Winds Of Change In The Philatelic World

This posting is for the old timers and the many specialist who have been around for the past 40 or more years .

I think in the next 10 days we are going to see a sign post showing the possible direction of the philatelic community , as was stated many times in the past . No one auction or event will predict the future but I have to say ,it will be a SIGN POST of where we are going possible .

Now what am I talking about ? The sale of Sergio Sismondo 's inventory and records .

First I don't see his records and research material going up for auction ,is that the stuff that was discarded into the dumpster ? I don't know . I see stamps up for auction . Let me stop here and say I got four large cartons of newspaper articles ,album pages with all kinds of research written on them , got booklets ,pamphlets , if I have four boxes SERGIO has to have 20 boxes of records and information .

Now we come to books I got maybe 50 books and 50 catalogs on a bookcase . Sergio has to have 600 where are they ?.

I can not believe his inventory of forgeries come down to a bunch of boxes that come down to less than $15,000 estimate value ......where is the better stuff ?

Now comes down to the purpose of this posting what if his material has a hard time to meet estimates ,what does that tell you ......

Where is the new generation of researchers ,who is building that inventory to be a expert in philately or are going to be calling people who can find a scan on the internet the next experts , as for me if I was 20 years younger I would buy everything he had , but is it everything or will we see his stuff showing up for months .

The next 10 days will be interesting ,to see if anybody steps up .

It should have all gone to the APS or similar and if not donated to them they should have had first dibs on purchasing. Maybe they did but I doubt it.

I had a similar thought regarding this being an ideal acquisition area for the APRL.

Does anyone know if they (APRL) has a mandate or even an interest in developing a reference collection in the area of forgeries, either for research or to support the Expertizing operation?

There are also collectors out there who have a strong interest in such material. So it comes down to the highest bidder, as it should. I suspect that the APS could afford to bid if it wanted to. And there are probably one or two out there who would buy them to donate them, too.

Spoken like a true capitalist.

Wrong. Spoken like a true collector. Who might not have a personal interest in these lots, but who might know serious collectors who do. And who thinks that anyone who is interested should have the opportunity to increase their collection.

Well, certainly to the highest bidder for the material that is at auction. The other stuff, though, that is currently 'unknown', the disposition of that stuff may well NOT be decided by auction. TPTB may have decided to simply donate it all, or sell to a specific buyer. Until it is found, we will likely not know.

I wouldn't rule out the APRL though. Whether as a donation or as a sale.

APS maintains a forgery and fraud reference collection.




The rise of forgeries, good quality forgeries, is driving down some of the market value for certain early Asian stamps as there are currently no or few experts to sort the good from the bad. This being discussed by David Cougle in his column in the current issue of the Kelleher's Stamp Collector's Quarterly, edited by Randy L. Neil. Thus, I agree that there is a need for experts. HOWEVER, the cost today to begin becoming an expert is far, far more costly in many areas as compared to 40, 80 or 120 years ago. Likewise there are modern techniques which lead to reversing the so-called expert opinions made previously by the experts of earlier days.

Is AI/Machine Learning a possible solution?

Artificial Intelligence is certainly an interesting prospect. Still, the machine needs the material in order to learn so don't you come back full circle to needing some sort of depository or depositories from which to draw. In other words, the more scattered to the winds and fragmented holdings such as Sismondo's become the more difficult the task of learning from what exists.

Apparently, no one even seems to know what else even exists at this point. But if Cherrystone has this material, it seems at least a likely possibility that they have a lot more, and will be putting it together for a major sale.

Agreed. So there's definitely a need for some sort of canonical repository and a process for collecting this material before it disappears. It's one thing if it ends up in the hands of competent collectors. Something else entirely if it ends up in "dumpsters".

I was thinking more in terms of the problem of not being able to compensate for the loss of these old wizened experts…

At least a few were in Cleveland among the Young Philatelic Leaders. They are a long way from being experts right now, but with a bit of luck that day will come.

Has anyone considered talking to the people at Cherrystone to learn what they may know about other forgery material and references?

"Now we come to books I got maybe 50 books and 50 catalogs on a bookcase . Sergio has to have 600 where are they ?."

Some of the books will be in a Duct Country auction. How many and when, I don't know.