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

Very true! When I go to Kelleher for a viewing I usually have a list of about 20 prospects, and if 3 of these "make the cut" it's a lot. In spite of this I took a shoot.

The description was fine, the only thing DCA didn't mention was that this collection was not collated, thus Part I was in two volumes and the the other Parts in 1 or 2 volumes. Here are a few Part I pictures;




Should be 4 Volumes











Someone asked if this was a good buy and I have to say yes. From experience I know I will get the purchase price plus a bit from selling Part I and I have all those other volumes to sell for profit so I'm satisfied.

KEN -Nice purchase at DCA , I also purchase a few things there but they were for my own collection ,speciality lots .

UNDERSTANDING "Cherry Picking " Some basic information to new readers and collectors .

I am speaking as someone who has been around the stamp auction business with active accounts at a few of the major stamp auctions firms and one of their oldest customer's on their active bidder list,some close to 50 years .

First thing to understand is that a cherry picker knows what he is looking at ,yes they know a penny black or a five pound orange , or any of the 3,000 stamps that are regulars at the major auction firms . But nobody knows everything and for them to start researching stuff it takes time from their busy day ,they have deadlines .

Cherry Picking isn't a once and done process it is better to explain it as a chain of buyers /owners each having their own standard . For example the first buyer may only want items that catalog $150.00 or more ,then he sells it to a new buyer who removes everything over $50.00 .Then this buyer consigns it to a auction firm ,from here it goes to a ebay seller who remove everything over $10.00 to sell as seperate items ,then sells everything else as a collection on ebay . It depends on you and what area on the chain you want to play at .

One of the most important aspects of what a Big Blue or any item sells for is the number of bidders interested in the lot. A few years ago Ken Relyea and I were bidding on a nice Big Blue Volume 1 with perhaps 20,000 stamps being auctioned by Rasdale. Ken won the lot for around $11,000. But at $5000 we were the only two bidders left. If either of us drop out, the lot sells for half of what it eventually sold for.

In my opinion most of the major auction houses do a disservice to the consignees of large WW collections. After "cherry picking" the high value sets and singles, the rest of the album is sold as a single lot with rarely enough pictures to do a good collection justice. Many of these albums would possibly net twice the amount if broken up into country or area lots. That however is just not worth the time or effort by the auction house.

Willwood --- I don't think Ken would be interested in taking you out after a stamp auction for a beer .

On a more serious note ,we have to believe each stamp auction firm has to understand their own customers . They have to put out the effort to give their long time big buyer something that they {their buyers } can make money with .

The big firms who have millions in sales each year ,understand who the big buyers are and what they are looking for ,sure they can break stuff to smaller units to get active bidding from small collectors who walk in the door to buy $500.00 or less at a auction but it is their customers who spend $5,000 and more that they are trying to keep . You would be surprised how many of the same buyers would show up at each of the auctions at Greg Manning Auctions over a 10 year period . We all knew each other and how each person would bid and who would run the prices up and who was a two or three price bidder .

Firm will build their inventory to their customers .

Thank you KRelyea for posting that fun packed Big Blue. One really gets a feeling for what the collector was up to there. I like the look of the hinged stamps, and you can tell the collector got out the mounts for ones deemed special like the Bluenose. I wonder how complete it is/was?

Hi Floortrader, Actually Ken and I had an interesting email conversation about why as a reseller, he had an advantage over me as a collector, in purchasing large Big Blue collections. I was and still am not totally convinced. In the meantime, I have purchased numerous lots from Ken. He seems to be able to get a high percentage of catalog value for his offerings on ebay. I attribute it to the quality of his lots, the completeness of his photographs and his reputation as a seller.

Willwood --- Agree ,he has build a successful business ,wish him the best . I am also a collector and don't think of changing that anytime soon .

I have given it some thought ,that in the future I will most likely sell my duplicates to someone doing the same as sell collections on ebay ,that is breaking down collections instead of put a stamp auction house in the middle .Then waiting 3 months to get paid .

Right now I still work on the main collection but the by-product is filling up a lot of other collections . Right now on my desk is a 13 volume Internationals . Sometime next year plan to match it up to a another Internat'l and transfer the needed stamps between them .

Sunday before a bunch of stamp auctions ,good time to fill in some missing stamps ,today catching up on Saar .

floortrader,

Thank you for sharing the pages of Saar. I don't think I've run across these particular issues before. Beautiful designs and I like them in the various colors.

Dale

Something to sleuth out in red boxes! Big Blue gives 16 spaces for these... Big Red I think has nearly all of those spaces close to Stiener. I'm a sucker for the Giant Stamps a few years later!

Saar has a lot going for it. As long as you don't go down the variety rabbit hole it is a Country that can actually be completed by most collectors in a relatively short amount of time depending upon budget. It is one of the Countries that you see most often offered complete as well so if you are a Big Blue person, you can check it off easily. There are no basic catalog number five figure stamps that can frustrate the heck out of the average collector because you either have an empty space or a space filler.

Saar is nice - attractive sets, two separate periods to look at, not an excessive output of stamps. Harder to collect legitimately used, as fake cancels are quite common on a number of the sets.

It is important than new collectors see how a decent size worldwide collection is kept . All stamps in mounts are Mint Never Hinged .