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Bedrock Of The Community
United States
10599 Posts |
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Most destructive is practically any sentence about stamps containing the word "rare". |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
4285 Posts |
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Quote:
Far cry from your ridiculous earlier claim of "stamps are worthless comments even those with a retail (not catalog) value of $50 or more" Mine was not a claim, it was a statement of fact about a Dealer's inventory which sold on the open market to the highest bidder in a public auction. I am sorry or rather you may be sorry if you cannot accept the facts of the sale in question. Lot 2854 in Kelleher Sale 793 had the following description: Quote:
Worldwide, Show Stopping, Incomprehensible A&D Mint & Used Stock, housed in 574 red boxes, with custom fitted wooden boxes, filled and intact from A to Z, regular solid Countries and their Colonies and Offices are all represented, British, French, German, Italian, are all present, this is not your typical red box lot as each item (over 400,000 items in total, likely $20,000 + are items of individiual value $1 to $50 retail and comprise the great majority of the value, estiamted at $2,000,000.00 +) each item is meticulously identified, graded by quality and priced on 102 cards and includes a superb run of modern singles and sets priced to about $50 an item with minimal quantities, usually 3 to 5 when present, whose aggregate face value alone is substantial. The owner ran adding machine tape totals on 145 of the boxes and interpolated the retail value in excess of $2,600,000.00 which would catalog over $3,000,000.00, his logic seemed plausible, items average $5+ a card for those calculated, as many are under $5 each, one would want to vastly discount these, 5% comprises 75% of the overall value, as just about every Country is represented, sans US and Canada (those stocks were maintained separately and are offered herein as well). This is a turn key operation and would be excellent for any enterprising reseller, be it at the shows, retail-store, price listings or internet. Note that none of this material was presented online and would prove to be a treasure trove for online sellers, nor has it been picked-over, for example Asia is intact, and as this dealer didn't discount his pricing, it is still a stock well in its prime. We invite your inspection and cannot imagine another stock of this magintude with such a high degree of work already done and ready for resale, generally Fine to Very Fine or better, ex A&D Stamps and Coins Stock. Shipping charges apply - weight 2976 lbs.
Estimate $100,000-150,000
SOLD for $85,000.00 Let me ask you a simple question eyeonwall, how many hours would it take you to sort, identify, describe condition and place in 102 cards, labeled, 400,000 stamps? If you cannot do 200 stamps per hour (that is an average of one every 18 seconds) it will require you over two years of full time work, not including FLSA work breaks. As of 4-1-2024 you get a minimum of $24/hrs working in fast food, per a new California Law. Lets pretend your expertise and labor equals at least that of a Mickie D's burger assembler or cashier and thus: $24 times 4000 hours is $96,000.00 and that does not include buying the 102 cards at about $60 per 1000 box and with 5 stamps per 102, that is $60 x 80 or $4800.00 additional cost for the cards. So the entire lot sold at less than labor and equipment providing the stamps for zero value. Hate me all you want, I am the messenger, bring to the table facts. Edit; For English. |
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| Edited by Parcelpostguy - 01/30/2024 01:23 am |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
4285 Posts |
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If anyone wants to donate their worthless U.S. Scott No. 1 and Scott No. 2 I would be very appreciative .. willing to pay $1 each Now someone has fallen into the trap. The article upon which this thread was started referred to "STAMPS" no specific stamps, just stamps. In the totality of stamps available statistically the randomly chosen stamp is worthless. However, when you suddenly cherry pick from the fractional percentage of stamps which trade consistently for value beyond labor costs, you then have a different argument and a different fact basis. You are no longer speaking of stamps in general. To use my lottery example, I would be will to pay $1.00 (perhaps more) for a lottery ticket which has shown to be a winner but has not yet been redeemed. I would be unwilling to pay a $1 for any ticket proven to be a loser. Quote:
The same could be said about a bar of gold. But guess what, we aren't stranded in the woods. Actually a bar of gold would be usable as such a malleable metal would come in handy making tools to assist with survival. |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
4285 Posts |
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Quote:
If people would do discovery and dig into the role of inflation and catalog values, they would find that catalog values typical collected stamps follow inflation pretty closely. If you "invested" in a set of US Zeps in 1940, they are cataloged at the same value today when you factor in inflation. While I generally agree with your over all statement and the role of inflation. the following statement would be untrue and untrue by a huge factor without the inclusion of "not": Quote:
