The term lot is usually used in the context of an auction or mail sale ... everything that is described and sold together for one price is considered a lot. Dealers often will take a large philatelic item, such as a collection, and break it up into lots.
The topic of this page is the value or the worth of a philatelic item. This is a most difficult term to define in a common, abstract fashion. Let us start with an extremely technical definition of value, from the dictionary, and then apply that to the realm of stamp collecting. value (n) has three relevant definitions in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
That definition is very technical, and is probably useless in helping you decide what to do with a collection, or how much is right to sell it for. You must bear with me on this, because one must remember that most philatelic items have no intrinsic value. Unused mint postage stamps that are still postally valid for postage are the one exception to this statement. They are, in essence, a receipt for prepayment of postage in the country of issue, and have the intrinsic value of their face value, if used to post mail. However, some markets for such material are so glutted that unused postage sells for a discount of face value. A good example of this are mint USA sheets of stamps from the mid-Twentieth Century.
Most philatelic items are only of value to the individuals who collect them, deal in them, or study them. You can't go to your neighborhood Starbuck's with a stockbook of British Penny Black stamps and expect to buy a cup of Latte with them (unless you happen to meet a collector there who buys them from you). Stamps and stamp collections have no value to non-philatelists.
Having said that, I should quickly add that some philatelic items have sold for hundreds, thousands, or even millions of dollars. Some items are very rare, and are very difficult to find in excellent condition. Very often, the sales price of a particular philatelic item is specific to that specific copy at the time of the sale, and the desire at that moment for a particular collector to own it.
All this is very good, and now you probably would like to make your question more specific: What is the retail value of this philatelic item? How much are stamp collectors willing to pay for such a thing if they were looking to buy it? What would be the appraised value of this collection if I planned to ensure it against damage, loss, or theft? I'll address this in the next section.
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
The best gauge of the average sale price for a philatelic item that is not considered rare or unique is a philatelic catalog. There are philatelic catalogs that are primarily reference catalogs, such as the Scott Catalogue, and there are philatelic catalogs that are sales catalogs. You must read the introductory material of any catalog that you use to calculate the retail value of a philatelic item. In some cases, the prices are an average of what the marketplace retail price is. In some cases the prices are based on what the publishing company is willing to sell an item for. In all cases, the price given is what you could expect to pay, if you walked into a well-stocked stamp store, and wanted to buy one copy of a specific item.
Most of the time, collections are sold intact, or in smaller lots (such as by country). The larger the lot, the less expensive the price per stamp will be. While the minimum catalog value for a single stamp is twenty cents in the current Scott Catalogue, you can buy 1,000 different stamps for $5.00 (or roughly 2 for a penny), or 10,000 different stamps for $100.00 (or roughly a penny each). A mixture that does not guarantee individuality (no duplication) will sell for even less, per stamp. Stamps purchased on-paper, wherein you have to do most of the work of soaking, sorting, and separating, will often be sold in bulk by the pound. So the catalog price doesn't really tell you what someone has paid, or will pay, for the philatelic item that you are pricing.
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
A dealer can purchase stamps wholesale from a philatelic wholesaler. In some cases, the stamps will be ready for sale, in stock sheets or display books, marked with catalog numbers and prices, and ready for the dealer to use. In other cases, the dealer has to do some preparation of the material in order to get it ready for sale.
With collections, very often there are several nice pieces or sections that can command a good sales price by themselves, if they are separated and catalogued and described. The rest is probably not very interesting material and can be broken up into sets, sold as one bargain lot, or perhaps simply scattered into a "3 cents per stamp mixture box". However, the act of taking a collection, picking through it for the items that make nice sales pieces, and then disposing of the rest, all takes time. When a dealer makes an offer for a collection, he/she has to factor in how much time it would take to get a price that is close to the catalog value of that set. Therefore, even if you know the exact catalog value of all the material in a collection that you plan to sell, do not be surprised or dismayed if you are offered only 25% - 30% of your calculated catalog value.
That's just the way it is. Dealers buy low, sell high, and the difference in prices pays for their time, their rent, their supplies, and if they are very lucky ... even a bit of profit. I have spoken with many of the local dealers at shows and in stores ... it's a fun business if you enjoy working with stamps and with people, but it's extremely difficult to earn a good living as a stamp dealer.
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
There is one Hitler Head stamp that seems to have some value, and that is the 42 pfennig bright green IMPERFORATE stamp. Of course, you will need a regular 42 pfennig stamp as a reference to be sure that someone hasn't simply trimmed off the edges to make it look imperf. Your reference stamp has a minimum catalog value unused, and 50 cents used. The imperforate has a catalog value of $140.00.
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
All requested information is optional. Of course, if you don't provide your return E-mail address, I won't be able to write back to you.
| Return to the Top of This Page |
|---|
| Return to Rob's Philately Pages |
This page was last modified on Monday, 03-Dec-2007 12:53:03 EST.
| Index | My Collection | Washington DC Area | Tips | Chats | Charities |