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General Philatelic/Gen. Discussion : Mint versus used stamps - prediction

 

Author
Postings
Jim Lloyd (J_lloyd)

17 Apr 2008
08:14:14am
I thought I'd throw this out there and see if anybody feels like I do.

I predict that in the not-too-distant future postally used commemorative stamps will have higher values than MNH.

I'm talking mainly about U.S. commemoratives issued in the past 10 years. The main reason for my feelings is nobody uses them anymore except collectors. First of all NOBODY writes letters anymore. Non-collectors haven't gone out of their way to buy commemoratives for years. Most people only used stamps to pay bills. They don't even do this anymore with online bill pay. Postage stamps just don't get used by the public anymore. Companies only use bulk rate commons. Where will future used commemoratives come from?

Mint stamps on the other hand are bought by the hundreds of thousands by stamp dealers and collectors around the world. There will always be plenty of mint stamps easily available. The USED stamps are soon going to become the rare ones.

And on a sadder note, I also predict that some of us will live to see the USPS stop issuing stamps all together. Why print them if nobody needs them?

(Message edited by j_lloyd on April 17, 2008)
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Jim Lloyd (J_lloyd)

17 Apr 2008
09:14:08am
re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

After thinking about this a while longer, I'd like to reply to my own message. A major flaw to the thought that used can have a higher value than MNH is that collectors can always purchase the mint stamps and use them as postage to mail an envelope to themselves. So I guess as long as mint stamps are available there will be a source for used stamps as well. But it would be terrible to pay MNH prices to obtain a used stamp for a collection.

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Bob Ingraham (Bobstamp)

17 Apr 2008
09:31:23am
re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

Since collectors represent about .0001% of the world's popultion, and perhaps that's a gross exaggeration, I think that your original prediction is about right. Add self-adhesives to the equation and you may be doubly right. Add e-mail, blogs, discussion boards like this one, UPS, and Fedex, you are doubly right again.

Personally, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. My main challenge is having enough money to buy stamps and covers that date from the 1970s back to the beginning of time. I figure that there will always be stuff for me to buy. Nobody makes moustache cups any more, but any of us could collect those if we wanted to.

Bob

(Message edited by Bobstamp on April 17, 2008)

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David Teisler (Teisler)

17 Apr 2008
10:30:53am
re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

Jim, there are two parts to the value equation: rarity and demand. In many cases, used commemoratives will be virtually non-existent except as FDCs and, possibly, as philatelically inspired covers. Try finding a commercial cover of the 84c northern lights commemoratives, either as singles or as full 2-stamp SS. This stamps will be utterly rare in used. What the demand will be is the unknown.

A more down to earth example is the 37c ATM snow flakes. There are 3 major varieties to the 4 stamp set (I'm excluding pane positions here, but others will find those varities important). The 8.5 perf ATM set is RARE. I went through several hundred covers and found a total of 5 stamps. My friend and trading partner Paul Hagen sent me a set on cover, else I wouldn't have a set. I don't have a recent Scotts to know how they value it, but it certainly won't reflect its rarity, even though there were something like 2 million panes issued in the perf 8.5 ATM format.

The other aspect is that "used" should be viewed, especially for higher priced items, as referring to those items "used in period." An 18c "Fight Alcoholism" used today will not mean anything like it if it's used in period, and especially on cover in a relatively short rate span.

David

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Malcolm Hirst (Malcolm197)

17 Apr 2008
12:40:49pm
re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

The problem with "used in period" is that 90% of off-paper used stamps can not be so identified.Unless grossly out of period like a 3c commem used today, wavy-line postmarks and portions of CDS not showing the date are not helpful. Only stamps on piece or on cover are likely to be exact - and who collects common definitives ( or indeed commemoratives ) in this way. I have many stamps which I know have been used out of period and I would defy anyone to identify them ( I know because they have been received on packets of stamps from my exchange partners ). If you KNEW in advance that a stamp was going to be short-lived for a particular purpose you could make the effort to collect it only on cover - but how do you know in advance - and the $64000 question is that such a specialised interest only attracts a very small number of afficianadoes so there is always ( in the foreseeable future) going to be sufficient stamps to satisfy that small number.

Calculating the supply is easy - the demand is difficult. There are thousands of penny blacks about - but there are still not enough !!

