Monthly Archives: October 2021

Lou Robbins also was inducted into the APS Hall of Fame roughly a decade ago and was an old time philatelist with whom I had a life long relationship. Lou was 98 when he died and had been living in assisted living for many years. Lou was primarily a stamp auction agent. A stamp auction agent in the modern on-line auction world is a bit like a buggy whip was in the early automotive era-decorative but for most people not very useful. An auction agent would attend all the philatelic auctions (and in the 1950's and 1960's there were 20 or more sales a month in New York alone) and would execute bids from clients. Dealers and collectors gave their bids to agents, rather than directly to the auction house, for one of four reasons-either they didn't trust that the auction house would execute their bids fairly, perhaps disclosing their high bid to other bidders, or the bidders didn't want the auction house to know their top bid in the event they were the winner, or the collector or dealer wanted an

When you buy a house or a car there is a cost of production involved that provides a floor as to the price. If housing prices drop to below the cost of producing homes people will stop building them, supplies will contract  leading to price increases that will allow production to resume. At least that's the theory. So the housing market or the automobile market is not a perfect market in terms of supply and demand because supply is influenced by the cost of production. But the stamp market  is a perfect economic model of a market. Older stamps that can not be used as postage really have no value except for what collectors are willing to pay for them. They can't be used for anything or consumed in any way. The early stamps of India are a perfect example of the fact that stamps are only worth what people are willing to pay for them. Compare the classic mint stamps of India with the classic mint stamps of China. Dealers see five or ten times as much classic China as India and yet the former se

There are three main Foreign catalogs for the non English speaking European specialties-Michel for Germany and German Area, Yvert for France and French Colonies and Sassone for Italy and the Italian Area. Michel is the Mercedes of catalogs with hundreds of thousands of specialized listings in all phases of German philately with covers, blocks, paper types and cancellations all addressed and priced. Michel Deutchland Specialized is the prototype of what a specialty catalog should be and no other country's specialized catalog comes even close. Yvert's France and Colonies catalog is good, handles well though without much excitement or acceleration-sort of like a Peugeot. Yvert's listing often go little beyond Scott (especially the wonderful Scott Specialized) but still overall is a capable model. Sassone, the Italian catalog is sort of like a hybrid Maserati/Fiat. Some sections are excellent (modern printing varieties for instance) and it has thousands of listings that are beyond Scott. Th

The Scott catalog prices for most countries after 1940 is for stamps in mint Never Hinged condition. This is for three reasons. First, most post 1940 stamp are more common in NH than in hinged condition (especially as you come closer to the current period in time). Second, most collectors have been trained to believe they want NH stamps. And third, the foreign catalogs from which Scott 'steals' its prices only list their stamps in NH condition. So the question often arises about how one should value foreign hinged stamps in the modern period. As auctioneers our experience has given us the following answers to this question. The effect of hinging on mint modern stamps is more significant the further you go back to the 1940 cutoff that the Scott catalog uses. Stamps from most European and British area countries in the 1940-1960 period sell, in hinged condition, for 1/3 to 2/3s of their NH price. As one moves closer to the current period the ratio of hinged to NH price gets closer so that wh