Where Do You Find Your "Off The Beaten Path" Stamps

You are spot on Floortrader; Ecuador 173 (unused) is a perfect example; Scv of something like 15 bucks, and would gladly pay thrice that for one. Only took 5 years of looking to figure out that they don't exist! (Sure there will be day when two pop up on some site within a week, that's how it seems to work.) Only way to know that is just to start looking, and looking...

A couple dealers that specialize in Latin America, may be worth looking into in case you have not already -

http://www.kennieser.com/latin_amer..._stamps.html - in US

https://latinamericanphilatelics.com/ - in UK

I've only dealt with the latter (sold stamps to him), positive experience.

~Greg

Stamp collectors are visual people. If you're going to throw out a Holy Grail, you might as well include a picture, because someone who couldn't care less about Ecuador might say, "Oh, I have him. You can have it."

This is your guy, Antonio Borrero?

I usually find my "off the beaten path" stuff at club meetings/events. I belong to 4 different clubs and they all like to hold auctions, so there is usually something out there. I have a couple dealers who will search for me also...they belong to the clubs.

(....having said this, watch my sources dry up) LOL

I was finally able to complete the Colombian States in my Big Blue 1840-1940, '47 edition, purchasing from Ken. You may end up having to buy sets instead of the one or two you need, but as Floortrader and I've discussed on another thread on Big Blues, in a lot of cases, that's the only way you'll find the stamp you need, unless you're willing to wait years and years.

I'm not familiar with the other seller mentioned, so I'll look at their selection, myself.

Thanks, Ray

Thank you Gmot, have dealt with Ken before. Actually contacted him with a wish list about a month ago. Had 2 that I was looking for that were iffy overprints and one that was an upgrade. He said "that's a tough want list."

Occasionally search the Latin American site. Usually has nice material but have not found anything there to fill a hole. May go back soon as I've added Venezuela and Costa Rica to the shelves in the past week.

Cjd, yes, that is him! Correct stamp, which is sometimes confused with the 214. Have found some used ones over the years, but never an unused one. Good idea though!

I think we need to make it clear ,are we talking about cheap stamps or more expensive "off the beaten path " stamps . Need to keep readers attention are we looking at stamps like South Georgia and Falkland Islands or are we talking about Oil Rivers and New Republic stamps ,one is under $2.00 the other $25.00 type stamps .

Where you search depends on price .Some dealers will work with you on cheap stamps and others can't help you on lower price material .

Well the subject line was initially referring to material like (just in regard to what I'm personally looking for) Cape Verde, Slovakia, Lithuania, Manchukuo and so forth. Evolved in to Ecuador as well just due to the fact that it was the first non-US country I decided to collect and always bring that up; as well as being a rabid "completionist" as the few folks here on these forums that I know personally have genially described me as over breakfasts. (And to which I take no offense and heartily agree with .)

Price wasn't really a factor, it was simply trying to comprehend why certain stamps of any value seem to be impossible to find at any price; but also looking for suggestions for finding dealers/tips to fill holes for the above listed albums.

Hi Andyrich74

One of the best thread I have seen in a long time and apparently still not good enough.

Andyrich 74 said " Why certain stamps of any value seem to be impossible to find at any price ".

Here is my take on this subject , it is hard for new collectors to believe this ,but being a long time worldwide collector and still missing a lot of these cheap stamps in the Scott's Internationals there has to be a reason ?

When the catalogs determine price they do two things , first they look at dealers published price list and they talk to a whole group of experience dealers and experts .

There is a problem here ,first dealers don't make or have price list since everybody went to on-line buying and ebay became the elephant in the room . So for dealers they buy on Saturday and sell on Monday ,they don't keep a track of inventory ,they look at what a old catalog says about price and it is sold . NO clue about rariety .
The big shot dealers have their heads in the clouds with high price stamps and their mindset is if it catalogs under $10.00 throw it into a mixture box ,they can't be bothered with cheap stamps .

So where does that leave us in our search ? Some dealer back around 1960 got five of those stamps we in 2023 are looking for ,so he wanting to make a quick buck, so he listed those 5 stamps at 50 cent each on his price list . Today 60 years later they are still sitting in the catalog at 50 cents each ,because nobody has one to sell since .

That is my take .

One of the saving graces of collecting worldwide or having a wide range of interests is that there's always another place to jump into.

My primary focus is on used, preferably postally used instead of favor cancelled. That's not always possible. Used Inini is nigh impossible even favor cancelled, so mint will do it for me.

There are used and supposedly cheap stamps of (for example) British Guiana that I haven't been able to find for many years now. That country collection of mine is at a dead standstill. Now I don't have anything at all of the expensive stuff but it's out there if/when the mood and pocketbook strikes (except #13). I do see some complete used sets out there on occasion but they usually include high values with fiscal cancels, with the set priced at or near full Scott. They will have bad/faulty examples of what I'm looking for often enough. I'm not pulling the trigger on those.

For those living in the US, I suggest buying overseas. A lot of you mistrust overseas dealers and vice versa and avoid each other like the Plague. Yet, there are a lot of stamps to be found there that aren't often found in old US collections to get recycled to new collections in the US. There's less circulation worldwide than you may think. Postage has jumped up recently, so you'd want to balance that against what you want to buy. On the other hand, there are still a lot of small dealers with no online presence that you'd never know about.

Another thing that has happened is that stamps that were once frequently seen 30-40 years ago are seldom seen today. ex-King Farouk stamps were everywhere and seem to have been absorbed into collections since. People's Rep. of China reprints were packet material once and have mostly disappeared into speculators' "collections". More recently, lesser Iran collections on album pages, even ones made up with reprints and fakes to sell cheaply, seem to have dried up.

It would seem with the advent and rise of the internet; would be easier to find more material though.

But to maybe (re) clarify; my query had no basis in monetary value; I'm looking for an unused Egypt 374 at $.80 as much as a Caymans 20 at $2k (2015 Scott.)

Really just more thinking out loud why some stamps seem to be really hard to find; but you never know when someone might have the answer or another avenue to find that proverbial difficult to find stamp.

Buy from around the world. Search in foreign-language terms and with "local" catalogue numbers. The internet has made this all much more possible, since you can instantly access new dealers and pay securely.

It's the golden age of finding difficult stamps.

Here is the basic rule of Worldwide stamp collecting ----- If I have it ,it is common and of no value , if I don't have it ,it is rare and valuable .

Back many years ago , the dealers would pick a country or interest . Over time they build a inventory ,this means buying 10 or 20 collections on that country and selling many thousands of items from this interest ,they learned and heard what the collectors wanted and asked for , they knew their market .

The dealers today buys on Saturday and sell on Monday and forget by Thursday what they sold ,they move on to what sells the fasts .They only look at over time what didn't sell ,dealers are better at WHAT DOESN'T SELL . . They rarely get into what people can't find .

I was a accumulator of the elusive Colombia E1 pictured above. Ended up with 25 copies and 3 used. As I paid more and more for copies they came screaming out of "stock books." Sold them as a group and was slaughtered. The more I cornered the market on an obsession the more copies I found. Interest died for everyone else and I was left holding the bag so to speak. Lesson learned, leave enough available to keep up interest. This stopped me from cornering the Kensett canned fruit revenue stamp.