What's Your Best Stamp Find or Bargain?

This post has been copied from another, at the request of Beryllium Guy.

Prompted by bobby1948's recent bargain find of a US 1869 12c Pictorial, I thought I might mention my own, bought from a bricks and mortar shop years ago. It was marked as SG19 (Scott #24). I paid £19 ($23) for it:







Having checked it when I got home, it was in fact the 1892 96 cent SG7 (Scott #7). This was catalogued at £400; that's about $500 at today's exchange rate.



So who was the dealer concerned? Non other than Stanley Gibbons in the Strand, London.  I was beside myself at getting such a difficult stamp for a song.

I do not think folk realize  how much knowledge, experience, and the temerity to act plays into these "lucky" finds.  My Dad had a framed quote on the wall of his office: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."  I have certainly made some "lucky" finds that had nothing to do with knowledge a forehand, but without the knowledge gained from years of experience, I would never have recognized my "lucky" find among the scads of common stamps in a bulk purchase.

At the same time, I believe in Karma; that good things happen to good people.  From observations of the members on this forum, I believe that one thing we all have in common is an aggressively ethical attitude and demeanor toward our interactions with others.  That we congratulate one another on our good fortune instead of whining "why couldn't that happen to me," or  "I should be so lucky," says a lot about our members and stamp collectors in general.

As I sit here and think about this subject I find myself thinking on my first major purchase. It was a large lot of trident overprints that I bought from a dealer for $1500 (in 1992) It contained some 250 stamps. Now this may not sound like a good deal but the devil is in the details. It contained most of major trident types. While taking a closer look at my treasure I noticed for each major trident group there were a few signed thus giving me a base with which to compare the legitimate issue from the fake and forgeries. Without those signed issues I would have wasted a lot of money on overpriced forgeries. To this day those issues are still saving me money. That to me is the best deal I have gotten.   

I guess, pound fer pound my best bargain was this 1862 CSA SC#4 stone 2 which catalogues in my 2012 Scotts Specialized at $130 (no gum).



I purchased a pile of CSA forgeries for 11¢ a piece, and this was one of them. Turned out to be legit.

I purchased  a group of Montana covers and postcards over a year ago and paid about $1 each for them and set them aside until I decided to research and sell some of them.  Well I found three with postmarks from Piegan Montana Territory (now a discontinued post office, DPO) and had no idea of the value so I finally found one very similar on a Kelleher Auction from 3 years ago.  It turns out the same postmark and cancel (different date) sold for $300!  Guess what I'm doing with the cover shown?  That's right I'm listing it on Ebay.  Here is a scan of this treasure

Great thread Beryllium Guy -  it's time for giving it a bump
 

I recently won a humongous duplicate-stock of Canadian stamps at a local auction. The time allowed for viewing the lots before the auction started was very limited, so I only looked at the crammed 64 page stockbook for about 30 seconds. It was literally filled from a few “First cents issues” and some Large queens, lots of Small queens - and from the 1897 Mapple Leaf issue and onwards the album was very well filled, in particular for the recent years from 1980’s onward until 2010. It was primarily all the recent stamps with neat CDS postmarks that attracted me the most at first, so after a very superficial and brief glance I made my mind up to bid equal to about 500 USD for the album. As it turned out no one else had taken an interest in this lot, probably because the description in the auction catalogue was very imprecise and vague - so I won the album for no more than 60 USD.

Well, I was thrilled initially – but that was just the start. After having brought the album home I obviously had a more detailed inspection. Each pocket in the book was annoted for 4 different catalog numbers, and most locations were duplicated with up to 5 copies. It must have been more than 2000 different stamps and souvenir sheets etc, mostly duplicated. A humongous load of stamps! Beyond all that I found a 2c Large Queen with a clear Bothwell watermark (Sc #24a), which was enough in itself to make me a very happy stamper. Stuck behind some other Quebec issues (1908) was a very fresh, well centred and MNH of the 20c Quebec issue (Sc #103) which was unnoticed during initial viewing. I would easily pay 60 USD for any of those two stamps alone. But it got even better….at the back of the book a "stamp-bomb"  was lurking unnoticed between some nice old blocks of 4. An old booklet was positioned with the white reverse side out, so it was not possible to see what it was, hence it was very easily overlooked. It turned out to be nothing less than the Edward 2c booklet – almost intact! The original booklet will have 2 panes x 6 stamps. This booklet had one complete pane of 6 (Scott #90b) and one more pane with one single stamp missing. Unitrade doesn’t state the catalog value for the complete booklet, but the price for one single MNH full pane (#90b) alone is significant. With almost 2 intact panes, still left in the original booklet and never hinged….the retail value is probably about 10 times more than I payed for the entire album. As a conclusion I consider I actually payed for the Large Queen with the Bothwell watermark – and all the rest is a huge bonus!


Now – did anyone else have any great purchases or finds recently?

Thanks Rene. Yes, 3 weeks of working with Canada - and yet not even started on the Admirals yet... Things does take time   

Congrats stainlessb - I can imagine those did no harm 

Well I found that Captain Jack Ireland withdrawn stamp (900 euros last I looked) in a $12 bag of kiloware.

But to me, the best deal I ever got was purchasing the Gray Ireland collection. What I learned from his notes - priceless!

Thanks! The stamp made the front cover of Linn’s! 

At a general house sale Auction with one stamp album among all the books and furniture ( I didn’t win the album) the porter held up a plastic bag which got no offers at £5 and I was the only bidder at the opening £2 bid.

I had seen the cover of a booklet of Christmas stamps face value £2.40 in the front of the bag , Glory hallelujah when I found I had £56 face value unused stamps for postage .

The auctioneer should have bought it in for his own office use , but I was a winner that day .

The best part to me is that I will actually be able to have a complete collection of postally used Ireland. I only lack one Seahorse and some modern issues to make that happen! So close!

I just now won a small lot of Delandre Labels, 23 in total, for £1.40 !!!! 
One of the silliest auction wins ever.