Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
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Phil,
Scanned below is the 2019 Scott Catalogue listing for Italy #289, looks like $130 used according to Scott.
Nice stamp,
Linus
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Sorry but I can't explain it. Italian stamps have seen steady increases over the past few years. I've bought many early to 1940 lots over the last several years because they sell well and yet are often priced well below my selling prices of around 1/3 of catalog. Used stamps are generally cataloged for more than mint stamps from the 1920's through mid 30's but the cancels are often questionable. On the other hand pre 1920's mint stamps are generally catalogued in the thousands but sell for a much lower percentage of catalog.
Staining and no gum are common on early mint/unused.
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"...cancels are often questionable..."
I am unsure if this era Italian stamp cancels are forgeries or some kind of CTO. I have no faith in Scott catalog prices and/or their ability to help hobbyists correctly identify the actual market value of their stamps. I would assume that Scott value is for legitimate postally used examples.
These stamps fall into a grey area where they are not worth sending in for certification so (if philb is like me) they will probably be mounted into a album and that album will one day be passed onto someone else. This is how catalog publishers dodge the responsibility of determining meaningful market values.
Don
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Hey Don, so if the cancels are bogus I'm assuming it's not a $6,000 set. What do you think the net value is? Less than $1,000?
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Hi Ernie,
Market value on that set I showed (with those cancels whatever they are) is in the $10-$20 per stamp range.
Don
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Ouch!
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I hope that my post did not come across as being too negative.
Back in the 1970s, I was gifted a large box of stamps and covers. In it were several early Italian airmail covers, the stamps alone had a significant Scott catalog value. I saw a NY dealer in Linn’s who specialized in Italian material and was looking to buy. So I sent them off and he replied within a week or so. He said he could not offer anything until he had them looked at by a noted expert who lived in Italy. I agreed and the covers were sent to Europe. After a few months I heard back, the covers were legitimate and I was offered $1100. That was quite a windfall for a young hobbyists and I gladly accepted.
A full two years later, I get a certified letter from some lawyer in NY. The letter said that the covers I has sold the NY dealer turned out to be forgeries and his client was seeking the return of his $1100. A number of terse letters were exchanged before the lawyer finally gave up. The covers had been resold and then found to be fabricated from mint stamps with faked cancels.
But since that time, I have been dubious about used Italian material from this era.
Don
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Its a bit off subject..but i was gifted 118 journals of the Portugese and Colonies study group. These guys collect postmarks from all the whistle stops in Angola,Mozambique etc. They must be veternarians or dentists to afford that material. And they have to be aware of fake postmarks also.
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I cant explain the increases in Italian stamps.. I went thru my dupes and found a glassine with 20 copies of Italy 632 with the 277 watermark C.V $ 7.50...Go figure ??? 
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"I cant explain the increases in Italian stamps.. I went thru my dupes and found a glassine with 20 copies of Italy 632 with the 277 watermark C.V $ 7.50...Go figure ???
"
Ah...catalog prices. I have a hoards of several with supposedly higher catalog values. I do not have much confidence in the catalog valuations. It is at best windage biased to supporting dealers.
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Scotts catalogs are like a basic general guide..specialized collectors of certain areas form their own "catalogs" with different printings and varieties of a given stamp.
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I am not aware of any catalog, specialized or not, that has accurate market values. If anyone has seen one of these animals, please name/post links.
Don
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In 1990 Scotts went to what some called "retail value" ..the dealers had to re adjust with their selling and buying..the "investors" got slaughtered,and the collectors i guess we adjusted also.
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Hi philb,
Agreed that they had to adjust for the drastic market movement after the 1980s inflation and the additional huge impact of the internet coming online.
I think that catalog values should reflect a value medium, an approximate mid-point. Certainly not 2%-3% of catalog value. I also have heart burn with the minimum value stuff since it clearly is a throwback to brick and mortar times. The minimum value was fine when the majority of stamps being sold were coming from real dealers who were investing in physical storefronts, large amounts of stocked inventory, and paying people to work for them. But the majority of stamps being sold today are coming from other hobbyists who are more than happy to work for free and sold from their living rooms.
I am seeking help (relief?) with supporting new hobbyists, this is an issue which does not impact the more experienced hobbyists much since they have the special knowledge to understand the actual values. We should not forget that new hobbyists do not have this knowledge. In another forum today one of the new hobbyists summed it up well with this post…
"Speaking as a relatively new collector, the way "catalog value" is presented for stamps is both confusing and misleading.
This concept of catalog value being a considerable multiple (up to 10x or more) of what I could expect to sell my stamps led me to think at first my stamp collection was of far greater financial value than is really the case.
But - it is confusing, it is misleading, and it certainly led me to overpay for stamps before I found resources like SCF and learned more about how "catalog" value has no reasonable relation to "real world" value. And as Don says, it definitely leads to disappoinment/confusion for those uninitiated in the mysteries of catalog publisher pricing."
Don
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Don, i applaud your trying to educate the new collector...i read a lot of stamp information...its very enjoyable to me..but there is much i still do not understand..like how a dealer can travel thousands of miles to a show..by air or van, pay his hotel,meals,his help and oh yeah his table space AND MAKE A LIVING ! They won't tell me, but is it all a huge WRITEOFF ?
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12:13:15pm
" ... The minimum value was fine when the majority of stamps
being sold were coming from real dealers who were investing
in physical storefronts, large amounts of stocked inventory,
and paying people to work for them. ...
That is true, but even a seller working from a spare room
in a tee-shirt and shorts has expenses. There is postage
above and beyond the amount assigned to a bidder, envelopes,
pens, pencils, sealing tape, paper to print invoices,
ink for the printer, things like Linn's Stamp Magazine,
stock sheets, binders , 102 cards, or 104s, a percentage
of the household heat, light and telephone expenses,
(I used to charge off 11.57%), catalogs every year or two,
and many other small expenses that add up. There might be
the expense of replacing sold inventory, transportation
to an auction house or shipping expenses for inbound items.
Also that spare room could be rented out to some attractive
young co-ed who liked to use the hot tub on the veranda,
so that would be lost revenue.
