Do You Trust It When Seller Says Stamp Lot Is Unchecked

The first lot looks like pure junk, though, unless you really want hundreds of the same dull definitive. Amazed at the price it achieved.

Generally I don't take 'unchecked lots' at face value. I find it hard to believe that somebody hasn't checked the lot in question, especially when 'unchecked' is in the description and the seller is an obvious dealer.
I mean lets face it, most collectors dream of finding a gem, wouldn't the same apply to a dealer?
'unchecked' and 'old time collection' in the same sentence from an obvious dealer again, to moi, sounds dubious, at best.
Similarly, an 'almost complete collection', in my opinion, means that, probably, some of the higher value material have been removed and is quite evident in a number of country collections that I have bought.
On the flip side however, I was fortunate enough, on a single occasion, to bag a decent number of stamps from Finland with watermark varieties with SG catalogue values of over £50 for 20p in an approvals package.

It depends on the meaning of "unchecked". The dealer selling the old-time collection is being honest by saying he hasn't checked the watermarks or perfs or types to verify that every stamp is genuine and placed in its correct location. It can be used as a disclaimer, like "as-is".

Yes, I'm sure every dealer dreams of finding a US 233a or 594 in an otherwise ordinary collection, but those same dealers also have such a big backlog of collections to process that they can't afford the time to treasure hunt every single one, knowing the chances of finding a hidden gem is less than one tenth of one percent.

I don't like the term "unchecked", not because I don't trust the dealer, but because the term is so ambiguous and can be interpreted as "not cherry-picked by us", or sometimes it means "not checked for faults".

@Floortrader




so you sold someone an unchecked lot, and yet you know much about it :)

i guess that's a good example..

I used to sell a lot of stuff, bought off professional dealers back when it was a good living.. now too much competition and low profit margin and it's not worth it anymore.

i then resold those things and often got asked, have you checked everything, and my reply was OF COURSE! how else could I price it right, you buy it off me, and i've made a profit and there's still room for you to divide it and resell it.

reason I do that is because I want to make sure no one I sell to is cheated - that doesn't mean I remove much if any at all.

but I also have experienced what floortrader mention.

there's a big difference in how much people know about value and stamps in general, and those with little knowledge won't discover the good stuff or feel they've made a good deal.

"Unchecked... by me."

"Unchecked... for anything outside my area of specialization."

"Unchecked... for certain aspects of the material."

Could mean anything.

For online purchases, the highest chance for something to be truly "unchecked" is if it is coming from a seller that has offered no other stamp-related listings, or you can tell from their history doesn't specialize in stamps.

In-person at stamp shows, I've purchased lots that I truly believe were unchecked (at least by the dealer I was purchasing it from), as the material didn't fit within their norm, or I saw it come in as part of a larger "deal" and I was able to buy the revenue portion intact. This is especially the case if the dealer is interested in moving material quickly and not tying up their capital for bigger long-term gains, "flipping" if you will.

There's no such thing as virgin material, everything has been checked!

the question is always, for what and with what expertise has it been checked.

the more you know, the more you'll find!

For those of you that sell bulks of stamps:
How feasible it is to use WM liquids on thousands of stamps?
Do you check perforations on items that even Scott just remarks that there is an array of perf values and doesn't assign a catalog value to each?
Are color shades too much to check when selling thousands of stamps?

Rob Roy, many sellers offer much smaller lots (more like dozens of stamps) and still claim the stamps are unchecked. Even in the scenario you mention in your post where thousands of stamps are offered, I suspect sellers take a look at where scarce or rare varieties may exist and check a few stamps in the catalogs. If they pull out these stamps for separate sale, this may explain why there are obvious instances of stamps being removed from the pages.

Then perhaps it's accurate to say the (balance of) the lot is unchecked.

@Rob Roy




i can't speak for anyone by myself.

there are 2 types of sellers, those that try to get rid of duplicates and those who seek a profit.

for the latter, it comes down to a simple word - worthwhile.

if you work within your field of expertise - and you should, you can quickly determine if it's worthwhile to work with a bulk of material or not, and quite often it's not worthwhile.

for instance, bundles, bulk stamps in envelopes it takes time to sort, and experience tells me it's not worth the time and sore neck.
Stamps on stockcards or albums is a quick scan, and depending on what you know - profitable items are quickly picked off, and the rest goes back in the box.

really expensive stamps, watermark and perforation varieties are expensive for a reason - they are rare. Save the time, work a few hours longer and buy a lottery ticket instead.

i have no experience with watermark liquids. Within Scandinavia, I know every watermark or perforation that's worth a little extra and most of those you have a good idea just from the front, so it will never come down to having to check a lot of stamps.

but it doesn't seem like a good idea to throw it over a lot of stamps?

Since English is not my native language, I might be missing something.

This is a lot offered by a dealer on ebay:



Note this page has a space for the 'missing phosphor' variety. Someone added its catalogue price of £ 225. There is a mount (other pages of this type offered have blank spaces when the stamp is missing). It does appear the stamp was removed from the page.

This seller offers many pages in this layout. It appears a collection split up in individual lots.

This is part of the description of the lot:



Maybe the person who sold his collection to the ebay seller took the stamp out, but it makes me wonder how unchecked the annotations are.

I think the seller is covering his/her butt by saying that if the buyer finds that an annotation is incorrect (improper ID) that is not a reason to complain.

So do I. Although I think the correct way to put it would be the seller did not check the stamps. I do get the impression the annotations were checked and those that promised a nice return were confirmed by checking that stamp.