If people would do discovery and dig into the role of inflation and catalog values, they would find that catalog values typical collected stamps follow inflation pretty closely. If you "invested" in a set of US Zeps in 1940 1979, they are not cataloged at the same value today when you factor in inflation. External pump and dump forces were at work then. Now for perspective, if one was to have put away several sets of sheets of the Zeps (C13-15 and C18) or the original C3a Jenny Invert sheet think what you would have today. The correct answer is nothing because you'd be dead today.  |
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Moderator
United States
12330 Posts |
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Parcel, My point and context of my post was about some folks and publishers trend of avoiding the topic of role of inflation catalog values, it was not an exercise for trying to cherry pick a highly unusual short period of inflationary time when investors turned to putting their money into collectables like stamps. As many here already know, this trend, and the outlier you mention, can easily be seen on the previously posted link on Stamp Smarter page. https://stampsmarter.org/learning/Z...gTrends.htmlThis image shows how there was a short period where a person could have ridden the ride up and then sold off for a significant profit. But what this has to do with the generalized point of folks and catalog publishers seemingly avoiding/ignoring the role of inflation and its impact on catalog values remains unknown to me.  Don |
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Moderator
1589 Posts |
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Don, I thought about responding to your previous post about the significance of inflation, but never did. But this follow-up, and the graph, clears some things up for me. The implication of your earlier post was that over a long period of time, Zeps had kept pace with inflation. I wondered about that. A case that came to mind didn't involve Zeps, but something similar. A few years ago I won a scarce early US Airmail FDC in an ebay auction for about $500. Doing some research, I determined that the cover had traded hands twice in the previous couple of decades, both times for about $500. That is not keeping pace with inflation. I wondered if something similar might hold true for Zeps, but did not have the time to do the necessary research. The graph in your latest post seems to correlate with this intuition of mine. Going back to 1990, Zeps have lost about half their real value. For most of the series you have graphed, values in 1990 are roughly what they were in 1965, with the period in between being the "short period" of run up in values you refer to. If we trim the series to hold values constant between 1965 and 1990, we have a long run trend that is slightly positive before 1965, and slightly negative after 1990 (more so after 2000 as some of the series drop more than slightly from 1990 to 2000). I do not know what all this means for your point about inflation overall. Real values at present are close to what they were circa 1950-1955. But just going back 20 to 30 years, real values have declined. And that is what I saw with the $500 cover I mentioned. So from where I am sitting, I do not see stamp values generally keeping pace with inflation, at least in recent decades. Basil |
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| Edited by blcjr - 01/30/2024 09:54 am |
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New Member
United Kingdom
3 Posts |
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Hi I have been reading with interest and can see all the valid points being made. If it were up to me, which it is not, then I would summarise by giving the following. Cat. value gives an idea of how rare or how hard it is to obtain. Individual stamp value is what it sells for, ie ebay sold filter. VALUE is your choice. As a GB collector a rough poor grade 1d Black space filler still sells for £35 $31 the number of good margins increases the price and so on. This is as we all know "sale and demand" and goes back to what I put in my first post, how active is a country at any one point in time, selling China is very good just now. If you like it and want it, you have already set a price you are willing to pay. Cat value is just a guide at any poit in time. Regards David |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
589 Posts |
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Some catalogs don't even use price. They use rarity. The bottom line is that the real crime is that catalog values don't reflect real every day prices of what actually sells. Nobody cares about the dealers time to mail you the stamp. It's just reality. When dealers sell cheap stamps, they do so in bulk to make it worth their time. If the catalogs actually reflected what stamp collectors paid, I would sign up for a new catalog or an online one. But as long as it is a dealers wish list of prices, the catalogs (all major ones) are less useful. |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
589 Posts |
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Prices of most stamps are in collapse compared to what some poor souls paid for it.
For one Scott international some old collectors paid 250 dollars to mount thousands of dollars worth of stamps.
In today's prices the stampdragons gets the collection for 300 bucks. Some poor soul who is only consoled by "you had fun crowd" got taken to the cleaners.