On the US specialised Yahoo group there is a collector who specialises in the usage of a particular airmail stamp on cover. He seems to have little difficulty in adding to his collection frequently ( although I do not know how much he has to pay ! ) - his is a fairly specialised subject but he is having to compete with more general airmail collectors, and other general US cover collectors, but there seems to be enough material available ( at a price) to supply everyone.

I think we need to get these things in perspective, especially in U.S. terms. Despite all that has been said millions of stamps are still being used daily - the problem is that the stamp distributors ( USPS and probably more specifically its individual employees) are not intelligently targetting their sales - it is an established fact that if a product is actively sold it generates its own additional sales. If the clerks actively sold "interesting" items over the counter more people would identify them and go back for more even to use on their ordinary mail -the demand would be sublimal but identifiable. They would in fact recruit more collectors to buy mint stamps in the future. The pursuit of cost savings often disguises a subsequent fall in revenue. Also when considering the "cost" of supplying commemorative stamps the total cost will be calculated rather than the additional "marginal" cost ( 30 seconds to locate a different stamp -and that could be reduced by someone working out a nationally available easier way of laying out the selling layout.

To make a profit you need to maximise revenue as well as minimisse cost - you cannot address the one without considering the other. To those in small businesses this is obvious and in large businesses it tends to be ignored.

Malcolm

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Josh Tanski (Joshtanski)

17 Apr 2008
05:16:56pm
re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

Malcolm,

Any US Stamps from before the 37c rate with the modern spray on cancels are easily identied as out of period (and in my opinion less desirable (because they're out of period, not the cancel)). Are they showing up much in packets yet?

Josh

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Malcolm Hirst (Malcolm197)

18 Apr 2008
05:44:04am
re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

I haven't bought any US kiloware recently ( I'm in the UK ) but certainly with my exchanges no "ink - jet cancels" ( that is our term for them) have appeared yet. I would agree that there is no room for misunderstanding there - but your bog-standard wavy line preceding the ink jet would be very difficult to identify as out of period unless you were a real expert on these cancels - they were in use for an awful long time, as they were here, The illustrations I have seen for your ink-jets are pretty grim but don't lose hope - ours were worse, but we have had them for a long time now and there is some considerable improvement ( from some places that is)
Malcolm

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Author/Postings
Jim Lloyd (J_lloyd)

17 Apr 2008
08:14:14am

I thought I'd throw this out there and see if anybody feels like I do.

I predict that in the not-too-distant future postally used commemorative stamps will have higher values than MNH.

I'm talking mainly about U.S. commemoratives issued in the past 10 years. The main reason for my feelings is nobody uses them anymore except collectors. First of all NOBODY writes letters anymore. Non-collectors haven't gone out of their way to buy commemoratives for years. Most people only used stamps to pay bills. They don't even do this anymore with online bill pay. Postage stamps just don't get used by the public anymore. Companies only use bulk rate commons. Where will future used commemoratives come from?

Mint stamps on the other hand are bought by the hundreds of thousands by stamp dealers and collectors around the world. There will always be plenty of mint stamps easily available. The USED stamps are soon going to become the rare ones.

And on a sadder note, I also predict that some of us will live to see the USPS stop issuing stamps all together. Why print them if nobody needs them?

(Message edited by j_lloyd on April 17, 2008)

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Jim Lloyd (J_lloyd)

17 Apr 2008
09:14:08am

re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

After thinking about this a while longer, I'd like to reply to my own message. A major flaw to the thought that used can have a higher value than MNH is that collectors can always purchase the mint stamps and use them as postage to mail an envelope to themselves. So I guess as long as mint stamps are available there will be a source for used stamps as well. But it would be terrible to pay MNH prices to obtain a used stamp for a collection.

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this post
Bob Ingraham (Bobstamp)

17 Apr 2008
09:31:23am

re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

Since collectors represent about .0001% of the world's popultion, and perhaps that's a gross exaggeration, I think that your original prediction is about right. Add self-adhesives to the equation and you may be doubly right. Add e-mail, blogs, discussion boards like this one, UPS, and Fedex, you are doubly right again.

Personally, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it. My main challenge is having enough money to buy stamps and covers that date from the 1970s back to the beginning of time. I figure that there will always be stuff for me to buy. Nobody makes moustache cups any more, but any of us could collect those if we wanted to.