Years ago when I ran a business from a spare room upstairs
my wife and I rented a back room to a girl who had worked
for me and later fallen on hard times. I liked to sit on
the pool deck in the late summer afternoon and enjoy
the view while earning an income from the "study" with
no actual work.
Now admittedly such expenses might be incidental to
he stamp hobby but still they become required
once you start selling items.
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YYUUPPP!
Three trips every two months to an auction house in Edinburgh. A round trip of 170 miles each time.
(I actually only go for the social intercourse. Otherwise I would go "stir crazy"!!)
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I don't know if catalog values ever equaled stamp values. I fancied myself a dealer back in the early 1970s and sold my USA stock at 50% of Harris.
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Picked this one up today. I have been collecting Scott 565 on a casual basis for a while. I have a variety of precancels, a few mint numbered plate blocks and now this piece. Love the dates. I wonder about the relationship between these two. I would appreciate any observations you could offer about this cover. Thanks in advance. -Ernie
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1. Looks like the reciever mark is March 1. Was 8 weeks typical?
2. When I see "Registered", I think something of value was sent. Was that typical.
3. Never heard the name "Gesine"..Google says it's short for Gertrude. Was that a common name?
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Hey Vince yeah I wondered about that but I thought that would be way too fast for New York to Germany.
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Here's a beauty I ran across. It's a single from the souvenir sheet. Why someone tore it from the sheet is beyond me, but the owl in the moonlight is stunning.
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01:47:29pm
" ...Why someone tore it from the sheet is beyond me ..."
Coffee stain on other part of minisheet.
Tear from careless handling.
Residue from the six hinges used to stick in album.
Directions to girlfriend's house scribbled in margin
or on reverse.
The only crystal mounts on hand are for single stamps.
The best might be that the album only has space for
a single stamp.
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Charlie, you manage to bring sanity to an insane world with your wisdom.
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Typical mid-70's issue from Grenada. The mounts are likely worth more than the stamps.
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Here's one that I have always liked:
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"1. Looks like the receiver mark is March 1. Was 8 weeks typical?
2. When I see "Registered", I think something of value was sent. Was that typical.
3. Never heard the name "Gesine"..Google says it's short for Gertrude. Was that a common name?"
Super cover Ernie! I like it a whole lot. Note that the German postmark is a railroad postmark, both words"Bahn" means railway and "Zug" mean train. A Bahnhof is a railroad station. The Christmas eve/day postmarks are also neat. I collect those. And it's cooll that the cover spent New Years aboard a ship somewhere in the Atlantic.
1. Vince is right, the Euro dates go Day-Month-Year vs US Month-Day-Year. The cover went by ship. Nine days is fast service, but possible. The mails were surprisingly efficient in the old days... I have a cover I was looking at recently that was postmarked in the 1890s, Washington, DC and had a Chicago receiving stamp on the same date.
2. A lot of the International covers I have in my collection were registered. I believe it was done to assure delivery. A lot of mail went missing.
3. Gertrude was a common name in that era. I have a lot of my 1903-1909 Franklin cards addressed to Gertrude, Mildred and other obsolete names. Remember when Gertrude was joked about as a little old lady name. That's why!
For names by era, Ancestry.com has a page about that.
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back to Ernie's post
i looked travel time NYC to Hamburg: 17 days at 10 knots; so I suppose travelling at 20 knots gets you there in 9 days, which matches the 12.25 to 1.5. Yes, Germany, like ROW uses day month, unlike US.
you can also see that the receiving date is not fully shown, so it's poosible it was 1.15
I don't have many registered covers sent internationally from that period, so I'd guess it was uncommon.
AND it's a beautiful cover.
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Vince, Tom, David and Phil,
Thank you for your comments and insights. Greatly appreciated. Just stunned that the letter could get so quick. Looking at that cover makes me shudder knowing that Germany was right in the midst of being taken over by a madman. Hope Otto and Gesine fared well.
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So me and missus were out tooling around this morning and we saw the sign that strikes fear and dread in the heart of many..."Yard Sale". Not that I'm against them in theory, I just feel that you have to be judicious. My wife on the other hand thinks its rude if you dont buy something. That's a whole other story. Well, a stack of old correspondence in the corner caught my eye. The lady's great grandfather was an Episcopalian minister in the area and started one of the first churches in this part of the county. Apparently his folks were from Newfoundland. I saw this cover and picked it up for a buck. The ironic thing is that the cover has a slogan cancel encouraging folks to eat more Newfie fish which matches the stamp. Then I saw a shoebox of old photos right next to it and this photo was right on top. Is there an ichthyologist here that can tell me if those are cod in the photo?
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I reckon they are either Trout, Sea Trout or Atlantic Salmon.
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From the looks of the pectoral and anal fins
and the markings on the fish on the far left in particular,
I would tend to agree with Ian that they appear to be Atlantic Salmon.
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As I say to my son whenever he sends me a photo of what he has caught:-
I've thrown bigger back!
He is currently in New Zealand so no doubt all I'll get is how great it was there and how many ginormous fish he caught!!!
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Thanks to the fish experts who have weighed in. I just wanted to see if there was an obvious connection between the photo and Newfoundland. One thing is certain, they didnt catch those fish in north Florida!
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This one arrived yesterday. It's US C6 on cover. I had been looking for C5 and C6 as two of the last US airmail stamps missing from my collection. And I found I could buy it on a flown cover for less than half the price of a mint stamp... and I couldn't find a mint one that was nicely centered at a reasonable price anyway. So I went for the cover since it actual flew in an early airmail plane.
Now I'm off to search for C5 in some interesting configuration...
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and I hit "SUBMIT" a bit too quickly! I also received this cover for the New Jersey collection yesterday.
Port Mercer was in Mercer County from 1849 to 1910. It's a rough open cover, but I'm not passing up a post office that's been closed for 108 years for a dollar! I can always upgrade IF I find a better one, but in the meantime I can click it off on my list.
I'm starting to fill in sections, for instance this is now four in a row...
Port Elizabeth way down south in Cumberland County. It's a current post office and it's been there since 1802. At first I thought it must be the Port of Elizabeth, up near Newark. Then comes our new Port Mercer cover...
