Pushing 330,000 All Different Worldwide Stamps In One Collection .

Canada is straight forward, relatively easy to source and available for a lower % of cat than most countries. Mexico & Central America are a bit trickier.

I recently bought a big blue at a Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library stamp auction that had only Central and South America. Nothing of significant value, but plenty of stamps to provide a great start to collecting these areas!! I'm planning on moving slowly in adding each country to my growing collection.

Big Blue (especially a part 1, 1840-1940) is probably the best best way to launch into the world. There's plenty of them out there and not too daunting. I find refilling the US part in the front fun, reminds me of chasing some of those as a kid. It took me a while to find that 1938 4 1/2 cent white house stamp as a kid and it cost me a quarter ;)

Came on here to see if any information about the liquidation of the inventory of A &D Stamps Co. inventory of Walnut Creek ,Calif.

This inventory has to be one of the biggest of the world ,maybe not one of the most expensive ,but size is the factor with this inventory . I been picking up items and really impress with the quality and with the continue sale offerings . I max out my spending with this sale over 5 auctions .

This is a very interesting post. As I kid, we bought these bags of stamps at Woolco, and also these stamp packs of different topics there as well. We had a scrapbook that we pasted them in, and we were hoping to visit as many countries by stamps as we could. We then went to the library to find out where they were on the map, when the first stamp was made, and any other important information about their stamps.

Later when I got my new album of the world, I said it would be nice to have a stamp of each country in the book, but it would be a task to do.

This past Christmas we won a Facebook auction for a box of world stamps, and another auction for Canada/us and more world stamps. And as we have sorted these, we have come across many new countries and new to me stamps.

The joy of collecting world is always fun.

Floortrader… it was a treat just looking through the lots… wow! And of course I tried to estimate how many different… maybe 500k? Do you still have a link to the main auction? I wonder if the era of the dealers with this level of stock coming to a close… To Kevin… Woolworth's was the place I would go to get my orange Harris bags of stamps as a kid… got a bag in my Easter basket too on year

---LANDOQUAKES -- I did keep the hard copies of the stamp auction catalogs ,plus they are on STAMP AUCTION NETWORK web page . The club auction that was today had material from A&D ,plus the Kelleher Auction coming March 11 and the March 26-27 ,2024 still has more .

It is my guess that Kelleher purchased the whole inventory , now they are selling it as their own material . First was the red boxes and all the bulk stuff ,then the later auctions had the better material . The cherry pick material is broken down in two ways , My understanding was the better material was split close to catalog value . Now understand these are a rough guess how it was broken down .

Stuff that catalog around $80.00 to $300.00 was put in the Sunday club auctions and the more expensive material above $300.00 was put in their FLAGSHIP SERIES. Just the way it was sold tells me they {Kelleher } purchase the whole inventory .

As I have already explained here on this board previous ,my goals and interest over the past few years has been to go after material that the average collector rarely sees and not sold on a regular basis , I believe I picked up some nice stuff at fair prices but still sad the see a good firm like A&D close up shop . That leaves Superior Stamps in NYC as the biggest inventory of stamps that I know about ,but then they have reduce their contact to buyers and the stamp community ,so my guess is that inventory will come up for sale or that may be on a slow and quiet reduction also , I just don't know with Superior .

I have to think that A to Z Stamps and Champion Stamp are somewhat in the range though I expect Champion won't be growing and may cease operations at some point. Marlen Stamp has a huge, somewhat covert stock they don't advertise consistently. And they seem to be quite transactional, not building up relationships with clients.

Wonder where Mystic fits in with all of this?

CORRECTION ----That should be Champion Stamps of NYC . not Superior Stamps which is in California ,

Thanks Shermae , for helping me clear that up .Champion has that massive wall of binders for their inventory .

Good question about Mystic. I know Mystic has purchased some impressive collections. Not sure if they sell all those or is there some kind of stamp hoard out there ;) Here's the PDF of Kelleher auction 793 with a great photo of A& D stamps https://kelleherstampassets.s3.us-e...gPDF/793.pdf and the prices realized https://kelleherstampassets.s3.us-e...realized.pdf

One of my favorites
2854 Worldwide, Show Stopping, Incomprehensible A&D Mint & Used Stock, housed in 574 red boxes, with custom fitted wooden boxes, filled and intact from A to Z, regular solid Countries and their Colonies and Offices are all represented, British, French, German, Italian, are all present, this is not your typical red box lot as each item (over 400,000 items in total, likely $20,000 + are items of individual value $1 to $50 retail and comprise the great majority of the value, estimated at $2,000,000.00 +) each item is meticulously identified, graded by quality and priced on 102 cards and includes a superb run of modern singles and sets priced to about $50 an item with minimal quantities, usually 3 to 5 when present, whose aggregate face value alone is substantial. The owner ran adding machine tape totals on 145 of the boxes and interpolated the retail value in excess of $2,600,000.00 which would catalog over $3,000,000.00, his logic seemed plausible, items average $5+ a card for those calculated, as many are under $5 each, one would want to vastly discount these, 5% comprises 75% of the overall value, as just about every Country is represented, sans US and Canada (those stocks were maintained separately and are offered herein as well). This is a turn key operation and would be excellent for any enterprising reseller, be it at the shows, retail-store, price listings or internet. Note that none of this material was presented online and would prove to be a treasure trove for online sellers, nor has it been picked-over, for example Asia is intact, and as this dealer didn't discount his pricing, it is still a stock well in its prime. We invite your inspection and cannot imagine another stock of this magnitude with such a high degree of work already done and ready for resale, generally Fine to
Very Fine or better, ex A&D Stamps and Coins Stock. Shipping charges apply - weight 2976 lbs.

I was wondering if it was 400K different stamps in those red boxes? Probably not but makes one wonder!

No, they were not all different

floortrader is right. That looks like what happened. With stocks at an all-time high it looks like stamp auction prices are holding strong at the auctions I looked at.

"It is my guess that Kelleher purchased the whole inventory "
FT - yes, that is what happened.

What I am really curious about is who was the buyer of all the A&D red boxes from the Kelleher auction. Show dealer Internet dealer?