Reputable Stamps From Disreputable Sources

There's nothing more enjoyable than cherrypicking items... except cherrypicking from big dealers or ones that don't have the greatest reputation with respect to ethics or business practices. It gives one warm fuzzies... as if somehow things are right with the world.

Also the employees who photograph/scan/write up lots in these warehouse operations likely know NOTHING about stamps at all, so their decisions as to what to highlight vs. not are frequently not the best, and so they make for great opportunities for the knowledgable.

Two examples today. The first is everyone's favorite ebay "shovelware" dealer, nystamps. No descriptions on anything... ever. Just tiny pictures with the admonishment to rely on the pictures (HA!) for any faults.



This is a case where any savvy dealer would have titled the listing something completely different. The word "rare" is useless on ebay. Everything is now rare. Grandma's "vintage" or "antique" 1-cent Franklin stamp from 1977 is now "rare". No... no, it isn't. Common sense, on the other hand, is rare... shame we can't bottle it. The word "rare" has as much impact as "an" or "the" on ebay. We've become completely desensitized to the use of the word.

However, all things considered, this actually *IS* a rare item... or at least more scarce than the title would imply to most prospective buyers.

If the title had instead read "Second largest reported multiple" would it have garnered more than 8% of Scott? Most likely, in my opinion.

For it is exactly that. There is a single reported block of 6 and four reported blocks of 4, of which this is one of the known four, ex-Joyce collection.

I'll buy 'em at that price all day, every day.


The next one is a 3-carton lot from our old friends at Apfelbaum. The manner in which they aggregate carton lots leads to all sorts of non sequitur images. I've seen this from certain other high-volume dealers, where they literally shovel leftovers into cartons and offer them as "lots".




For those unfamiliar with Apfelbaum's business model, ignore the prices shown on their website. They offer discount coupons that change just about every day, ranging from 50% off at the low end, to 75% at the high end, with 65-70% being the norm (I can't recall ever seeing an 80% off coupon, but it's possible that it is happened).

Every few years they will "reset" and reprice all their lots and the coupon percentages (unironically the net price after repricing and coupon reset typically ends up being a price INCREASE in the short term). There's no rhyme or reason to the coupon amount with respect to day of week or month, other than the best percentages typically occur over weekends and on holidays.

Lots containing anything of decent quality or having remotely reasonable pricing disappear in very short order (I've had lots I was browsing sell in the midst of my viewing it), with the dregs languishing for months.

Complaints aside, I've managed to find some very nice items for my revenue collection from Apfelbaum over the years, as well as made decent money flipping material they didn't recognize as specialized or having marketability. They *DO* get some very esoteric material coming through from time to time.

This particular lot showed up on a 70%-off coupon day, so the net price was $780 shipped.

Was it worth it?

Below are all of the images that were provided on the website for the lot. Let's see what you notice, and below the lot I'll show what made me pounce on the lot.







































































































































































Real mish-mash of material, isn't it?


Regarding the "also ran" material:

The Netherlands album can be cleaned up and probably has $1-2K in catalog value in it.

The Canada album has quite a lot of mint face value postage in there that will add up.

The Channel Islands album is HUGE. Lots of material.

They didn't image a set of 5-6 ancient album pages of 19th century Switzerland containing several Rayons and a fairly large number of imperf seated Helvetias that have potential.

Two large albums of Israel (no high-denom coins with tabs sadly).

As claimed in the description, several hundred dollars in MNH U.S. postage, mostly 5c-8c denoms, much of it to be checked with UV for not-tagged varieties. One additional postage item I'll mention at the end.

So beyond all this, what stood out to me and caused me to buy?...

Answer: U.S. wine revenue stamps. Normally stamps thrown in with a lot like this would be presumed to be junk/common. What caught my eye, however, was that they are on old Kelleher Auctions lot sheets... which tells me that someone at some point thought they were worth something, and so I dug deeper and paid closer attention.

The original invoice from Kelleher auctions was included (but again for some reason not imaged). The collector paid $551 for 4 of the stamps... in 1977.

Catalog numbers and current catalog values follow. Some have some toning/rust stains (not sure if that is something that can be remedied or not), but the most valuable items are quite nice.




Scott #RE171. 2023 catalogue value: $225.00




Scott #RE166. 2023 catalogue value: $150.00




Scott #RE167. 2023 catalogue value: $125.00




Scott #RE179. 2023 catalgue value: $600.00




Scott #RE182. 2023 catalogue value: $1,250.00




Not too shabby! So some nice additons to the wine section of my revenue collection, and some items to flip to help recoup the cost, so it... huh?... what do you mean I missed one?... oh yeah... that one.

In all candor, I missed the big one the first time through the images, as it wasn't on a Kelleher lot sheet like the others. It was instead entombed in plexiglass with old-school raised-lettering labels on it. It's one of the keys (or at least semi-keys) to a U.S. wine revenue collection, yet unceremoniously tossed into the pictures as an afterthought.


Scott #RE132. 2023 catalogue value $2,500.00. I could easily wholesale this one stamp for more than I paid for the entire lot. It's a very tough stamp.




One last little discovery in the box is again something that had I been I the seller, I would have included in the images. It's what I'm affectionately calling "Schrodinger's Postage Pad", a sealed complete pad of 100 sheets (1,000 stamps) of the 33-cent Roadrunner & Wile E. Coyote self-adhesive sheet (Scott #3391). The vague pencil notations on the shrinkwrap dated 2017 read that the collector purchased the pad for $1,000 and a note to presumably an heir or someone selling the collection for them to not sell it for less than $800.