Port Monmouth is in Monmouth County near where I used to live. In fact this is from my original collection and no doubt I serviced this one in person back in the day. It was founded in 1861 and it's still a current post office.
Port Morris of course is in Morris County. It's a discontinued post office, that had it's run from 1875 through 1966. That got me thinking that Morris County has no coast... but I found Port Morris is on the shores of Lake Musconetcong.
I am missing a few after this, Port Murray, Port Murry (same place, called Murry from
1867 to 1924, then Murray from then until today. It's still an open office. There was Port Oram in Morris County from 1867 until 1902, a port on the Rockaway River, Port Reading in Middlesex County from 1893 to current, and....
Port Republic! It's been in Atlantic County from 1840 and is still in operation.
And if we were looking to get all 11 post offices named "Port" we'd also need Port Colden which existed in Warren County from 1834 until 1919. So there are 3 "Ports" I could drive to today, and the others are DPOs that I may be lucky enough to find someday. And the search goes on!
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Hey Tom,
Here's a flown cover that I just acquired to go with yours, with the cachet, "On the first trip of through schedule involving night flying on Transcontinental Air Mail Route."
Your cover went left-coast to right, mine went right-coast to left!
What a pair, huh?!
Nice early Air Mail covers!
-Paul
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anglophile got me reading the PM General's reports to Congress. An essential reference for any postal history research! Bearing directly on these earliest night flights, I found this in the 1924 Annual Report:
"AIR MAIL SERVICE
The operation of air mail service during the fiscal year was confined
to one transcontinental route from New York to San Francisco.
Landing fields on this route are located at—
New York, N. Y.
Bellefonte, Pa.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Bryan, Ohio,
Chicago, Ill.
Iowa City, Iowa.
Omaha, Nebr.
North Platte, Nebr.
Cheyenne, Wyo.
Rock Springs, Wyo.
Rawlins, Wyo.
Salt Lake City, Utah.
Elko, Nev.
Reno, Nev.
San Francisco, Calif.
The total length of the route is 2,680 miles.
The appropriation for the year for the service was $1,500,000; the
expenditures were $1,495,996.33.
During the year a total of 1,853,251 miles was flown by air mail
planes carrying an estimated total of 60,001,360 pieces of first-class
mail. A performance percentage of 95.75 perfect was made for the year's operation.
On June 30, 1924, the air mail service had 74 planes in flying condition.
In the early part of the fiscal year, a four-day test was made
of an experimental through transcontinental air mail service between
New York and San Francisco, using a lighted airway between Chicago
and Cheyenne. The result was so satisfactory, the operation being
100 per cent perfect, there being no forced landings, defaults, or
accidents, that authorization was recommended for the operation of a
transcontinental service on a schedule not unlike that proposed for the
test, the first 30 days to be termed a 30-day test. It was also recom-
mended that postage be charged, as was originally planned, on a
basis of three zones, with stamps for the first zone at 8 cents, for
the second zone at 16 cents, and for the third zone at 24 cents.
Authority having been obtained for the route as recommended by ade-
quate appropriation by Congress, arrangements were made to begin
the operation of the through service, involving night flying, from
July 1, 1924."
-Paul
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I recently received this Registered Cover in a lot that I purchased. It is franked with Finsterwald Michel# 1-12. It is postmarked on March 27, 1948.
The Michel Specialized Catalog doesn't show any dates for this issue. Does anyone have an idea of what the value of this cover might possibly be.
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Finsterwalde, Reconstruction set was issued February 16 1946. all local issues lost their validity 10,31,1946. There is more information in your Michel on the side " Deutsche Lokalausgaben ab 1945". Hope I could help.
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Here is another one,Cat Value of individual stamps on cover in Michel € 245.0
0
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Asking prices are high - $200-$300(US)
ebay link
Sold prices are not as high - $5 -$10 (US)
ebay link
With such a discrepancy are there fakes floating around?
Don
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Dakota, if you'll look closely, you'll see that your cover was PMed on March 27, 1946 not 1948. The center pairs of stamps show this clearly.
My first thought was that these covers were First Day Covers, but Opa's date of February 16 belies that interpretation. I wonder if there was a delay in release of the stamps, noting that both covers were cancelled just 4 days apart. That, in itself, is a bit of interesting historical context.
They are both, undoubtedly, 'philatelic covers'. (There was a famous philatelist named Otto Hornung, but he was 300 miles away, in Czechoslovakia.) I would bet that neither cover has been opened, implying that there were no contents at the time of posting. Not to cast aspersion, or to ignite a controversy, but to me, these are just a tiny step above CTO. A nice way to collect sets of what are, technically, postally used stamps, but rather limited in historical context. And, the marketplace has typically distinguished markedly between genuine postally used (GPU) and CTO.
My current quest is for postally used Schleswig "Plebiscite" issues from 1920, when Schleswig/Holstein was being divided between Denmark and Germany by popular vote. I am noticing a high proportion of these are apparently CTO, as I frequently see sets all cancelled on the same day in the same place. GPU examples (ie, on cover) are somewhat rare, and priced accordingly. I see stamps cancelled in the opposing Zone. The Danish zone was called Zone 1., and the stamps are denominated in ore and overprinted, while the German stamps are denominated in pfennigs. Once in awhile, I'll find a German stamp cancelled in the Danish zone, though I suspect these are also CTO, probably by philatelists. There is a lot more historical context to this collecting area, much of which I have yet to fully understand, but I'll save it for a separate posting...
-Paul
PS, if I was collecting these local Finsterwalde stamps, I'd be looking for GPU cancelled AFTER they became invalid, or at least on the day before they became invalid. That would add additional historical context!
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Hi Pigdoc,
I agree with you on this being a philatelic cover. The envelope was never sealed. You are correct on the postmark date.
Dick
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I found this stamp today while sorting out an old box of USA stamps. Instantly, I thought this one has to go to Ernie in Jacksonville! Ernie, send me your mailing address.
Linus
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Linus,
Thank you so much! Oklahoma City I dont have. You see tons of New York and Cleveland. Looks like a fresh stamp. Greatly appreciated! 
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Linus,
Thank you so much for your generosity. I recieved the stamp yesterday. It is a nice stamp. Have a great weekend friend!