Bob

(Message edited by Bobstamp on April 17, 2008)

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this post
David Teisler (Teisler)

17 Apr 2008
10:30:53am

re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

Jim, there are two parts to the value equation: rarity and demand. In many cases, used commemoratives will be virtually non-existent except as FDCs and, possibly, as philatelically inspired covers. Try finding a commercial cover of the 84c northern lights commemoratives, either as singles or as full 2-stamp SS. This stamps will be utterly rare in used. What the demand will be is the unknown.

A more down to earth example is the 37c ATM snow flakes. There are 3 major varieties to the 4 stamp set (I'm excluding pane positions here, but others will find those varities important). The 8.5 perf ATM set is RARE. I went through several hundred covers and found a total of 5 stamps. My friend and trading partner Paul Hagen sent me a set on cover, else I wouldn't have a set. I don't have a recent Scotts to know how they value it, but it certainly won't reflect its rarity, even though there were something like 2 million panes issued in the perf 8.5 ATM format.

The other aspect is that "used" should be viewed, especially for higher priced items, as referring to those items "used in period." An 18c "Fight Alcoholism" used today will not mean anything like it if it's used in period, and especially on cover in a relatively short rate span.

David

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Malcolm Hirst (Malcolm197)

17 Apr 2008
12:40:49pm

re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

The problem with "used in period" is that 90% of off-paper used stamps can not be so identified.Unless grossly out of period like a 3c commem used today, wavy-line postmarks and portions of CDS not showing the date are not helpful. Only stamps on piece or on cover are likely to be exact - and who collects common definitives ( or indeed commemoratives ) in this way. I have many stamps which I know have been used out of period and I would defy anyone to identify them ( I know because they have been received on packets of stamps from my exchange partners ). If you KNEW in advance that a stamp was going to be short-lived for a particular purpose you could make the effort to collect it only on cover - but how do you know in advance - and the $64000 question is that such a specialised interest only attracts a very small number of afficianadoes so there is always ( in the foreseeable future) going to be sufficient stamps to satisfy that small number.

Calculating the supply is easy - the demand is difficult. There are thousands of penny blacks about - but there are still not enough !!

On the US specialised Yahoo group there is a collector who specialises in the usage of a particular airmail stamp on cover. He seems to have little difficulty in adding to his collection frequently ( although I do not know how much he has to pay ! ) - his is a fairly specialised subject but he is having to compete with more general airmail collectors, and other general US cover collectors, but there seems to be enough material available ( at a price) to supply everyone.

I think we need to get these things in perspective, especially in U.S. terms. Despite all that has been said millions of stamps are still being used daily - the problem is that the stamp distributors ( USPS and probably more specifically its individual employees) are not intelligently targetting their sales - it is an established fact that if a product is actively sold it generates its own additional sales. If the clerks actively sold "interesting" items over the counter more people would identify them and go back for more even to use on their ordinary mail -the demand would be sublimal but identifiable. They would in fact recruit more collectors to buy mint stamps in the future. The pursuit of cost savings often disguises a subsequent fall in revenue. Also when considering the "cost" of supplying commemorative stamps the total cost will be calculated rather than the additional "marginal" cost ( 30 seconds to locate a different stamp -and that could be reduced by someone working out a nationally available easier way of laying out the selling layout.

To make a profit you need to maximise revenue as well as minimisse cost - you cannot address the one without considering the other. To those in small businesses this is obvious and in large businesses it tends to be ignored.

Malcolm

Like
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this post
Josh Tanski (Joshtanski)

17 Apr 2008
05:16:56pm

re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

Malcolm,

Any US Stamps from before the 37c rate with the modern spray on cancels are easily identied as out of period (and in my opinion less desirable (because they're out of period, not the cancel)). Are they showing up much in packets yet?

Josh

Like
Login to Like
this post
Malcolm Hirst (Malcolm197)

18 Apr 2008
05:44:04am

re: Mint versus used stamps - prediction

I haven't bought any US kiloware recently ( I'm in the UK ) but certainly with my exchanges no "ink - jet cancels" ( that is our term for them) have appeared yet. I would agree that there is no room for misunderstanding there - but your bog-standard wavy line preceding the ink jet would be very difficult to identify as out of period unless you were a real expert on these cancels - they were in use for an awful long time, as they were here, The illustrations I have seen for your ink-jets are pretty grim but don't lose hope - ours were worse, but we have had them for a long time now and there is some considerable improvement ( from some places that is)
Malcolm

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this post
        

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