In the 1950s and 1960s, large stamp auctions were held much more often than they are today. Stamp dealers could count on a two thousand lot Harmer’s sale every month along with a good half dozen other decent monthly stamp auctions. And that was only in New York City. Well capitalized dealers would often buy big box and carton lots, often at very favorable prices because there was so much on offer. Often they could work out only a portion of the lot to get out their cost plus a small profit and have no time to do more before the next auction took place. So all the unlooked at material would get boxed back up and shuffled off to the back room. Over and over this happened, and this is what accounted for the wonderful “back rooms” of old time dealers (that and the “aging effect”—collections that have been put away for forty years have stamps that you just don’t see today). Dealers of two generations ago had been able to purchase great large auction lots with lots of better values, and they had too little time to work them out. Most of the better back rooms were sold off by about 1990. But we bought a pretty significant one recently. What’s here is six large cartons filled with thousands of old album pages and hundreds of envelopes and stockbooks, all filled with unsorted and partially sorted stamps of the world. Just like the dealer who originally put this in his back room, we didn’t look at it too carefully. But you will find enormous catalog value, many better countries including strong British, numerous stamps to $100 each, hundreds of hours of fun and great value. We took one book of many (admittedly, probably better than most) and scanned it to give you an idea of what is here. If you like stamps you will like this lot. Price: $6,500
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