-Ernie
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Thanksgiving week I did my usual low bidding on nice items. It's cheap entertainment since I never win. Except this week. It seems the world was out celebrating and I wound up winning all three items I had bid on. I was shocked, but not upset since I'm very pleased with what I got.
USA Number One on cover. Folks may remember that I already have one of these. But for the low price, I don't mind owning it.
USA 242, a $2 Columbian, used with certificate. I've been picking off the Columbians, which are one of my favorite series of stamps. Now I only need the $3, $4 and $5 values. I had been looking at used stamps as they are more reasonable, but also because I don't have to worry about gum etc. My criteria has been that I want reasonable centering and that most of the vignette be viewable and not obscured by a postmark.
This is the one that got me bidding on stuff that day. USA 524 used block of four. I got it cheaper than many used singles were asking. I just thought it was very pretty and hey, it's Ben! This will represent the issue in my free form album.
And yes it was the expenditure of the year, but wisely spent and financed. I had a $70 rebate card from tires, a gift card from my birthday and the remainder I paid. That lessened the blow!
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02:35:25am
" ... USA 524 used block of four. ..."
I agree it is far beyond attractive, toward really,
really beautiful. Congratulations.
I just wonder what was so big or so heavy to require
$20.oo parcel post charges in 1918-'20, an engine block ?
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My latest buy is this £2 Australia black and rose (die II) Kangaroo, 1934. It's in decent condition except for the smudged cds. For now my budget only allowed for this stamp. I'm happy with it, and that's what counts
. Sc#129 Sg#138
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"" ... USA 524 used block of four. ..."
I agree it is far beyond attractive, toward really,
really beautiful. Congratulations.
I just wonder what was so big or so heavy to require
$20.oo parcel post charges in 1918-'20, an engine block ?"
Not sure it can be assumed that it came from a heavy parcel; the oval cancels were also used for registered mail. So it is possible that the block came off a registered letter with large indemnity coverage.
Don
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I’ve just added an overprint variety to my Viet Minh collection. The stamp pictures Alexandre de Rhodes, S.J. (15 March 1591 – 5 November 1660), a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who had a lasting impact on Christianity in Vietnam. He wrote the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary, published in Rome, in 1651.
Viet Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) was a coalition formed at Pac Bo by Ho Chi Minh on May 19, 1941. to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. The United States supported France. When the Japanese occupation began, the Viet Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China. After World War II, the Viet Minh opposed the re-occupation of Vietnam by France and later opposed South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War.
In 1942, the Viet Minh began overprinting Indochina stamps, obliterating “INDOCHINE” with capital I’s and X’s, and adding the Vietnamese wording for “Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” the state that became known as North Vietnam after the 1954 Geneva Conference split the country into the communist north and capitalist (oligarchic) south. According to the North Viet Nam Specialized Postage Stamps Catalogue, very few Viet Minh stamps are known to have been postally used, and most used stamps are CTOs. The Scott catalogue only values unused Viet Minh stamps.
I'd like to thank Stamporama member Eli Moallem for his permission to modify his excellent Viet Minh album pages so I could add this variety and others to my collection.
Bob
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The following were in a $2.00 lot I bought on ebay. Nice additions to my Commonwealth collection, not valuable but I like them:-
The first two items are the coil stamps, all are MNH.
These are two different colours and the one on the right appears to be a thinner paper
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Arrived on Monday from the APS store, Scott #314, “Architectural Fantasy” issued in conjunction with the 1929 Pan American Exposition of Architects and Architecture; it pictures the constellation known as the Southern Cross, or Crux (Latin for Cross).
I purchased it to add to my web page, Stars on Stamps, because it seems to be a design error. The stamp appears to show the constellation reversed left to right. In a sense, it is an error, because the Southern Cross, as viewed from the Southern Hemisphere, is indeed reversed from the image on the stamp.
The smaller star, below the tip of the the left crossbar in this stamp, is Epsilon Crucis, actually not a single star, but a binary system, consisting of two stars that can’t be resolved with a telescope because they are too close together. They orbit each other every five years. From earth, Epsilon Crucis appears at the right side of the constellation.
The very first stamp featuring a scientifically accurate image of a constellation — the Southern Cross — is Scott #92, issued in 1887. The following image shows the stamp in my collection, and an astrophoto of the Southern Cross, in the orientation from which it appears to earthbound viewers. (There actually is no such thing as a constellation; to viewers well outside our location in the Milky Way galaxy, the stars that make up what we see as constellations would be just random, unaligned stars):
That 1887 Brazil stamp is what led me to think that Scott #314 featured a design error. But there is a logical explanation for the apparent reversal of the image. The flag of Brazil, adopted in 1889, is based on a celestial globe, which shows he apparent positions of the stars in the sky, but reversed on the surface of the globe so that they appear as mirror images of what we see from earth. Here's an image of the Brailian flag:
Several countries and former colonies, mainly in the southern hemisphere, feature the Southern Cross on stamps and flags. I thought this information from Wikipedia was interesting:
"The stars within Crux were known to the Ancient Greeks, where Ptolemy regarded them as part of the constellation Centaurus. They were entirely visible as far north as Britain in the fourth millennium BC. However, the precession of the equinoxes gradually lowered the stars below the European horizon, and they were eventually forgotten by the inhabitants of northern latitudes. By 400 AD, most of the stars in the constellation we now call Crux never rose above the horizon of Athen."
Once again, philately teaches me something!
Bob
P.S. I haven't yet added the new Brazil stamp to my web page.
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I picked up this nice little item on an internet auction. My first Zeppelin!
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Possum,
LOVE the Zepp. Attractive centering and that New York cancel is perfect. Great acquisition.
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Very nice Zeppelin! The cancel is perfect, it doesn’t obscure the design. I’ve always wondered who soaked stamps off flight covers though!
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I found these in a stockbook, my heart gave a wee flutter until I looked at the back of the stamps.
I am assuming the red mark denotes forgery rather than being an expertisers mark!!!
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Auctions
My wife saw this stamp on ebay and asked me to look at it. How could it be..the asking price was only a small percentage of catalog? Well the stamp arrived today and its a beauty !
