Curious Timing And Thought Process In Flipping A Collection

I'll take "questions we'll never know the answers to" for $500, Alex.

Last year on the last day of Chicagopex (Nov. 20, 2022) I purchased a voluminous U.S. proprietary stamp (Scott #RB series) collection. What I didn't know at the time was that it was a collection that had been sold at Kelleher less than 2 months previously (October 1). The lot hadn't originally been on my radar because it was well beyond my means, even had I stretched and gone into debt for it.

It was lot #175 in Kelleher sale #776 and sold for $15,000 + $3,000 BP = $18,000. Listing and complete PDFs of the collection as sold can be found here:

https://stampauctionnetwork.com/V/v77635.cfm

Now comparing Kelleher's PDFs with the collection when I acquired it, it really makes me wonder what the thought process was. From what I can tell, the person (collector or dealer) must REALLY have been in love with the 1st issue proprietary high values, as only 5 stamps were removed from the collection before it came to me: RB8a, RB9a, RB8b (x2), and RB10a.

RB8a and RB8b are common stamps. The RB9a is a nice example, although those can be found without too much difficulty. The "big kahuna" is RB10a, cataloguing $11,000. But that too is not IMO a "rare" stamp. Scarce, yes, but I've seen plenty of them come up at auction, and seen at least a half dozen at Chicagopex in the last decade. You can get a nice looking example for $4,000-8,000.

But when I do the math, the previous owner paid an (IMO) high amount for those 5 stamps. Subtracting what I paid for the collection and the commission to the dealer that I acquired the collection, it means they paid almost $13,000 for those 5 stamps. No bargain IMO.

Based upon the timing, I'm just assuming it was a "pull a few that I want and flip the rest fast" scenario; either cost was no object for the 5 stamps in question, or I suppose there could have been health/financial issues in play.

The irony is that the most interesting item in the entire collection and a major consideration in my deciding to tap into the credit card to buy the collection, was a document in a special pocket in the front cover, never shown in the Kelleher PDFs.

I'd love to know the real story...

Apparently, not all was shown in the PDFs.




Is the most interesting item interesting but of no value, or is this an indication the PDFs may have missed items that made the buyer bid for it?

Not sure what you mean here.




It has scarcity and value, but only if you specialize in illegal usages or have an interest in fiscal history; to the average "fill in the space in the album" collector, it would likely have been of no interest. No, I don't think it is indicative of there being other items. It was a single-volume collection with no secondary or accompanying items, per both PDFs and lot description. The document in question would have been easy for the auction house employee doing the scans to miss, as it was in a clear plastic sleeve fully affixed to the inside front cover of the album. At first glance, it wasn't obvious that it was anything other than something pasted into the cover... you had to look closely to see that there was anything there. The collection wasn't document-intensive, so there wasn't a particular reason to look more closely.

You wrote you compared PDFs of the auction listing with what you bought. You conclude certain items were removed and base your calculations on those observations. But then you write the most interesting thing you found was not shown in the PDFs.
Could it be that other interesting items were not shown in the PDFs and that those have been picked?

I can imagine the PDFs showing the better items. But you appear to suggest at least one better item was excluded. Then, what certainty exists they did not miss other good items?

Anything is possible; you don't know what you haven't seen. However, based upon the nature of, and extent of the lot, I have doubts. Also, it's unlikely that Kelleher would have left major items unimaged, given what they did spend the time to image. I think the document I mentioned just wasn't seen by the imager.

What is the document?

The first one in this post:

https://goscf.com/t/82535

All that comes to mind is two exuberant bidders getting carried away? I tried to view the bid log for that lot but cannot find it (SAN crazy stuff going on). What else could explain it. It's not as if viewing would have helped since they imaged the entire thing. UNLESS someone DID view it and there was something crazy hiding in the binder. Hmmmmmm

None of my business but the delta between the flip + removed singles and the auction all-in price would be telling as to how much emotion there really was.