The reason is that stamps are being given away. The boomers who are left, less GenX and even less millennials are scooping up stamps for a song.
Stamps are a countries national treasure. And if you like stamp collections, now is a great time to pick up real treasures for a song while the young for fooling around with cryptos and NFTs.
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
4087 Posts |
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Quote:
Let me ask you a simple question eyeonwall, how many hours would it take you to sort, identify, describe condition and place in 102 cards, labeled, 400,000 stamps? You make the ridiculous assumption JD acquired all those stamps unsorted and unidentified. You also ignored the buyer's commission and shipping nd picked the most extreme minimum wage situation in the entire country. You also pick out an extreme wholesale example to use as your case. His stock was so huge (plus it had duplication) that very few have both the money, the space and the interest in acquiring it. It hardly constitutes the entire market. If it was sold by individual country with the same spread of 25c to $50 cat sets/singles without any duplication, it would make a significantly higher % of cat (unless it was perhaps classic GB or a few others). We both agree 25c or 35c stamps are essentially worthless. but will never agree on stamps being worthless all the way up to $50, so I am done discussing this any more. |
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Valued Member
248 Posts |
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I enjoyed that article immensely and one point that some have missed is that purporting some of the misconceptions bandied about can turn the market into one solely for the rich pursuing accepted, well-known rarities. Yet to me a little of such snobbery is fine with me -- it affords me the opportunity to discover and get at a reasonable price tomorrow's rarities and scarcities. Just investigate the area of plate number collecting and you will be surprised what scarcities and even rarities are hidden away. |
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Pillar Of The Community
United States
4285 Posts |
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Quote:
picked the most extreme minimum wage situation in the entire country. No I picked where Jim Dempsey LIVES and I live, and where the current market is at regarding wages. However Jim obtained his stamps over the decades, they did not magically float into his 102 card stock without handling and examination. Just because the stamp is in the 85A space does not mean it is in fact an d 85A without some examination. Stamp collectors who sell their material do so at wholesale unless they become for the time period a retail stamp dealer. Thus picking a wholesale that action with a known stock which has not been creamed, salted nor cherry picked is about as neutral of an uninfluenced example as possible. As to no including the auction mark ups, I did not include the non-salary costs of employment either, such as Social Security, health care, workers compensation and the like, nor the overhead such as working indoors with adequate heat and light. But a man hour is a man hour whether is is one person working for an hour or six folks working for ten minutes each. Edited for strike through of one letter d. |
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| Edited by Parcelpostguy - 02/01/2024 3:23 pm |
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Valued Member
New Zealand
54 Posts |
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I can't be bothered looking back but didn't old mate 'parcelpostguy' say ALL stamps are worth 4c a pound or something ridiculous like that?
I think he might have meant '99% of existing kiloware is basically worth nothing.'.
If so, no argument.
Of course, the 1% he ignores are the stamps that trade for real money and have done for 150+ years.
I assume he is a stamp collector (I could be wrong) and does not purchase stamps for his collection at 4c a pound. |
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Pillar Of The Community
723 Posts |
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I am not sure why people have a hard time with this. Catalog prices are fiction created by a dealer consortium, particularly on tightly kept scarcities. Linn's has a column I think called stamp market tips, that has dealers boast about hard to find issues going up in value based on their hoarding.
If you are basing pricing on auctions, my belief is realization prices should be backed down to the dollar value of the bid before the winning realization. Fair value should be the price whereby at least 2 buyers agreed the price was fair. At least at that price, there was a consensus.
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Valued Member
New Zealand
54 Posts |
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Quote:
I am not sure why people have a hard time with this. Catalog prices are fiction created by a dealer consortium, particularly on tightly kept scarcities. Linn's has a column I think called stamp market tips, that has dealers boast about hard to find issues going up in value based on their hoarding. When Stanley Gibbons were selling quality stamp portfolios in that 'investment' scheme a few years back the catalogue price would go up EVERY year regardless of what the stamps were trading for on the open market. The people who 'invested', many of whom were not collectors, had a nasty shock when they tried to liquidate their holdings. |
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Replies: 148 / Views: 11,944 |
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Posted 01/29/2024 8:47 pm