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Phil,
Scanned below is the 2019 Scott Catalogue listing for Italy #289, looks like $130 used according to Scott.
Nice stamp,
Linus
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Sorry but I can't explain it. Italian stamps have seen steady increases over the past few years. I've bought many early to 1940 lots over the last several years because they sell well and yet are often priced well below my selling prices of around 1/3 of catalog. Used stamps are generally cataloged for more than mint stamps from the 1920's through mid 30's but the cancels are often questionable. On the other hand pre 1920's mint stamps are generally catalogued in the thousands but sell for a much lower percentage of catalog.
Staining and no gum are common on early mint/unused.
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
"...cancels are often questionable..."
I am unsure if this era Italian stamp cancels are forgeries or some kind of CTO. I have no faith in Scott catalog prices and/or their ability to help hobbyists correctly identify the actual market value of their stamps. I would assume that Scott value is for legitimate postally used examples.
These stamps fall into a grey area where they are not worth sending in for certification so (if philb is like me) they will probably be mounted into a album and that album will one day be passed onto someone else. This is how catalog publishers dodge the responsibility of determining meaningful market values.
Don
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Hey Don, so if the cancels are bogus I'm assuming it's not a $6,000 set. What do you think the net value is? Less than $1,000?
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Hi Ernie,
Market value on that set I showed (with those cancels whatever they are) is in the $10-$20 per stamp range.
Don
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
I hope that my post did not come across as being too negative.
Back in the 1970s, I was gifted a large box of stamps and covers. In it were several early Italian airmail covers, the stamps alone had a significant Scott catalog value. I saw a NY dealer in Linn’s who specialized in Italian material and was looking to buy. So I sent them off and he replied within a week or so. He said he could not offer anything until he had them looked at by a noted expert who lived in Italy. I agreed and the covers were sent to Europe. After a few months I heard back, the covers were legitimate and I was offered $1100. That was quite a windfall for a young hobbyists and I gladly accepted.
A full two years later, I get a certified letter from some lawyer in NY. The letter said that the covers I has sold the NY dealer turned out to be forgeries and his client was seeking the return of his $1100. A number of terse letters were exchanged before the lawyer finally gave up. The covers had been resold and then found to be fabricated from mint stamps with faked cancels.
But since that time, I have been dubious about used Italian material from this era.
Don
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Its a bit off subject..but i was gifted 118 journals of the Portugese and Colonies study group. These guys collect postmarks from all the whistle stops in Angola,Mozambique etc. They must be veternarians or dentists to afford that material. And they have to be aware of fake postmarks also.
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02:10:59pm
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
I cant explain the increases in Italian stamps.. I went thru my dupes and found a glassine with 20 copies of Italy 632 with the 277 watermark C.V $ 7.50...Go figure ???
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"I cant explain the increases in Italian stamps.. I went thru my dupes and found a glassine with 20 copies of Italy 632 with the 277 watermark C.V $ 7.50...Go figure ???
"
Ah...catalog prices. I have a hoards of several with supposedly higher catalog values. I do not have much confidence in the catalog valuations. It is at best windage biased to supporting dealers.
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Scotts catalogs are like a basic general guide..specialized collectors of certain areas form their own "catalogs" with different printings and varieties of a given stamp.
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I am not aware of any catalog, specialized or not, that has accurate market values. If anyone has seen one of these animals, please name/post links.
Don
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In 1990 Scotts went to what some called "retail value" ..the dealers had to re adjust with their selling and buying..the "investors" got slaughtered,and the collectors i guess we adjusted also.
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Hi philb,
Agreed that they had to adjust for the drastic market movement after the 1980s inflation and the additional huge impact of the internet coming online.
I think that catalog values should reflect a value medium, an approximate mid-point. Certainly not 2%-3% of catalog value. I also have heart burn with the minimum value stuff since it clearly is a throwback to brick and mortar times. The minimum value was fine when the majority of stamps being sold were coming from real dealers who were investing in physical storefronts, large amounts of stocked inventory, and paying people to work for them. But the majority of stamps being sold today are coming from other hobbyists who are more than happy to work for free and sold from their living rooms.
I am seeking help (relief?) with supporting new hobbyists, this is an issue which does not impact the more experienced hobbyists much since they have the special knowledge to understand the actual values. We should not forget that new hobbyists do not have this knowledge. In another forum today one of the new hobbyists summed it up well with this post…
"Speaking as a relatively new collector, the way "catalog value" is presented for stamps is both confusing and misleading.
This concept of catalog value being a considerable multiple (up to 10x or more) of what I could expect to sell my stamps led me to think at first my stamp collection was of far greater financial value than is really the case.
But - it is confusing, it is misleading, and it certainly led me to overpay for stamps before I found resources like SCF and learned more about how "catalog" value has no reasonable relation to "real world" value. And as Don says, it definitely leads to disappoinment/confusion for those uninitiated in the mysteries of catalog publisher pricing."
Don
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Don, i applaud your trying to educate the new collector...i read a lot of stamp information...its very enjoyable to me..but there is much i still do not understand..like how a dealer can travel thousands of miles to a show..by air or van, pay his hotel,meals,his help and oh yeah his table space AND MAKE A LIVING ! They won't tell me, but is it all a huge WRITEOFF ?
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
06 Nov 2018
12:13:15pm
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
" ... The minimum value was fine when the majority of stamps
being sold were coming from real dealers who were investing
in physical storefronts, large amounts of stocked inventory,
and paying people to work for them. ...
That is true, but even a seller working from a spare room
in a tee-shirt and shorts has expenses. There is postage
above and beyond the amount assigned to a bidder, envelopes,
pens, pencils, sealing tape, paper to print invoices,
ink for the printer, things like Linn's Stamp Magazine,
stock sheets, binders , 102 cards, or 104s, a percentage
of the household heat, light and telephone expenses,
(I used to charge off 11.57%), catalogs every year or two,
and many other small expenses that add up. There might be
the expense of replacing sold inventory, transportation
to an auction house or shipping expenses for inbound items.
Also that spare room could be rented out to some attractive
young co-ed who liked to use the hot tub on the veranda,
so that would be lost revenue.
