The Biggest And Most Destructive Lie In The Hobby Of Stamp Collecting

Actually I did address the small group of non-worthless stamps when folks began to ask to be sent worthless US #1s and 2s.

Again the term is "stamps" not certain stamps NOR does it mean catalog numbers. One must remember that each catalog number stamp may have been produced in quantities of a Billion stamps or multiples of a billion. If you look at you stamp album and say that of the 5000 numbers 500 have real value, that does not account for the number issued for each individual number and as such to say 10% (500/5000) have value is not on point..

But in that group, "stamps" there are well over several trillion issued and 1% would be 10 Billion. There are not 10 Billion stamps with real value, but for the sake of argument, lets accept there are 10 Million stamps of real value spread among the estimated 60 million stamp collectors worldwide most of whom cannot afford stamps of real value.

At that number, 10 million, the stamps of value as compared to "stamps" is not one percent but rather, 0.0001%, one one-hundredth of one percent. Here, + or - one ten-thousandths is not a statistically significant margin of error to matter.

Even in a collection comprised of complete long sets in identical condition (e.g. all used, all LH, all MNH), most of the stamps won't have much value. The value is mainly in the top 3-4 denominations, and the fact that the set is both complete and the stamps are in identical condition.

Of course there are exceptions- some sets have multiple low to mid denominations that are scarce and thus higher priced, or there is an oddball lower value that is scarce by itself.

The big difference is the average car costs a lot more than the average stamp, so it makes far more sense for Carvana to spend the money to assemble such data than it does for Stampvarna.to develop something independent of Scott.

Also, far far far more people are interested in car prices than are interested in stamp prices

You have a point.

I should have said something like this.

75% of listings in a general catalogue like Scott Stamps of the World or Stanley Gibbons Stamps of the World refer to stamps that have no real value. By volume these make up 99.9% of the stamps that physically exist.

The other 25% of listings refer to stamps that do have a real value.

Many of you are arguing that pricing is variable. No one is disputing that. What many of us are saying is the catalog values are NOT real. No one is paying those prices. Catalogs should better reflect what people actually pay. The catalog does NOT have to get it right exactly. It just has to get into the ballpark. The catalog prices are just a laugh. They are nonsense. Discounting from perfection is the wrong way to go. Avg or Median pricing is more accurate. When they calculate people's income, we don't use Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates income do we? We use Avg or Median income. The bottom line is that no one is paying the listed catalog value save a very few examples. It's just a dealers fantasy wish list.

This same old tired "all catalogues values bad!" discussion has been going on for decades, and not just with stamps. And yet they somehow persist.

There must not be enough staff at the major catalogue companies to change this. So the real retail price of stamps is 30% of cat. And whole sale is like 10% or less. And that is all anyone is going to pay except for the rare stuff.

Which catalogs or discussions?

I think if catalogs were discontinued, the discussion would remain.

Perhaps catalogs could only list prices of stamps which sold for at least $1000.00 in a public sale, with citation and just dash or leave blank any other stamps below that level. Today $1000.00 is nothing, even some cities and states just hand out that amount for free to individuals in the proper selected groups.

I wasn't going to bother replying to you any more but gimme a break




Certain governments handing out $1000 does not make ir worth nothing. It is no wonder you think $50 CV stamps are worthless.

Meanwhile, back in reality for the 99%, $1000 is not nothing.

The CA fast food minimum wage was not in effect when JD built his stock, and unless the new owner is in CA, the CA fast food minimum wage is irrelevant.

He and his wife did most of the work. For the past dozen-ish years he had a woman who also worked for him somewhere in the neighborhood of full time, but I am fairly certain she wasn't paid the rate you want to use. There were also a few who worked part time now and then and I know for a fact they weren't paid anywhere near the rate you want to use, nor were any on the non-salary costs paid either. How do I know this for a fact? Because I was one of them.

No dealer's stock is completely non-cherry picked. While he was continuously adding to his stock, the best cancels & misidentifications in the buyer's favor etc were picked out while the heavy cancels and missed faults and misidentifications in his favor stayed in.

Yes, stamp collectors who sell their material do so at wholesale, but you picked the most extreme example available. Collectors are not selling off a 6 figure quantity of stamps with some duplication on most (some present with as many as 3 NH, 3 H and 3 used). As I already pointed out this stock was so huge that few had the money space and interest in acquiring something that huge, so naturally the % of cat it brought was low. That simply doesn't represent the typical collection sale.

You should stick to stamps and covers themselves as you seem to know something about them and leace this subjct alone.

Some do pay at or near CV, either out of ignorance/inexperience or out of convenience. But lets put that aside and go with whatever you consider typical to be, which your other postings have indicated you feel is much lower than CV. As someone else has already pointed out, collectors are trained to expect a discount and if you suddenly drop the CV, they will still expect a discount and some dealers will always try to undercut others and so things would spiral down from there. Back in the 80s Scott did make a big drop in CV and total chaos reigned. Then they "fixed" it but switching from FVF to VF to bump the values back up, which is a problem as you have suggested as most older stamps are not in VF condition. At least Scott isn't as high on CV as Michel.

yes, acknowledged that some do. But very few do - very very few. I would like to think we as collectors would adapt.

I can't figure out how to nest quotes (not sure if you can on this forum):

stampgreendragon stated:




To which eyonwall replied:




1. I disagree with the original premise.

2. There are reasons beyond the two that eyeonwall states.

Go to a stamp show and see what sound, quality material sells for. Pay attention to major auctions. Sure a lot of material is discounted and discounted heavily, but for those that are quality conscious or are looking for the right color shade or impression, paper quality, cancel, or other attributes, stamps sell at 75%+ of cat and higher all the time, sometimes much higher.

Is it the rule rather than the exception? No. But the notion that "No one is paying those prices" for items is only true if you're a dumpster diver that only buys on ebay or picks stamps out of the 5-cent box at a show/club. It is typically those who can't or don't want to pay for material that shout about this the loudest.

That mindset is nothing new. I've encountered it since before there was an Internet, back in Usenet discussion group days of the 1980s and early 1990s. Collectors who adamantly proclaim they won't pay more than 20% of catalogue value... or that anyone charging more than a third of cat is "ripping people off". Lo and behold, their collections invariably sell for pennies on the dollar because they never made an effort to focus on quality over quantity, as they were focused entirely on how small a percentage of catalogue value they could pay to fill the spot in the album.

Are the catalog values accurate? No. By definition, any catalogue is obsolete 5 minutes after it is published. That will never change. As long as there is subjectivity as to what attributes justify certain price points, you can't distill it down to a universal algorithm. But at least a priced catalogue gives a comparative baseline to work up or down from when evaluating one stamp vs. another. That's the way it's always been, and the way all major catalogue systems work. One can argue that certain systems are closer than others (for example, I would argue that for the vast majority of worldwide material Scott is actually closer than Gibbons or Michel; others opinions will differ).

Fluctuating currency rates also come into the picture when comparing to foreign catalogs.