How Many Expertizing Certificates Do You Have?

One thing for certain is that there should be no "purity" test based upon motivations for collectors. Kim had it right. If you wish to collect grades go for it. If you wish to study and be a "plater" go for it. Same for flyspecker's and perf rate fanatics. Buy stamps with certificates or act on faith or spend 20 years educating yourself first about paper types..... It is all good.

PS: Expertizing has real value to collectors that have never been on an expert committees and never will be but love the hobby. Maybe a fellow collector can only devote a couple of hours a week to the hobby but still wants to build a collection that they feel comfortable contains genuine stamps without issues, and certificates give them peace of mind. Maybe grading numbers turn them on. Who cares. Treat them as equals. Perhaps they are Junior's in philatelic knowledge but Doctorates in enthusiasm. It all strengthens the hobby.

Essay: thank you for your contribution. Of course, your desire for third party graders to provide the more specialized educational function that maybe was the original thought in 1945 has run smack dab into the realities of business where the occasional rarity or oddball may pique your interest, but there aren't enough to pay the bills which is always covered by bread and butter submissions. I share Andyrich 74's frustration at the time and expense for certification, particularly for an item he was referring to, Scott 120 unused/NG and not graded which for a true expert should probably not take more than a couple of minutes.

But I think we may reveal the Jekyll and Hyde personality in all of us when we consider one of the main reasons for having an already certified stamp recertified—-and that is not because technology is so much better today, even if it is; it is the concern that the condition might have changed since the last certification. We choose a time span, say 5 years, and then for no objective reason say that a cert 6 yrs old is too long but one 3 years old is Ok, knowing all the time that something could happen to that newly recertified stamp between recertification and auction to render that newly minted opinion invalid.

Certificates are a means of commerce. It is a starting point for any future comparison, like a prior chest x-ray or blood count. A think a lot of expertizing has to do with the philosophy of the expertizer. For a stamp about to be recertified, does the expertizer assume that the original opinion was correct and approaches the stamp looking for enough evidence to overturn the prior opinion or does the expertizer start with the assumption that the original opinion is wrong and go about his job determined to prove it. We all have biases that we bring to the table. With a fragile thing like a stamp, I would venture to say that an expertizer is probably going to find what he wants to find and that the submitter of a stamp recertified by someone who approaches this as proving the original opinion wrong, is likely going to be disappointed at the result.

Bill Weiss once told me and so I am sure told many, many others and may have also put this on paper—his opinion that about 90% of classic US stamps are regummed. That was his starting point.

Mootermutt—you mention that those stamps that were recertified even over long periods of time rarely had an substantial change of opinion. That's always been my conclusion for a stamp held by one collector over a long time and not handled or continuously resold.

Which brings me to my final point: the insistence that an item previously certified, remain in exactly the same condition for perpetuity, but our avoidance of the one vehicle , slabbing, capable of doing it. Coins that are slabbed can be traded sight unseen and often are. And this for a product much more resistant to casual damage than a stamp. This is our Jekylll and Hyde—our insistence that the most fragile of all collectibles remain static in condition overtime but not be willing to use the means to do it. And I fit that category as well. I have no interest in slabbing and from what I can gather the market and general collectors frown on it as well. Every collector or investor will have their own reason to object to this practice and yet it would provide a permanence to an opinion as well as boost buyer confidence in an item slabbed, 10, 15, 20 yrs ago—or will there still be skepticism; the ol Jekyll and Hyde.

I suspect that the real reason cert prices are linked to cat values has to do with mundane things such as insurance premiums. It is certainly correct that cat values often have no relationship with how difficult an item might be to certify, or how much time might be involved in doing so. However I suspect that there are a lot of administrative operations that must take place both before and after the items are actually looked at; that time spent is also part of the package.

revcollector - you raise some very valid points. I suspect a big reason behind 'tiered' pricing has an even more mundane reason - economics.

Let's simplify things for the sake of argument. Let's say there are 3 tiers: low value stamps pay $30, medium values pay $200, and high values pay $500. There are going to be more (quantity-wise) low values than mediums, and more mediums that high values. Using numbers that make things 'easy': let's say ACME Philatelic Expertizing (APE) certifies 1000 low values (@ $30 ea = $30,000 revenue), 200 medium values (@ $200 ea = $40,000 revenue), and 100 high values (@ $500 ea = $50,000 revenue). APE has a total of $120,000 revenue doing 1300 stamps. If they do 'one price fits all', they would charge $92.30 per stamp ($120,000/1300 stamps) in order to maintain theiir revenue. The guy that was paying $30 for a low value stamp suddenly has to pay 3 TIMES as much for the same service. Dare I say, most of that business would evaporate (say 75% goes away), and we would end up with a revenue stream based on 550 stamps (250 low, 200 medium, and 100 high), resulting in total revenue of $50,675 (550x$92.30). So to maintain revenues of $120,000, split between the 50,675 stamps, they would need to charge $218.18 per stamp. Well, there goes the remaining low value stamp revenue, PLUS a bunch of the mediums. After a few iterations of this, APE ends up only grading high value stamps, and at a higher price than before.