Years ago when I ran a business from a spare room upstairs
my wife and I rented a back room to a girl who had worked
for me and later fallen on hard times. I liked to sit on
the pool deck in the late summer afternoon and enjoy
the view while earning an income from the "study" with
no actual work.
Now admittedly such expenses might be incidental to
he stamp hobby but still they become required
once you start selling items.
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
YYUUPPP!
Three trips every two months to an auction house in Edinburgh. A round trip of 170 miles each time.
(I actually only go for the social intercourse. Otherwise I would go "stir crazy"!!)
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I don't know if catalog values ever equaled stamp values. I fancied myself a dealer back in the early 1970s and sold my USA stock at 50% of Harris.
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Picked this one up today. I have been collecting Scott 565 on a casual basis for a while. I have a variety of precancels, a few mint numbered plate blocks and now this piece. Love the dates. I wonder about the relationship between these two. I would appreciate any observations you could offer about this cover. Thanks in advance. -Ernie
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1. Looks like the reciever mark is March 1. Was 8 weeks typical?
2. When I see "Registered", I think something of value was sent. Was that typical.
3. Never heard the name "Gesine"..Google says it's short for Gertrude. Was that a common name?
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Hey Vince yeah I wondered about that but I thought that would be way too fast for New York to Germany.
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Here's a beauty I ran across. It's a single from the souvenir sheet. Why someone tore it from the sheet is beyond me, but the owl in the moonlight is stunning.
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10 Nov 2018
01:47:29pm
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
" ...Why someone tore it from the sheet is beyond me ..."
Coffee stain on other part of minisheet.
Tear from careless handling.
Residue from the six hinges used to stick in album.
Directions to girlfriend's house scribbled in margin
or on reverse.
The only crystal mounts on hand are for single stamps.
The best might be that the album only has space for
a single stamp.
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Charlie, you manage to bring sanity to an insane world with your wisdom.
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Typical mid-70's issue from Grenada. The mounts are likely worth more than the stamps.
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Here's one that I have always liked:
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"1. Looks like the receiver mark is March 1. Was 8 weeks typical?
2. When I see "Registered", I think something of value was sent. Was that typical.
3. Never heard the name "Gesine"..Google says it's short for Gertrude. Was that a common name?"
Super cover Ernie! I like it a whole lot. Note that the German postmark is a railroad postmark, both words"Bahn" means railway and "Zug" mean train. A Bahnhof is a railroad station. The Christmas eve/day postmarks are also neat. I collect those. And it's cooll that the cover spent New Years aboard a ship somewhere in the Atlantic.
1. Vince is right, the Euro dates go Day-Month-Year vs US Month-Day-Year. The cover went by ship. Nine days is fast service, but possible. The mails were surprisingly efficient in the old days... I have a cover I was looking at recently that was postmarked in the 1890s, Washington, DC and had a Chicago receiving stamp on the same date.
2. A lot of the International covers I have in my collection were registered. I believe it was done to assure delivery. A lot of mail went missing.
3. Gertrude was a common name in that era. I have a lot of my 1903-1909 Franklin cards addressed to Gertrude, Mildred and other obsolete names. Remember when Gertrude was joked about as a little old lady name. That's why!
For names by era, Ancestry.com has a page about that.
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back to Ernie's post
i looked travel time NYC to Hamburg: 17 days at 10 knots; so I suppose travelling at 20 knots gets you there in 9 days, which matches the 12.25 to 1.5. Yes, Germany, like ROW uses day month, unlike US.
you can also see that the receiving date is not fully shown, so it's poosible it was 1.15
I don't have many registered covers sent internationally from that period, so I'd guess it was uncommon.
AND it's a beautiful cover.
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Vince, Tom, David and Phil,
Thank you for your comments and insights. Greatly appreciated. Just stunned that the letter could get so quick. Looking at that cover makes me shudder knowing that Germany was right in the midst of being taken over by a madman. Hope Otto and Gesine fared well.
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So me and missus were out tooling around this morning and we saw the sign that strikes fear and dread in the heart of many..."Yard Sale". Not that I'm against them in theory, I just feel that you have to be judicious. My wife on the other hand thinks its rude if you dont buy something. That's a whole other story. Well, a stack of old correspondence in the corner caught my eye. The lady's great grandfather was an Episcopalian minister in the area and started one of the first churches in this part of the county. Apparently his folks were from Newfoundland. I saw this cover and picked it up for a buck. The ironic thing is that the cover has a slogan cancel encouraging folks to eat more Newfie fish which matches the stamp. Then I saw a shoebox of old photos right next to it and this photo was right on top. Is there an ichthyologist here that can tell me if those are cod in the photo?
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From the looks of the pectoral and anal fins
and the markings on the fish on the far left in particular,
I would tend to agree with Ian that they appear to be Atlantic Salmon.
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
As I say to my son whenever he sends me a photo of what he has caught:-
I've thrown bigger back!
He is currently in New Zealand so no doubt all I'll get is how great it was there and how many ginormous fish he caught!!!
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Thanks to the fish experts who have weighed in. I just wanted to see if there was an obvious connection between the photo and Newfoundland. One thing is certain, they didnt catch those fish in north Florida!
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This one arrived yesterday. It's US C6 on cover. I had been looking for C5 and C6 as two of the last US airmail stamps missing from my collection. And I found I could buy it on a flown cover for less than half the price of a mint stamp... and I couldn't find a mint one that was nicely centered at a reasonable price anyway. So I went for the cover since it actual flew in an early airmail plane.
Now I'm off to search for C5 in some interesting configuration...
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and I hit "SUBMIT" a bit too quickly! I also received this cover for the New Jersey collection yesterday.
Port Mercer was in Mercer County from 1849 to 1910. It's a rough open cover, but I'm not passing up a post office that's been closed for 108 years for a dollar! I can always upgrade IF I find a better one, but in the meantime I can click it off on my list.
I'm starting to fill in sections, for instance this is now four in a row...
Port Elizabeth way down south in Cumberland County. It's a current post office and it's been there since 1802. At first I thought it must be the Port of Elizabeth, up near Newark. Then comes our new Port Mercer cover...
