Thread for Long Term Discussion About Higher priced and error/rarer stamps
GOOD Evening fellow stamp nerds! I recently inherited a fairly large stamp collection from the 1954 Discoverer's Stamp Album (3 books total one from each year of printing '54, '56,'58). My great uncle from Italy in 1888 started collecting stamps, as well as my grandfather in 1928. My grandfather inherited the Uncle's collection, and now it belongs to me. Most are not really very valuable in the Scott's Catalog, but some seem to be and some I cannot even find proof of errors for in the Catalog.....So, I'd like feedback from Pro's preferably to see if anything comes up as I go though the journey of grading and discovering what I have.....Thank you for the Discussions!!!
Comments
http://stampforgeries.com/album-weeds-buenos-aires/
Keep on Stamping
Richard
I'm only trying to caution that, some items of value have very narrow markets.
Here's a sales lesson: I can sell anything cheap. There's no skill in that. What to buy a scott #1 with for margins for $10? Of course you do! So that's not hard to sell that way. But to sell value takes real skill. And part of that skill is matching buyer with seller. For some material, Hipstamp is well suited to that, for others, specialist collectors groups are a better target. You have to "work the streets", not just the dealers who you think could get a good deal from you. Some things are suited to eBay or Kelleher or Siegel. They all have their market strengths.
And your database build is exactly how "pros" go about it too. Everyone has to pay their dues, and really get in and study these issues if they want to be expert at it. It's a giant field even when you narrow it to a single country.
Keep at it. You'll either become a pro too, or have a psychotic episode.
Thanks for the comment about expertizing. I'm in "stealth mode" at the moment but there will be more about this later.
Suffice to say, I've had a TON of experience in this area on both sides of the fence.
And to answer your question: " If you list an expensive set in your store, would you guarantee a refund if expertized and found to be fake?"
Yes, 100%. But in fairness if I knew there were fakes abound unless I was 99% certain that the material I had was authentic, I wouldn't list it. If I knew it to be something other than the original (reprint, fake, forger, altered), I would sell it as that. However, we have a strict policy that we don't sell "Faked" items even as they are. The reason for this is, the are essentially worthless anyway, but we don't want someone else getting duped by it. So when we find them in collections, we pull them out. We have a huge book just filled with page after page of fakes (especially coils of the Franklin-Washington series).
Just for clarity, a Fake is a stamp that is made from a real philatelic material, altered to look like another item. (For instance, I have seen MANY Plate Proof's (typically imperf) cut to size of a real stamp, perfs added, fake gum added and then sold to the unsuspecting (at a huge discount, but still in the 100's and 1,000's of dollars) as "Mint never hinged" stamps. This is criminal, and we've had people prosecuted over it in the past.
(See this aritcle: https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/16952408.stamp-dealer-philip-ryle-weston-super-mare-jailed-vat-fraud/ a bit like Al Capone on the charge, but it took us 4+ years to get him off eBay from around 2013 to 2018.)
Also, our policy already is that if you buy an item, you have 6 months to get it expertized and if the cert comes back other than as we described it (for instance, we miss a tiny thin or corner crease), we will provide full refund of both the item and the cert, so long as you send both back to us. In more than 15 years, we've never gotten one back...
For all other items (that you don't send for cert) we have a 30 day return policy, so long as the material is in the same condition it was when we sent it (that's also a condition on the certed stamp).
@DCrawford9637
I understand why you believe material over $100 should be certed, but let me ask you this: Do you plan to keep or sell the items? What if your $100 item cert comes back with something like "It is a genuine with a vertical crease and thinned at top."
Now, you will have paid minimum $35 for this opinion, and now your $100 stamp will be worth about $30. If you put that cert with that stamp up for sale, you will lose money. At best, you will get $35 for it. It's very hard to break even.
