Urgent: Regarding Sergio And Liane Sismondo's Books, Etc!

Back to the subject of S. SISMONDO'S stuff , I am talking about his books,files ,research material and all the forgeries he spend a life time to put together . What I am seeing up for auctions is boxes of forgeries both stamps and covers in glassines ........where is the infomation that goes with that ?

I read from this chat board a lot of this stuff ended up in a dumpster outside of his condo .......that is what I am crying about .......heck if I was 20 years younger I would bid on all his material but what good is it without his paperwork ?

I wonder if he kept a database of his certs…

This is what was written in the initial post:




Hardly proof any books were thrown away.

We aren't talking about someone whose family didn't know what he was up to...I'm highly skeptical that anything of any importance went into a dumpster.

Not to mention his peers and other industry contacts. The man was a legend so it is doubtful that they took no immediate interest when he passed. We did.

Well, the Sismondo lots did OK but not much else. The Mexico lot did not sell and Tibet was lukewarm. Not much love for his material (at least this material).

Holy cow, there were a LOT of passed lots in this auction; looks like approximately 50% of the material in the entire auction didn't sell. Reserves must have been crazy high.

Cherrystone does have one of the highest pass rates I have ever seen and it is consistent with an occasional exception. Based upon the material I used to take an interest in I can see why, because yes, the openings are high, sometimes very high. It kept me out of most of the competition over the years. Really wonder how they handle such a thing. It makes me think it is mostly house owned because dealing with that much consignor material to be returned would be a nightmare.

Rog would Cherrystone still be appropriate for selling my Mongolia collection?

Morning Randy!

IMO Cherrystone is dyslexic in that they have long runs of auctions with high pass rates and then an auction that is on fire. OR cold auctions with sections that are hot because the right bidders showed up for unusual material.

In my eye Cherrystone is now rather unique in that they tend to have extensive listings of obscure material from obscure or very niche places. Tons of truly rare, at least by quantities known, material that needs that special buyer. And often really heavy on the postal history component.

My personal story maybe helps to paint a picture. Even though they are a renown Russian area auction house having sold some of the greatest collections of Russia (Ackerman etc.) and with Paul's expertizing opinions on Russian material being universally accepted I used Raritan when it came time to sell. That decision was made even with Cherrystone offering an industry low seller commission of 10%. I made it based upon watching too many lots be passed over the years and acknowledging that I myself often took a pass on bidding.

Sorry about the long winded response that maybe rambles a bit. I hope that you find a good home for your collection and are happy with the results. I have issues with DFK but they honestly seem to get better results albeit with perhaps lower realizations. At least the stuff usually doesn't end up back home after waiting a year.

Sad to see the results of the stamp auction for Sergio Sismondo material ,if that was the bulk of his collection .

The fault lies with both ,Sergio,who should of had better organization of his material and also at fault was the poor describitions of the material { please don't describe the cheap material in the lot ,please tell me about the better stuff in your catalog write up }. Cherrystone knew from my past auction purchases that I bid and buy FAKES and FORGERIES , so I was waiting for a "heads -up" postcard from them ,it never came ..

TO NEW READERS AND COLLECTORS ----- This is a fine example of a person who has material and spend a life time to get it ,but it ends up being sold like a mixture box or a junk lot , let me stress to you the importance of getting it organized .

Let me show you what I thought it should look like ........it doesn't have to be stamp show quality but it has to make sense to a person looking at it .

Just to get off the subject here for a minute -----

Here is a item I received in a forgery collection ,so I wrote it up and mounted it as a forgery on a album page . Years later found a newspaper article I saved many years earlier and went to add information to my album page but determined it was the real stamps and not fakes .

Sergio did sell a mid-five figure forgery collection at Winepex (Redwood Empire Collector's Club's annual show) on October 9, 2022. That and a largest known strip of 6 of a Finnish roulette, a four figure sale, were the two sales made at that three day show.

Big IF