Port Monmouth is in Monmouth County near where I used to live. In fact this is from my original collection and no doubt I serviced this one in person back in the day. It was founded in 1861 and it's still a current post office.
Port Morris of course is in Morris County. It's a discontinued post office, that had it's run from 1875 through 1966. That got me thinking that Morris County has no coast... but I found Port Morris is on the shores of Lake Musconetcong.
I am missing a few after this, Port Murray, Port Murry (same place, called Murry from
1867 to 1924, then Murray from then until today. It's still an open office. There was Port Oram in Morris County from 1867 until 1902, a port on the Rockaway River, Port Reading in Middlesex County from 1893 to current, and....
Port Republic! It's been in Atlantic County from 1840 and is still in operation.
And if we were looking to get all 11 post offices named "Port" we'd also need Port Colden which existed in Warren County from 1834 until 1919. So there are 3 "Ports" I could drive to today, and the others are DPOs that I may be lucky enough to find someday. And the search goes on!
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04:40:32pm
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Hey Tom,
Here's a flown cover that I just acquired to go with yours, with the cachet, "On the first trip of through schedule involving night flying on Transcontinental Air Mail Route."
Your cover went left-coast to right, mine went right-coast to left!
What a pair, huh?!
Nice early Air Mail covers!
-Paul
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
anglophile got me reading the PM General's reports to Congress. An essential reference for any postal history research! Bearing directly on these earliest night flights, I found this in the 1924 Annual Report:
"AIR MAIL SERVICE
The operation of air mail service during the fiscal year was confined
to one transcontinental route from New York to San Francisco.
Landing fields on this route are located at—
New York, N. Y.
Bellefonte, Pa.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Bryan, Ohio,
Chicago, Ill.
Iowa City, Iowa.
Omaha, Nebr.
North Platte, Nebr.
Cheyenne, Wyo.
Rock Springs, Wyo.
Rawlins, Wyo.
Salt Lake City, Utah.
Elko, Nev.
Reno, Nev.
San Francisco, Calif.
The total length of the route is 2,680 miles.
The appropriation for the year for the service was $1,500,000; the
expenditures were $1,495,996.33.
During the year a total of 1,853,251 miles was flown by air mail
planes carrying an estimated total of 60,001,360 pieces of first-class
mail. A performance percentage of 95.75 perfect was made for the year's operation.
On June 30, 1924, the air mail service had 74 planes in flying condition.
In the early part of the fiscal year, a four-day test was made
of an experimental through transcontinental air mail service between
New York and San Francisco, using a lighted airway between Chicago
and Cheyenne. The result was so satisfactory, the operation being
100 per cent perfect, there being no forced landings, defaults, or
accidents, that authorization was recommended for the operation of a
transcontinental service on a schedule not unlike that proposed for the
test, the first 30 days to be termed a 30-day test. It was also recom-
mended that postage be charged, as was originally planned, on a
basis of three zones, with stamps for the first zone at 8 cents, for
the second zone at 16 cents, and for the third zone at 24 cents.
Authority having been obtained for the route as recommended by ade-
quate appropriation by Congress, arrangements were made to begin
the operation of the through service, involving night flying, from
July 1, 1924."
-Paul
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I recently received this Registered Cover in a lot that I purchased. It is franked with Finsterwald Michel# 1-12. It is postmarked on March 27, 1948.
The Michel Specialized Catalog doesn't show any dates for this issue. Does anyone have an idea of what the value of this cover might possibly be.
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Finsterwalde, Reconstruction set was issued February 16 1946. all local issues lost their validity 10,31,1946. There is more information in your Michel on the side " Deutsche Lokalausgaben ab 1945". Hope I could help.
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Here is another one,Cat Value of individual stamps on cover in Michel € 245.00
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Asking prices are high - $200-$300(US)
ebay link
Sold prices are not as high - $5 -$10 (US)
ebay link
With such a discrepancy are there fakes floating around?
Don
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10:00:22am
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Dakota, if you'll look closely, you'll see that your cover was PMed on March 27, 1946 not 1948. The center pairs of stamps show this clearly.
My first thought was that these covers were First Day Covers, but Opa's date of February 16 belies that interpretation. I wonder if there was a delay in release of the stamps, noting that both covers were cancelled just 4 days apart. That, in itself, is a bit of interesting historical context.
They are both, undoubtedly, 'philatelic covers'. (There was a famous philatelist named Otto Hornung, but he was 300 miles away, in Czechoslovakia.) I would bet that neither cover has been opened, implying that there were no contents at the time of posting. Not to cast aspersion, or to ignite a controversy, but to me, these are just a tiny step above CTO. A nice way to collect sets of what are, technically, postally used stamps, but rather limited in historical context. And, the marketplace has typically distinguished markedly between genuine postally used (GPU) and CTO.
My current quest is for postally used Schleswig "Plebiscite" issues from 1920, when Schleswig/Holstein was being divided between Denmark and Germany by popular vote. I am noticing a high proportion of these are apparently CTO, as I frequently see sets all cancelled on the same day in the same place. GPU examples (ie, on cover) are somewhat rare, and priced accordingly. I see stamps cancelled in the opposing Zone. The Danish zone was called Zone 1., and the stamps are denominated in ore and overprinted, while the German stamps are denominated in pfennigs. Once in awhile, I'll find a German stamp cancelled in the Danish zone, though I suspect these are also CTO, probably by philatelists. There is a lot more historical context to this collecting area, much of which I have yet to fully understand, but I'll save it for a separate posting...
-Paul
PS, if I was collecting these local Finsterwalde stamps, I'd be looking for GPU cancelled AFTER they became invalid, or at least on the day before they became invalid. That would add additional historical context!
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re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
Hi Pigdoc,
I agree with you on this being a philatelic cover. The envelope was never sealed. You are correct on the postmark date.
Dick
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I found this stamp today while sorting out an old box of USA stamps. Instantly, I thought this one has to go to Ernie in Jacksonville! Ernie, send me your mailing address.
Linus
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Linus,
Thank you so much! Oklahoma City I dont have. You see tons of New York and Cleveland. Looks like a fresh stamp. Greatly appreciated!
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Linus,
Thank you so much for your generosity. I recieved the stamp yesterday. It is a nice stamp. Have a great weekend friend!
