Internet Prices - Lies, Damned Lies, & Statistics: Beginner's Guide To Thinking You Have A Fortune

The minimum value for a stamp in a catalog listing is 25 cents, this is not the value of the stamp but reflects to costs to sell one stamp. Yet for the same 25 cents you can likely buy 10-100 (or more) copies of the same stamp. That should show exactly what the value of such a stamp can be.

Here is where some beginners get caught up looking up prices on the internet.

Catalog say $0.25 catalog value but way does the listing read as follows?


Next comes this section in the listing showing some other pricing ideas.


Last is the seller's detailed desciption of the item being sold, a description which is often AI generated. And of the many means of AI, be sure to include, Amazingly Inaccurate.


So what is your stamp of this design worth? Yep,still less than 26 cents. But of course feel free to wish.

John

That's photos of his mother, not the stamp.

Similar listings have been discussed many times.

Personally, I think the seller should have made his offer more enticing by offering free worldwide shipping.




Right!

And maybe not holding the stamp with surgical gloves, as if it's been removed from some cavity.

You only need to find one customer.

And not the oral cavity.

Yeah, you just need to fool someone once to make the sale.

But really, no different than the PSE grading scam... take something super common (1950s commemoratives where excellent centering and MNH quality are a dime a dozen), give it some puffed up 'value', print out a cert, then shove it on ebay for 550,000% of face value.

Show me a single experienced collector who would pay 550,000% of face for something that isn't the One-Cent Magenta... But of course, that's not their target. The goal is to get to complete newbies or folks who aren't even in the hobby (shopping around for a gift for a stamp-collecting friend or relative, perhaps) and, through a bunch of disingenuous puffery, get them to fork over huge amounts for a stamp that, as we all know, you'd have a difficult time unloading in any meaningful quantity at face value.

Why this practice isn't called out more is beyond me.

As a cigarette card collector, I'm always amazed to see cards that are worth a few pennies inserted into unpleasant plastic slabs by PSA, FCG and others and offered on ebay for substantial amounts. As you say, the market must be those outside hobbies, perhpas with an interest in the subject and ignorant of values.

When I too was naive, I thought the same and a search of my past posts shows that. However, with time and experience I have learned that there are a great number of collectors that want perfection and have the wallet to pay for it. You can't explain away the market for these things by painting the buyers as "newbies" and/or "folks who aren't even in the hobby". A thorough review of Siegel sales data and name sale auction mini-biographies or a conversation with a Christopher Rupp would dissuade you of such a notion. To each their own. They harm no one and add money and bodies to the philatelic universe.

All of this of course has no relation to PPG's original post and topic, ebay and other sellers asking silly money for rubbish and that becoming a basis for value assumptions by the braindead amongst us (newbie AND not so newbie).

PS: If I could sell one of your stamps that has a catalog value of $1 for $300, would you turn it down on principal or would you take the cash?

Well, if you ask me, asking $165 for a MNH Scott 1092 is, in fact evidence of an ebay seller "asking silly money for rubbish". 102,230,000 examples of Scott 1092 were printed - I'm not talking about 19th century gems.



Depends. If a decently experienced collector, then sure. If they know their way thoroughly around a Scott catalogue and knowledgeably enter into sale, then sure, that's on them. The apocryphal PT Barnum quote comes to mind...

If it's someone brand-new to stamps or a complete non-collector (shopping around for a Christmas stocking stuffer, say), then no, I couldn't in good conscience rip someone off like that.



Call me naive all you want; I'm just saying that grading scrap postage that you can't even unload at face is stupid at best, unethical at worst. Can you tell me why a MNH 1092 is worth $165, or should even have a cat value approaching anything near that?

Really! Are you saying that no experienced collector will pay more than £ 22.92 for a Penny Black? I shall gladly pay that for a four-margined penny black. I would even be content with a very fine cancelled stamp from one of the most common plates.

That is what the market will bear when the certified GEM 100 pool is small. What for the price of a GEM 100J

You may not want to play at that price and condition point, but enough will to create a market.

My run of the mill production cars have happily gone 120MPH and 140mph, none costing more than 15K; but there are others which will pay 10x as much for more speed. Yet even my common cars can exceed the lawful highway speeds anywhere in the county just as the big money guys driving their GEM100 and GEM 100J units.

The pros and cons of the effects of grading on the hobby is a debate for another day, but I do not disparage the people who like to buy (or sell) graded stamps. That is a much different story than those selling ordinary common stamps in ordinary common condition for outrageous prices.

Yes the 1092 is a common stamp, but how many do you have that have absolutely mathematically perfect centering and perforations. Only a very tiny fraction of the 102 million printed will reach the top level of perfection. And let me tell you, it takes a looong time, bleary eyes, and a lot of failure to hit the jackpot (paying $27 for a certificate only to get a grade 98). The way I see it, the $165 barely covers the costs of labor and wasted certificates to find that needle in a haystack Gem 100. Besides, the $165 is the full retail 'catalog value'; other dealers should discount them to something closer to $80 or $100. And to a doctor or lawyer making $200 an hour, they would be happy to pay someone else for the effort of locating and certifying the perfect copy. Not me, but it is a free market with a lot of competition for the top graded stamps.

On the subject of one man's trash is another's treasure, here are a couple of copies I found recently of someone trying to sell blank selvedge. Not one but two similar copies from different sellers. Now that, in my opinion, would be a foolish purchase.

While in my PO, Lady Liberty is being hustled like a night walker, the real money is in Lincoln as these "suggestions" on my home page show after my looking at the OP stamp. :

I think that last Lincoln has a net negative value unless you're using it for decoupage. Got a gourd handy?