I would suggest a better strategy is: Allow buyers to get items certed that they want to cert. (You need to give minimum 4 months for this, I would suggest 6). I would suggest a more fiscally useful strategy is:
1: Cert when you know you have an authentic item, and you want to get it graded because it has amazing centering. (And be realistic about what that is. Also DO YOUR HOMEWORK! It's not at all difficult to see if a stamp is damaged (and it's damaged even if it doesn't appear to be when you look at it from the front). This includes even small creases at perf corners, thins, tears, chemical alterations, perfs or margins added to stamps. It's fine to say: "This Scott #2 appears unused, but has had a cancel removed. It is sound and genuine in all other respects", in your description, but it is still a USED stamp. Don't try to sell it as unused just because you can't see the cancel removal without a black light or a microscope.
2: Cert when you have ID'd an item that despite not meeting the overall "quality" expectation, it still worth doing. Here's my example. I sat on a Scott #39 for about 5 years while I determined whether to send it for cert or not. The reason being? It was used. (Or appeared to be used). This is one of those unusual items that as a used stamp has much greater value than if its unused. (CV: Without Gum $1,000, With OG $3,000 Unused $15,000). Here was my dellima. If the cancel is fake (and I could see 2 creases and a slight thin in the stamp), and I send it for cert, I'm going to pay 5% of CV to get this stamp certed, or if damaged, $35. Now if it was a fake cancel (of course then the back was clean, no gum), it would really be a damaged 39 that is further fraudulently applied cancel (which was very suspect), and if it came back as fake cancel with all these faults, I would then be lucky to get $100 for it. I wouldn't feel good taking much more for it really. But I spent all this time (off and on) looking at other cancels, and how the 39 has authentic cancels, and then realized something about mine. The cancel was a square grid cancel. 99% of fake cancels on a 39 are enclosed round grids. So, I decided, it was worth the risk and cost to get it certed. 4 months later, it came back as Authentic cancel on a Used 39, with the faults I had already identified. Now I don't have a $15,000 stamp, but I do have one that's worth maybe $1.5k - $3k. And since the stamp was "under market value due to damage", I only paid $35 for the cert. This was a time where the cert, even on a damaged stamp, makes sense.
3: Cert when the market won't buy the item unless its certed, because it's just TOO difficult to identify. No Stamp ID (looking at image of stamps that are forgeries or counterfeits, again if you do your homework, get the right resources, you will ALWAYS be able to identify them. Or post them (like you've don here) to a discussion forum where people can help identify them (but don't rely too much on this, it starts to become a case of lazy philately, and people will stop responding, or you'll get snide remarks made... just word of caution on this point). This is more in items that can be faked easily, and not about forgeries/reprints/counterfeits), rather more about fakes. Coils and coil line pairs for US in particular (I'm sure there is some Argentina equivalent). Then, you get those certed. I recently cent 23 coil line pairs to be expertized (they haven't come back yet), I know at least 2 of them to be faked. I sent them for 2 reasons 1) I want to see how good this expertizer is (haven't used them before) and 2) I want a certed fake so that I can use it to demonstrate to others as a certed fake what they look like. And I didn't want just a single example. I did not tell the expertizing service that two known fakes are in it.
I would urge you to educate about when to expertize and when not. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of money, and be disappointed, and can't recover it. (This Rene, is what I'm barracking for.) Stop giving good cash to services for stuff that has no need to be expertized. I think they are bordering on unethical when doing so... I worked with one expertizer (my mentor) who would look at material and say "this isn't worth certing". He'd charge $5 for the ID (which would take all of about 2 - 3 slow paced seconds), and move on. His clients loved it because they didn't end up paying $35 for a stamp ID that wasn't what they thought it was to begin with. This is something I think the expertizing services SHOULD be doing responsibly. They would get more business then.
While I used to collect world-wide, I still did specialized in a few areas, one of which was Germany. It would amaze you how many more varieties are collected by German collectors compared to what is listed in Scott. Orientation of gum ripples, attached sheet tabs with markings, and the incredible number of printing flaws are all listed and priced. Due to premiums that some of these items are listed at, it pays to know what you may have in front of you.
