How Prevalent Is Collecting Modern World Booklets And Booklet Panes? How Do You Purchase Material?

This is a bit outside my wheelhouse, so I'm looking for suggestions.

I've just acquired an accumulation of world booklets from the 1960s through early 2000s. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "collection" as everything is still in glassines, not worked up for display. It's also seemingly not a dealer stock as there is virtually no duplication. I think it may have been a collector's acquisitions for a future project that never materialized (boy do I know THAT scenario )

While it is dominated with the usual suspects when it comes to booklets (Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany), there are also what I would consider to be "nonstandard" countries for this sort of material even if not in major quantity (Denmark, Finland, Faroe Islands, Netherlands, Thailand, Indonesia, misc. Pacific Islands, misc. British Commonwealth, Vatican, a few Middle East countries, etc.). Also in the mix is a small run of intact French Red Cross booklets from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s.

From the spot checking I've done, all appear to be fully intact booklets, not just panes. I'm not going to differentiate between exploded and unexploded as I don't know which ones were issued sealed vs. not. Some of the West Germany and Berlin booklets are definitely unexploded.

All told I'm guesstimating 1200-1400 complete booklets. Very clean. Would make a great starter collection for someone in this area. I'm not expecting to find any scarce items and most are low-catalog-value (the highest cat item I found in a preliminary scan was $65), but just on quantity alone even at a buck or two apiece the cost would add up.

Do I:

1. Flip it intact, only going so far as to do a count by country and some general images. (Least time and effort; lowest profit potential)

2. Separate into country groups for listing on ebay, imaging all the booklets, or at least outer booklet covers. (Middle scenario)

3. Go down the road of imaging, lotting, and listing individually on ebay. Is there enough demand for this? (Most labor-intensive)

4. Given the (somewhat) esoteric nature, is this material better suited for the APS store? (Slightly less labor-intensive than #3, but smaller audience)


It's a question (as always) of labor and time vs. return. For those of you who collect booklets, how do you acquire material and what do you look for in a listing? Do you prefer buying groups or individual booklets despite the shipping cost then having a major impact?

I'll try to do a count by country this weekend to better be able to provide context as to the composition of the group.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I don't know how popular it is but on occasion I've had some for sale from Sweden, Scandinavian countries, France and Germany and can tell you that they don't take long before they're purchased. Usually a few days to a week after the ad is placed.

I usually get foreign material in mixed lots purchased and sell the vast majority of the foreign stuff as don't collect it. Then I use the proceeds to buy more...

The only booklets I've bought (or sold) have been French, as that's my main collection, but I see them more as garnish than core. Personally, I'd sell them in country lots, with mixed lots for the oddments. I suspect that they'll be of most interest to people with individual country collections. The French Red Cross are worth selling in a separate lot to the rest of France.

I find booklets (and booklet panes) sell about as well as regular sets/singles on Hip/Delcampe. I tend to avoid buying lots with lots of booklets, just because they are not as easy to scan, package & ship.

Like everything on ebay, the more work you do the better price you can expect to get. If you sell them as a group it will be less work, but typically a lower price. Try separating them by country and see if that works. If you have any that are valuable sell them as individual lots.
I buy British Colony booklet panes and coil joins, but only from the King George VI era (1937 - 1952) so keep me in mind if you find any from that time period.

As a buyer, I would be interested in lots by country.

I would generally go with option two. When I buy booklets it is only for the countries that I concentrate on.

If you have a key issue, you might consider listing it separately. The possible downside to that is you could end up not moving the more common ones because the lot doesn't have the key issues.

Dan

Modern French booklets have a number of high value varieties (on covers or stamp panel)
One seller has put the 30-40 booklets on sale individually with a starting price of 2 Euro (about 10%).
I bought some varieties for 2 Euro each (catalogue value 30-50 Euro each)
The seller still has the rest for sale (after 5 months).
I think it is more advantageous for you to group them in a single lot, but necessarily with pictures of the covers/stamp panels, so that specialized collectors can identify the varieties.
They might buy the whole lot for a few varieties (in the happy case that they exist).
An example of booklet varieties.

So I did a full count, and while the number came up short of my guesstimate, the variety is better than I anticipated. It also confirmed what I saw on my peripheral scan:

1. All are complete booklets, not just panes.

2. Virtually zero duplication.

Here is the list of countries and the number of booklets for each. 1,116 booklets in total.


Albania 2
Alderney 1
Andorra 2
Anguilla 2
Antigua 3
Ascension 2
Australia 7
Belarus 1
Belgium 17
British Virgin Islands 1
Brunei 1
Canada 66
China, Republic of 3
Czechoslovakia 1
Denmark 8
Estonia 1
Falkland Islands 3
Faroe Islands 10
Fiji 1
Finland 35
France Red Cross 23
Germany, Berlin 10
Germany, East (DDR) 5
Germany, West 25
Gibraltar 9
Great Britain 207
Greece 5
Greenland 1
Grenada 3
Grenadines of St. Vincent 2
Guernsey 37
Hong Kong 2
Hungary 2
Indonesia 7
Ireland 17
Isle of Man 47
Israel 15
Jamaica 2
Jersey 63
Jugoslavia 3
Kenya 2
Latvia 1
Luxembourg 4
Malta 3
Marshall Islands 23
Mauritius 1
Micronesia 6
Moldova 1
Monaco 9
Montserrat 2
Namibia 1
Netherlands 57
Nevis 1
New Zealand 10
Norway 23
Palau 19
Papua New Guinea 3
Penrhyn 1
Portugal 15
Romania 1
San Marino 1
Sierra Leone 1
Singapore 2
Slovenia 3
Solomon Islands 2
Spain 8
St. Kitts 1
St. Pierre & Miquelon 1
St. Vincent 7
Surinam 11
Sweden 210
Switzerland 1
Tanzania 3
Thailand 16
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus 2
Turks & Caicos Islands 3
Tuvalu 2
Uganda 1
Vatican City 6

I collect Northern Europe and Latin America booklets; I rarely pay more than 25% of Scott catalogue and often pay as little as 10 percent.

Suggest option 2

It might depend on wether the indiviual country lots are one of each issued or there are specialitites: cylinder numbers, guide marks, perforation types, texts on the covers, etc. Some can be very specialised and quite expensive. Otherwise, I suspect most booklet collectors will collect specific geographic areas.

Hibernian (2020 edition)
HB16 € 65
HB17 € 42
HB18 € 42
HB19 € 25
HB19a € 25 (cover is coarser than HB19)
HB20 € 3.50
HB22 € 18

Combined catalogue price € 220,50. Won at ebay auction at € 12.70 + € 2 p&p. I make that 7.7% of the catalogued price, including the postage. These books are in quite good to excellent condition.

This and last year, I have been catching up on decimal Irish stamp books that appeared before I started collecting these. I rarely paid more than 30% of the Hibernian price. Some, I bought at around nominal value. Catalogue prices for Irish and (basic) British booklets appear to be a multiple of what they make on ebay.

I do not think I would have added that 6/- stamp book if it had not been included in this lot. But this completes my "Gerls" basic stamp book set.

To quote Droopy: "I am happy."