I am looking over the latest Kelleher Auction on SAN and it is widely varied. Lots of stuff from all different areas of interest. Yay!
Having said that, though, I am noticing all kinds of descriptive errors. They have a Scott #40 Re-Issue listed as a #18 unused. The paper is different, the perfs are different, and the impression is different. How can they make a mistake like that? Then there is the #209 that initially looks like a nicely margined XF stamp, until you look a little closer and SEE THE HOLE IN THE STAMP. Completely undescribed. They describe it as Lightly Hinged, yet there is a hinge remnant clearly sticking out at upper left. I guess if you can live with a hole in the stamp, a hinge remnant is a complete non-issue. There is a mint #229 with a corner stain (more likely a gum soak) that went undescribed. I gave up at that point. Maybe others have noticed similar things later in the sale???
Each of these merit a cert, yet neither has one. I notice a bunch of stamps in this auction without certs, including many that one would expect a cert. I guess I am not bidding on any of those!
While I was looking over the auction, I got a passing 'whiff' of Langs' stock stuck in my brain. I suspect they found one last carton in the back of the storage area.
Quote: I suspect they found one last carton in the back of the storage area.
I more than suspect that there are trailer loads of Lang's material yet to be sold. In fact, it was mentioned in another thread not that long ago that Kelleher has a huge volume of material from Lang in storage. Enough to outlast Kelleher if sold in an auction format that does not involve pallet lots.
Quote: You might have been asleep at the switch on that one. Last year, about when they started running the Lang's material, they gave a 2% discount on their house commission to folks who paid early. The net came to 18%. So a year ago the stated house commission was 20% and you paid that full rate if they didn't get what you owed within two weeks.
They kept that up for almost the whole period of the Lang's liquidation. It was a good stimulus to buyers, and kept things moving for Bill's son who was the consignor of the whole shebang. Bill's son is an academy trained commissioned naval officer, and very bright, but he did not share his father's passion for stamps. So Kelleher became the agency of choice to liquidate by whatever means. But liquidating that inventory even had David Coogle rolling his eyes, as he admitted in one of our phone calls.
I once asked Bill how much he had into his inventory and he estimated it at somewhere "around $20 million." Exaggeration? I mentioned that to Jim Lee and he scoffed at it, but Coogle was actually astounded by the volume. Some things they tried selling took a few cycles, but most of those sales were first runs for much of the material in them. In addition to the auction sales Kelleher maintained a shadow management of the Langs online business on ebay and Hipstamp, which saw progressive discounting until just before the Collections sale. Then it all disappeared at once. After almost a full year of spreading things out the consignor was ready to pull the plug. For their part, back in February '22 Kelleher ended the "early pay discount." Enough already! So the recent collections auction got a big dump of the last of the Langs material. And someone had the pocketbook to be ready for it.
Far and away the majority of the Essay-Proof material, and other predominantly Langs lots, went to a single bidder, I-496. Chuck Cwiakala, an auction agent regularly at Kelleher sales, estimated that this buyer poured well into 6 figures (the first not a a low number) for hammer prices alone. All the lots I was after hammered out of reach by a factor of 3 in most cases. I wished they had run one more sale in which the lots were broken down, but it was not to be. Let's just say that the Langs material did not whimper to an end, but went out with a bang.
But don't be surprised if Kelleher floats more Lang's material from their own inventory. They know what they are doing.
I fail to see where that quote translates to trailer loads. In fact it doesn't say "that Kelleher has a huge volume of material from Lang in storage." It merely speculates " more Lang's material from their own inventory"
Are stamps owned by Langs evil? Honestly, his prices were nuts, his failure to disclose faults was terrible. But none of that is relevant since he's not in the picture. As buyers and sellers we all have to be able to examine a stamp and determine what it is, and what faults it has. I can tell you with great confidence as someone who bought a bunch from his estate that there were plenty of delicious stamps amongst his hoard - many of which I believe he probably hadn't looked at in decades. I've pretty much made back my investment in his material already and have plenty of really nice stamps for sale that once were his. They aren't his now. They're mine. I'm ranting a bit, but it seems like attacking Kelleher for being associated with Langs has probably run its course. Kelleher banned Langs from participating in their auctions due to his behavior. The fact that they got his estate is major irony.
Now if Kelleher is making mistakes - that is a separate story. I wonder if they are short staff - because some of the mistakes seem recently have been quite bad.
Maybe I'm reading things into comments that aren't there. But my impression is people bring up Langs name to make a negative remark implying that anything Langs is evil. I don't think I'm imagining it.
Which is fair. His stuff needs to be examined carefully. But they are just stamps. There is no curse on them. I've examined hundreds of them and there are many hidden faults but very few misidentifications. Yes, his material needs to be treated with suspicion. But at the end of the day it's just stamps.
On subject of Langs ,I met him in the 1980's each time that I visited Greg Manning Auctions . Got to know him thru the afternoon and eveing's social activities of drinking and eating dinners .He had a small group that he talked to mostly U.S. material buyers . Were I would mix with the International dealers . He stayed and talked with U.S. guys .
He would be a big buyer at G.M. Auctions and at other auctions like seeing him in Boston a few times at Kelleher . I believe he had a huge inventory already establish when ebay took off and then he grew much bigger with that event and ability to sell to a much bigger client base .
The point I am making is that he was buying a lot in the 1980's when prices were much lower and stamp auctions didn't have the larger crowds .
Lang's reputation was earned and not undeserved. A search of this forum returns 85 pages of results for Lang references and discussions and not all are flattering to say the least. The topic that arises over and over is Lang's material having "lost" certs that were negative in nature. That is not "just stamps" but rather a pattern of behavior.
Enough of beating the dead horse named Lang especially given that this topic is about an upcoming Kelleher sale.
PS: Given how much lang was and is discussed it is clear that in his case the adage "there is no such thing as bad publicity" is likely true. After all he left the planet with a lot of stamps and a lot of cash.
I do wonder just how big a hoard he managed to accumulate. If you counted only stamps that he had marked for sale - those truckloads of mostly single US stamps - how many were there? Certainly six figures. Millions?
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Posted 08/24/2022 7:44 pm