Funny enough, you'll find a vast majority collect "what they have an album page for". In other words, if the issue doesn't appear in their album, there's no "need to collect it". The albums I've seen don't include watermark variants, even errors like the 271a and 272a. So the interest has to come from a highly specialized collector. And while they exist, they are a much narrower field of buyers. And because of that, they tend to have the supply/demand advantage, and get the material at much lower than CV... It's a tough market for watermark variants.
If he posts good clean photos/scans of the stamps, the experts in this community WILL bid for them accordingly. (That includes their condition, authenticity, etc).
Those keen collectors out there know what they are worth, and will seek to get them. The alternative is, send fake items to expertizers, wait 4 months, get certs back that are potentially disappointing.
You can list them 2 ways: 1) start them off at $1, and let the bidding frenzy begin. 2) you can list them at Buy It Now for what you believe them to be. One of two things will happen with the later. It will either sit there for years, without an offer, OR, someone will recognize it and buy it for what it is.
Cert's should rarely be used for ID. They should be used to confirm condition (including centering, if you want to grade them). But educate yourself first on how that grading really works. We try very hard to list at real grading even for non-graded stamps. I see so many delusional listings where sellers are claiming XF, VF/XF, XF-SUP on material that isn't even VF. And those listings just sit there for months or years and never sell. People send them for certs, and pay a lot for it, and are then disappointed by what they get back. (This is why so many certs get shredded because they detract from what the seller really wants to sell it for). Lots of faults are insidious, and there are some amazing expert repairs I have seen in my day. That's fine, but you have to claim it, and put it in your listing. If your cert says that, then it should be there.
That said, a bit more research easily tells me, these are not the "real-deal". The CORREOS stamps were all printed very thighly (very close together). The margins on these stamps alone tell me that they are either reprints (which were made from the original plates, so may have all the "hallmarks" of looking real, but aren't), and it appears at least the 2nd and 3rd are forgeries (no "-" between Buenos Aires). But all of them have big wide margins, and these in their "authentic" print couldn't support margins like that.
Now just because they are reprints or forgeries doesn't mean they are worthless either. (In some cases counterfeits are worth more than their original), but often these reprints and forgeries still have $10 - $50 value. We buy a lot of them because we are writing a book that covers fakes, forgeries and counterfeits (of the US classics). I've paid as much as $100 for a forgery for some material. We have a very famous counterfeit of the C15 (blue $2.60 Zeppelin) that even Scott lists as having a higher value than a VF C15. So no need to despair just because it's not authentic. It can still be of interest/value to collectors, or people like the guy who wrote the book on the forgeries. You have to have them to study if you're going to ID the variations. But make sure you LIST them as such, and not authentic.
https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamps/United-States/Postage stamps/1940-1949?user=124102
Scott even does things like in the 1860's names the color of a stamp "Vermilion" and then in the 1900's calls another stamp "Vermilion" and the two colors next to each other look nothing alike. So you can't necessarily rely on the color variation from another issue, or another country to help narrow that down. Color is the one thing in philatelics that you can't just know without experience of looking at, and comparing in some cases hundreds of copies until you can either do it by visual reference, or know that you have to have a reference copy(s) to gauge from. So, have fun with that.
The one thing I will advise against: Don't buy "color identifiers" or "color pallets" that are sold to new philatelists... they are useless.
Particularly, look at the top corners. Do they have a letter in them, or do they have a rosette design there? (i.e. are there letters in all 4 corners, or just the bottom).
I think you'll find little interest in watermark direction... I've got a USIR watermarked Postal US issue that has a CV of $1,000. I have it certed, and have been offering it for near 8 years now at $300 and have never had so much as one offer for it... And this is one where it's essentially printed on the wrong paper, let alone a watermark direction issue. The problem is, this will appeal to a VERY narrow group of specialists (I wouldn't even call them "collectors"). So dealers don't want to touch them because quite frankly, they just don't sell. It ties up big amounts of cash in an inventory that languishes for years. Coming from a dealer, we buy dozens of collections a year, and we pay top dollar (Exceeding $40,000USD) for top material. That is stuff that moves. For me the USIR stamp was among those in another collection that I discovered while watermarking them. (There were 2 in that collection). So we didn't set out to get the odd watermark either, we found it when examining a collection we'd already bought (That was a $27k collection). Lots of "mid-to-low-value" material that is MNH may still not be appealing.