Why the name? Well as long as I leave it sealed, it *COULD* presumably contain examples of Scott #3391 (single stamp imperf) with a catalogue value of $30.00 each or shooting for the moon, Scott #3391d, the fully imperf sheet, catalogue value $2,250.00.

As long as I don't open it anything is possible!

(Let's face it, the odds are that what I have here is I have $330 face value brick of postage, which actually isn't a bad thing with the current letter rate of $0.66.)

The wine stamps alone are worth more then you paid for the lot, and by quite a bit.

That 1933 "NEDERLAND" page is not too bad. It catalogues at ca. € 65. The other pages shown may add to some € 30 catalogue value.

Revenue, congrats on a wonderful score from one of my "favorite" sellers. Nice to see that we both found valuable lots that Apfelbaum's had no clue about.

I also greatly appreciate the level of detail you went to in writing this up as it was extremely enjoyable for me. If any of those Mozambique Company definitives are MNH, I would certainly be interested as well as any MNH definitives from 1900 on.

Hi Dan,

Congrats - those wines are a sweet plump cherry on the cake!!!

While I applaud your willingness to share your finds and knowledge with us, you can't be serious about bashing nystamps for not knowing tat block is the second largest known multiple (even of they deserve to be bashed for other things). No one who isn't a specialist in revenues would know that.

In the first place, that info is readily available. And in the second place, they claim to be a professional auction house. That is the kind of item that one should check on, simply because it is not seen very often. It should set off alarm bells for just that reason.

I claim to be the President of the Planet Zeptune. Bring me your tongs earthlings.

They do claim it, no matter whether it is actually true or not.

I would never expect another collector to know these things, nor would I even know myself what the largest multiples are for the each of the different revenue stamps, despite specializing in them... but I darned sure would check before putting one on the market. Any so-called professional stamp dealer would at least make some attempt at due diligence here.

As Bart correctly mentions above, the information is publicly available for free... online. You don't even have to buy a book.

It's not hard.

Yes, I realize that being a dealer in worldwide material means that there would be a myriad of references to keep track of, but presumably a company in business several decades as a professional stamp dealer would have the resources to do so. They simply lack the desire.

NYStamps buys whatever collections they can get their hands on, and then sells them piecemeal on ebay. It seems they are quite good at what they are doing, giving the large amounts of new lots that show up every week.

I don't doubt they know enough about generic stamps, but I doubt they have the resources or time to "detect gems" within the bulk they acquire. After all, they sold the (once stolen from a dealer) second "Bristol" booklet pane (the first rotary plate 583a booklet panes, the first two plates still had flat plate guide lines) roughly a year ago. It went for around $50 against a true value of $5k to 10k...

Since they start their lots at 99c, there is always a chance for a bargain (if you know what you are looking at, considering their rather "lame" lot descriptions). Lots might be misdescribed (or downright wrong), so you just move on, there is no need to peck on NYStamps excessively.

I believe that NYStamps (NYS) gets much negative attention because their low start listings, massive feedback and outsize ebay presence attract new and more veteran collectors that lack the knowledge needed to determine a good thing from a bad thing. Add to that the low resolution tiny scans and T&Cs that are unfavorable to the buyer and you can become a self-made target. The cherry on the sundae is when NYS lists purported five figure stamps at a .99 cent start with no way of determine accuracy of ID or degree of soundness.

There are many that argue the POV that the unknowledgeable should not be engaged in purchasing that which they do not know. Not sure that is realistic or fair.

In my opinion NY Stamps listings trolls for suckers and largely succeeds the majority of the time. Inexperienced collectors buy their 'shovelware' thinking they are getting a great deal but not realizing that a significant amount of the material has condition issues or is misidentified. But they happily mount the faulty higher catalog material in their own collections and are pleased with the 'smart' purchase they made. It is only some day in the future when their collection is being dispositioned that their purchasing mistakes come to light.

Experienced folks like Dan are certainly able to invest their time to find the small percentage of actual good deals. For me, I choose to not support sellers who have this business model because I feel it ultimately harms the hobby. But I hold no ill-will for the highly experienced people like Dan who hold their nose and do support them to find the better deals like the one in this thread.

I have not met any experienced collectors who would recommend to others that they try to build the majority of their collections using sellers like NY Stamps.
Don

Outstanding pickup Dan.
Which is why I'll dive into Apfelbaum occasionally to see what's going on. Picked up a few lots like this in the past.
I just spent another few bucks on megamillions. I have better odds with Apfelbaum.
Goes to show how much of a gambler you're willing to be.

I have won 2 of the "Bargain lots" from NY Stamps. Both times I won a fairly high catalogued stamp for cheap and both times surprisingly the item never arrived.

I avoid.

nystamps does not claim to be a professional auction house. You are confusing them with Apfelbum, but let us assume this was them. You say the info is available publicly but one has to realize it is worth looking up and where/how to look it up. They did look it up in Scott and as a non-revenue specialist, a CV of $350 does not scream look me up to see if I am the second largest known multiple. If this item should have set off alarm bells at a general auction house, why did it not set off alarm bells with all the revenue collectors looking on ebay?

I have bought undescribed scarcities from auction houses that are much more highly respected than Apfelbum because I am more of an expert in those areas than they were.

The two of you are being unrealistic.

So, for the rest of you, let this serve as a lesson. If you have unusual rarities/scarcities in your collection, you need to put notes in you collection or risk them going undescribed in an auction or being counted for just another regular item in an offer from a dealer. The item might be obvious to you, but few others.