One could make the argument that a lower price (@$92.30) for the high values might attract more high value business - let's say it doubles the quantity - the total # of stamps graded would be 650 instead of 550. Revised revenue would be $60,000 (650x$92.30) instead of $50,675. The result is, ultimately, the same - an upward spiral of prices and only high values being graded, again at a higher cost than the current 'tiered' method.

I suppose one could make the argument that APE would be happy to reduce their revenue, preventing the pricing spiral. I mean, that's what companies do when given such a choice, right?? You can change the initial conditions in any way you care - fewer low values, and more high values - the spiral is inevitable. I am sure the advocates for 'one price fits all' mean: 'all priced at the current lowest tier', or close to it. There is no motivation for the bulk of business (low values, which will be paying the same, or slightly more) to increase, but you may add some medium value business (say 50% more) and possibly even DOUBLE the high values. I don't believe that would happen (high values are probably close to saturated already - there are simply fewer of them in existence), but even if it did, the number of stamps being certified is up slightly, but revenue is still down.

All the #s are up for debate - no argument from me - but the point is the same. I suspect the certifying organizations have gone through the economics of their business and have concluded that the best way to maximize revenue is to use the 'tiered' pricing philosophy. ***IF*** there are any certifying organizations out there not using this philosophy, they are small players and not driving the market - all the big guys follow this philosophy. It's not by accident.

I would pay an hourly rate in exchange for a full report with each certificate so that I know what was done.

The expertizing bodies have an hourly loaded cost and know what that is on average. They need a certain amount of revenue to make money or break even. High cv stamps are not as common as lower value stamps. In general as cv decreases so do the number of submissions in that category. The bread and butter are the stamps that the bodies see every day of every week for the most part. Those stamps earn less in fees than the high cv stamps but there are more of them. In general you do more work per dollar for the lower value stamps as you do for the higher value stamps. There is a cap on fees as well.

There is just no benefit to engaging in a price war with only two (PSE and PSAG) for-profit companies and two (APEX/APS and PF) non-profit companies. Not to mention that these companies share experts to a degree.

Wise statement. I would be willing to bet that there are some semi-specialized stamps such that no matter which organization you sent one to, it would end up in front of the same person as one of the expertizers. In such cases, the only real difference is the organization's name on the cert. I wonder if the same could be said for each 'team' of experts looking at a stamp?

ETA: I suspect we will continue to see the same pricing philosophy/levels from all the expert organizations for the foreseeable future, taking inflation into account. Things may change if there is a change in submissions, like if certifying becomes more/less popular. There are always trends caused by the market and perceptions. Some kind of 'internal scandal' with one of the orgs could upset the current balance, I suppose.

I would prefer to have the opinion of one person who knows what they are doing and has specific expertise regarding the item to be examined, than pooling the ignorance of 5 generalists or bench warmers and a person using a piece of equipment that they don't understand.

Having said that, I also believe that a real expert knows what he does not know, and should seek additional experts to assist when in doubt

Sadly, I understand that Lewis Kaufmann has retired from the Philatelic Foundation. Very sad. Experts of his caliber, and integrity, are not easily found.

I've always thought that if I found a potential 3c 1851 in Plum that I would much rather (years ago, of course) send it directly to Dr. Amonette than to send it to any org HOPING that the Good Doctor was their Goto Guy for such an item. There are a few areas where the PERSON who is opining is more important than the org name on the cert.

I have perhaps a dozen certificates, most of which came with stamps when I purchased them. Of those four are for 1895h, the 20¢ Flag Over Supreme Court with black field of stars (an unnumbered pair, a plate 8 pair, a plate 8 single, and a plate 9 single, all used). There are another 20 or so that I'd like to submit for expertization, but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Many I'd like to certify are in the $1500-$4000 range, but I'm currently satisfied that they are all authentic and don't need any proof otherwise. This may be a topic of debate for some, but the identification of each of those items is certain. I will eventually send them in for the experts to concur, just not high on my priority list right now.

I would also be willing to pay extra to know exactly what was done with each stamp to authenticate, whether it was an expert opinion based on experience (and who the expert was) or if one or more pieces of equipment were used and what the results of those tests were.