else going on it would be a couple of weeks until I received my lots. They arrived today, quite impressed.

"Truthfully, you should never lose out to a dealer. He has to buy to re sell, we are buying for pleasure".


For single item lots that is generally true, although sometimes dealers act as agents for a customer. But for large lots, dealers usually win them; they are usually much more experienced in both examining and knowing the real market value of those lots.

As an ebay dealer I always thought this to be true, but after a long hiatus I started collecting again. I came across a lot at Dutch country that I really wanted for myself. I didn't realize until after I'd lost that suddenly as a collector I was bidding with my own $ and had placed a paltry bid at 150% of estimate. When I bid in Dutch country auction for my ebay business my standard bid is 200% of high estimate+1 increment. Strange how the mind works.

Just an update on Langs' materials purchased through Kelleher. My bad for trusting the catalog description of a 331 as being on ribbed paper (331 Var) but it DID have a PSE cert (#99453)from 2003. Having learned to not trust Langs' materials, I solicited a PF cert (#572875) which, surprise surprise, came back as non-ribbed paper. Fortunately, I have confidence in Kelleher's commitment to refunding my money. And to make things a bit easier, I've attached the catalog photo of the stamp.

Bob - Your 331 already had a previous PF cert, 430147, that as usual was "lost" by Langs. Did Kelleher do its due diligence?

http://pfsearch.org/pfsearch/pf_grd...lledfrom=lkp

Edit Add: I was sitting and thinking about this and realized that it took me under one minute to type "331" and "ribbed" into the PF database and return results of which there are few, this being a rare bird if it exists at all. And then I thought about the fact that the auction house fees off of this one stamp, between seller and buyer commission, were plus/minus $100. Just exactly what does one get for paying a fee to play in the pool? That is all.

Cheers