-Ernie
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Thanksgiving week I did my usual low bidding on nice items. It's cheap entertainment since I never win. Except this week. It seems the world was out celebrating and I wound up winning all three items I had bid on. I was shocked, but not upset since I'm very pleased with what I got.
USA Number One on cover. Folks may remember that I already have one of these. But for the low price, I don't mind owning it.
USA 242, a $2 Columbian, used with certificate. I've been picking off the Columbians, which are one of my favorite series of stamps. Now I only need the $3, $4 and $5 values. I had been looking at used stamps as they are more reasonable, but also because I don't have to worry about gum etc. My criteria has been that I want reasonable centering and that most of the vignette be viewable and not obscured by a postmark.
This is the one that got me bidding on stuff that day. USA 524 used block of four. I got it cheaper than many used singles were asking. I just thought it was very pretty and hey, it's Ben! This will represent the issue in my free form album.
And yes it was the expenditure of the year, but wisely spent and financed. I had a $70 rebate card from tires, a gift card from my birthday and the remainder I paid. That lessened the blow!
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10 Dec 2018
02:35:25am
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
" ... USA 524 used block of four. ..."
I agree it is far beyond attractive, toward really,
really beautiful. Congratulations.
I just wonder what was so big or so heavy to require
$20.oo parcel post charges in 1918-'20, an engine block ?
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My latest buy is this £2 Australia black and rose (die II) Kangaroo, 1934. It's in decent condition except for the smudged cds. For now my budget only allowed for this stamp. I'm happy with it, and that's what counts. Sc#129 Sg#138
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"" ... USA 524 used block of four. ..."
I agree it is far beyond attractive, toward really,
really beautiful. Congratulations.
I just wonder what was so big or so heavy to require
$20.oo parcel post charges in 1918-'20, an engine block ?"
Not sure it can be assumed that it came from a heavy parcel; the oval cancels were also used for registered mail. So it is possible that the block came off a registered letter with large indemnity coverage.
Don
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I’ve just added an overprint variety to my Viet Minh collection. The stamp pictures Alexandre de Rhodes, S.J. (15 March 1591 – 5 November 1660), a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who had a lasting impact on Christianity in Vietnam. He wrote the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary, published in Rome, in 1651.
Viet Minh (League for the Independence of Vietnam) was a coalition formed at Pac Bo by Ho Chi Minh on May 19, 1941. to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. The United States supported France. When the Japanese occupation began, the Viet Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China. After World War II, the Viet Minh opposed the re-occupation of Vietnam by France and later opposed South Vietnam and the United States in the Vietnam War.
In 1942, the Viet Minh began overprinting Indochina stamps, obliterating “INDOCHINE” with capital I’s and X’s, and adding the Vietnamese wording for “Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” the state that became known as North Vietnam after the 1954 Geneva Conference split the country into the communist north and capitalist (oligarchic) south. According to the North Viet Nam Specialized Postage Stamps Catalogue, very few Viet Minh stamps are known to have been postally used, and most used stamps are CTOs. The Scott catalogue only values unused Viet Minh stamps.
I'd like to thank Stamporama member Eli Moallem for his permission to modify his excellent Viet Minh album pages so I could add this variety and others to my collection.
Bob
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The following were in a $2.00 lot I bought on ebay. Nice additions to my Commonwealth collection, not valuable but I like them:-
The first two items are the coil stamps, all are MNH.
These are two different colours and the one on the right appears to be a thinner paper
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Arrived on Monday from the APS store, Scott #314, “Architectural Fantasy” issued in conjunction with the 1929 Pan American Exposition of Architects and Architecture; it pictures the constellation known as the Southern Cross, or Crux (Latin for Cross).
I purchased it to add to my web page, Stars on Stamps, because it seems to be a design error. The stamp appears to show the constellation reversed left to right. In a sense, it is an error, because the Southern Cross, as viewed from the Southern Hemisphere, is indeed reversed from the image on the stamp.
The smaller star, below the tip of the the left crossbar in this stamp, is Epsilon Crucis, actually not a single star, but a binary system, consisting of two stars that can’t be resolved with a telescope because they are too close together. They orbit each other every five years. From earth, Epsilon Crucis appears at the right side of the constellation.
The very first stamp featuring a scientifically accurate image of a constellation — the Southern Cross — is Scott #92, issued in 1887. The following image shows the stamp in my collection, and an astrophoto of the Southern Cross, in the orientation from which it appears to earthbound viewers. (There actually is no such thing as a constellation; to viewers well outside our location in the Milky Way galaxy, the stars that make up what we see as constellations would be just random, unaligned stars):
That 1887 Brazil stamp is what led me to think that Scott #314 featured a design error. But there is a logical explanation for the apparent reversal of the image. The flag of Brazil, adopted in 1889, is based on a celestial globe, which shows he apparent positions of the stars in the sky, but reversed on the surface of the globe so that they appear as mirror images of what we see from earth. Here's an image of the Brailian flag:
Several countries and former colonies, mainly in the southern hemisphere, feature the Southern Cross on stamps and flags. I thought this information from Wikipedia was interesting:
"The stars within Crux were known to the Ancient Greeks, where Ptolemy regarded them as part of the constellation Centaurus. They were entirely visible as far north as Britain in the fourth millennium BC. However, the precession of the equinoxes gradually lowered the stars below the European horizon, and they were eventually forgotten by the inhabitants of northern latitudes. By 400 AD, most of the stars in the constellation we now call Crux never rose above the horizon of Athen."
Once again, philately teaches me something!
Bob
P.S. I haven't yet added the new Brazil stamp to my web page.
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04:35:16pm
re: Recent Acquisitions XXXII
I picked up this nice little item on an internet auction. My first Zeppelin!
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Possum,
LOVE the Zepp. Attractive centering and that New York cancel is perfect. Great acquisition.
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Very nice Zeppelin! The cancel is perfect, it doesn’t obscure the design. I’ve always wondered who soaked stamps off flight covers though!
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I found these in a stockbook, my heart gave a wee flutter until I looked at the back of the stamps.
I am assuming the red mark denotes forgery rather than being an expertisers mark!!!
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