We have found on average that for each collection we buy, it takes about 4 years to sell it. So if I'm paying $10k for a collection, I'm not going to get full realization on that $10k for 4 years. So this is where I want to ensure I am making at least 40% margin on what I'm selling, otherwise, there is just no point, and if all the dealers die off then so does the industry.
I think you're being a bit harsh in your expectation of a dealers reviewing your material.
I also read something interesting a few weeks ago. An article on the psychology of sales. The comparison they were showing was that when we "own" something, we automatically value it higher. In their example, they mentioned concert tickets. And someone bought 2 tickets, and then immediately wanted to sell them for 3x the cost. BUT, there were still plenty of tickets available even at the time of the concert. So anyone could get tickets at a box office rate, while this person wanted to sell their at 300% markup. Because, ownership "increases perception of value". This is the hard part for you. You may even be reasonable in your assessment of CV as your base for them, but the market doesn't always reflect CV (most of the time doesn't, one side or the other). As someone who's done this for decades, and I've seen your material, I'm not surprised at the response. I can glance through a collection in minutes and tell you what I'm willing to offer on it. And if I have any interest at all... The other thing is I won't buy a collection that doesn't have a significant amount of "valuable material". Because this is as a dealer, where you really make the money. No one is getting rich selling $1 stamps. (No one is even making a living doing that...) Philately is a very tough game. You have to do your homework and you have to dedicate years to getting it right. It's an incredibly complex market. And countries go hot and cold, as does particular materials like revenues versus postal. It's a little like the stock market sometimes.
You also need to realize that many of the sellers would have very little interest in it because they don't handle that type of material. Are US sellers really going to want to handle a worldwide collection when they have no call for it because they built their business around specializing in US? Newer issue sellers would have no call for it either because they don't sell older issues for the most part. Same thing with the topical sellers.
Certs should be like your algebra grade... you should NOT be surprised by how it comes back. If you are, then it means you haven't done the work you should/could do and save yourself the time and cost. Even "cheap certs" aren't cheap, and if you cert a stamp that's worth less than the cert, you'll never recoup the cost.
So if you're just trying to figure out what it is (and you've mentioned before there is no "dye 4" on Australia 2... well then what does that tell you about what you have?).
I haven't had a chance to research this stamp any further yet, as I'm not at home, and on a construction site for a few days. But I'll look into it.
Just wanted to let you know that you received what you had asked for....
For stamps with non-fugitive ink and on just plain white album page or envelop, you chuck as many as will fit in a single layer in at a time. Let them sit for 15 - 30 minutes. The cold water won't hurt them so long as they are known non-fugitive color. Then, in most cases as you pull it out, the paper and hinge will already be gone. Where they aren't gently nudge it with tongs, if it doesn't come off freely, then you can just soak it again until it does. I've had this work even with some very strong adhesives (even self-adhesive stamps that is advised "Do not soak", I leave them over night, and the next day I can usually encourage them loose.
This is where the desert mountain book comes in. One, because it will dry everything in about 1 hour or less, and 2, if you have something that still has gum/adhesive on it, it will NOT stick to the slick surface of the page. (There are 2 paper types in the book, one for placing stamps on, the other for absorbing the moisture from the wet stamp, which is on the face of the stamp side).
Have done 10's of thousands if not more stamps this way. Never get a thin. If you damage a stamp, then your value will plummet, to 10% - 25% of the stamp's real value.
But happy to help.
This isn't possible with paper copies. And there are PLEANTY of designs out there that span decades or even centuries between usage. Though these are usually made obvious, sometimes they are not. And even if they are only a few years apart, it makes you aware of the "same thing" but different where value may be drastically different. So for this reason alone, I recommend the e-versions of Scott. I hate that they don't have an off-line view, but really, how often are you on an airplane and needing to look up the Scott # of an odd Fiji stamp you just saw?