You Snooze, You Lose!

Over the weekend, went to a stamp show and visited one of my favorite dealers. Showed me some nice covers that I was interested in. However, I forgot to bring a check and was cash short to get all what I wanted. He did place items aside, while I had to go to the bank to withdraw more cash. However, there was 1 additional cover that I was thinking about that I would have wanted for my collection. Therefore, I withdrew more cash to cover the cost of it. Went back to the dealer, but in a span of about 40 minutes, he told me that it was sold. I had enough cash if I had bought it first. But I thought it would have been there upon my return. Should have pulled the trigger then for that $800 cover. You Snooze, You Lose.

Another story:
A dealer shared a story where he had a box full of albums and foreign stamps. A customer who semi regularly visits him went through the box and asked what the selling price was for the box of albums. Was told $3800. He left without saying a word. Then about 4 hours later, he came back and told the dealer, "OK, I want to buy it now". The dealer told him; "I just sold it about an hour ago". You Snooze, You Lose.

Another story:
While visiting Hawaii to see a prominent Hawaii stamp dealer, he flipped to me (of course in a rigid holder) a calling card signed by "Kaiulani." This was in my 1st five minutes of visiting his store. He of course, knew I wanted it and in this case, I was fortunate enough to acquire it as it is rare, as any item of Princess Kaiulani, hardly, if any, shows up for sale. He did tell me that the President of a prominent Hawaii institution was interested in buying it before me. Then about 2 weeks later after I purchased it, the dealer tells me that the President of the institution called and says, "OK, I want to buy it now." You Snooze; You Lose.

I have other stories with auction houses and online bidding. Somewhere there seems to be a gatekeeper between the brain and the clicking of the mouse.

What's your story?

No more snoozing and losing for me, I pull the trigger now. When I was a kid I had Christmas money from Grandma, saw the GI Joe Space Capsule ready for purchase at Sears. My mother convinced me to go look at Penney's before I decided, and of course the space capsule was gone when we went back. Lesson learned!

Not just for stamps. I used to tell my wife all the time, "if you see something you want, get it" and it took her years of losing out to learn.

There are certainly many things I've passed on and wished I hadn't.
I do, however, take a point of view on stamp collecting as being a "fun" thing, and, therefore, I simply don't worry about not getting something, even if I really wanted it. That is a mantra I definitely live by.

One final point is that I've been collecting off and on for 40+ years, and I've noticed that things I missed, often enough, show up again. It might be awhile, but when that happens, and its something I really did want, I do my best not to miss it again.

For some reason a lot of members of the Louisville Stamp Society in the 1930s subscribed to Karl Lewis' hand painted covers that he had postmarked all over the Japanese empire in those days. Being the hometown dealers we had the fortunate opportunity to buy a number of those collections.
In then early 2000s, two of my partners were looking at estate of a former Louisville Postmaster whose collection was in a half basement with pooling water. The newest partner, unfamiliar with Lewis' covers thought nothing of them. Luckily my other partner knew better. It turned out the Postmaster had also made friends with an English speaking Japanese Postal Worker in the Yokohama Foreign Mail section before the war who traded him stamps and first days before and after the war. At the end of the war the Louisville postmaster, now retired, was as sending his Japanese friend, who survived the war, " care " packages of household items in exchange for FDCs, Lewis and other hand painted covers, stamps, etc.

The Japanese postal worker said he had a number of women who could create Lewis like covers and asked if the retired Postmaster or his high school aged son could sell them in the US. The Postmaster asked for a trial selection, and then later informed his Japanese friend he would still send packages as normal for items for his personnel collection, but when his son tried to sell them to his philatelic friends, he got the crap beat out of him because they were Japanese.

The snooze, you lose part? All this correspondence, which together with the covers would have made a great exhibit, was inside the FDCs and other covers, which we did not look at much before we wholesaled them out. That collection changed hands about 6 times between dealers at a Garfield Perry show before the last dealer who bought it came questioning...

There was as a stamp cover that I wanted. One of a kind item. 20 min before the ebay auction ended I laid my head down. I was tired and fell asleep at the computer. When I woke the auction had just ended with my hand on the mouse all ready to bid. Snoozed and Lose

Looking at the bright side there are a number of times where my snoozing caused me to do some losing which in turn gave me funds to make impulse auction buys so as not to be empty handed. More than one of these impulse buys turned out to be winners so I try and not get too bent when the snoozing causes losing.

Example: I sat through a Rasdale auction for what seemed like an eternity and got so groggy I lost track of things and decided to leave to go number one. Got back to see the lots were done. I ended up impulse buying a three-carton lot with an uninspiring description. It turned out to be one of if not the best stamp purchases, I have ever made. $300 netted me over $70,000 in great stamps which I ended up consigning and getting back a fat five figure check. Ka-ching.

My mom saved stamps for me even though I had stopped collecting. Found quite a few in a drawer after she passed away, but they were in a drawer with a stained glass piece of art. Not wanting lead poisoning, I had to throw them away. You Rip Van Winkle snooze, you lose!

It was a bit better that there were several other drawers with stamps here and there...