Items like this, of this enormous size and weight, and for this amount of money, are typically bought with some kind of investment value in mind. It's unlikely someone would buy this album in the same way they might buy a copy of the stamp album they once had as a child or an album they just liked to look through. This is just too enormous and too expensive for that. So I wonder if someone will see this as an investment -- or will it be attractive to a stamp museum of which there are at least a few, like a Gutenberg Bible would be?
And albums like this can't really be used for mounting stamps anymore. Modern stamp mounts would ruin the album. For one thing the thickness of the mounts would quickly make the pages bulge out badly. The open ends of the pages would soon grow wider, destroying the look of the album. Not to mention the damage to the pages. You'd have to use hinges, but they'd have to be older high-quality hinges and even then you'd be ruining the paper. And what about the paper? It's already really old, so who would actually want to mount their stamps on this paper? No, it's an object to be looked at, not used. I have no idea how an auction firms comes up with prices like this, but I'm going to guess this thing will be hard to sell.
On the other hand, maybe I should buy it and carry it around to stamp shows from dealer to dealer while I tried to fill it. In a luggage cart, of course. Maybe even put wheels on it.
Posted 01/31/2022 5:41 pm
