Lots of worthless stuff

I am not a big fan of Queen Elizabeth II. She might be the biggest reason the stamp hobby seems to be in a nosedive towards oblivion. We have entered a modern period of reverse Enlightenment. People not only sense that everything is rigged and fake, such a heightened level of awareness is leading to whole facets of society losing value.

Stamps are just not that popular to collect. The old-school catalogue system has decayed. There used to be big shops which sold stamps and coins. Those have gone extinct. The coin dealers don't even seem to give a fvck anymore about the aesthetic side of collecting as sport. They want your silver and gold. They want stuff that can be melted down or otherwise has intrinsic value in their elements. There are spot prices for silver. People get ripped off on both sides of the deal. Silver is money, period. But the spot price does not move fast enough to turn it into an investment. We are talking quarters on the ounces of silver after the money stores have deducted fees on both ends of deals.

There was a brief time when silver hit $50 per ounce. Now it has hit a pattern seeing it fluctuate back and forth between approximately $16-$18. One can look at the silver and stamps, too, for just so much time. Then they get stored. Silver has the edge over stamps in that they do not decay or lose value unless the piece also has aesthetic or trading value beyond the content.

Stamps are dependent on their condition. They are more akin to baseball cards or other forms of memorabilia. Keep them preserved and they retain as much value as possible. But the old school maxim is also correct. The value of most things is dependent on the demand side of supply and demand. If something means nothing to nobody, its value boils down to zen buddhism. It becomes just is in the now like anything else in the world and universe. Can nothingness have value? I would argue yes.

Enlightenment of consciousness is the greatest gift one can experience. It is in the stillness of nothingness in which one may truly know one is alive.

No one wants your common stamps. No one wants to collect any with rips, creases, disrupted gum for mints post-1940, lousy centering or which contain frayed or missing perforations.

The catalogues are only meaningful in that they allow the hobbyist to identify a stamp's specific rating within speculation. One can figure out if something is an apple or orange, yet still not be able to pinpoint a price.

Common stamps are listed at ten or so cents out of sympathy. They are not worth even that much. It's not like silver in which there is a real value assigned to it per weight. Damaged common stamps are worth less than nothing. They are trash to be thrown out.

I try to find stamps that are listed at $.50 or greater. Of course I am also looking for $20 stamps or name the higher number. I have some that might be worth bigger money, into the hundreds, perhaps a few might be worth even more than that. One needs to pinpoint the stamp's identity beyond hoping or maybe. It does take some work. One needs watermark fluid. They need the stamp lift fluid to clean backs without damaging stamps. Common stamps are good in that novices can practice and learn without fear of destroying a stamp's value. One cannot really destroy something which isn't worth anything or that much to begin with.

Presentation is important. One must put the thingie together in such a way that buyers know what they are purchasing. The collector should create an inventory of what they have. There's no way in hell one should go to a dealer and plop down a big box or wtf of philatelic materials and let the "expert" give a price. They don't know either. This sort of identification process takes time.

Then the problem remains of how much one can expect to get back in regards to the catalogues. Is it 40%? That to me is doubtful unless they are better than average good and not common stamps. Then they could be sold separately. Yet, then what is one to do with the rest of the stuff? It's the higher priced items which make the collection. Start selling off too many of those and you're left with good job, good effort, but no significant sale.

I do not want to turn stamp collecting into an Ebay or something business. I am into this for the pure hunt. There is a definite thrill to chipping out some cash (not too much) and getting a big lot to look through.

If I had to guess, one can expect 10-20% back from catalogue values. But I could be wrong. When in doubt, do not sell them.

There is no real science to it. We are all individuals. Step one is to ask oneself if this is something one enjoys doing. If not, then quit. There is not any big money to be made in stamps unless one gets extremely lucky. My disclaimer to that is I haven't yet to try to sell my collection. I am still in hunt and collect mode. A nice stamp album costs around $30. Each page holding the stamps costs about a dollar. One needs the perforation gauge. All this stuff doesn't cost a fortune, but can slowly add up. It can be a risky investment. But it makes a hell of a lot more sense than going to a casino and just throwing away money. One can probably expect to at least break even. Stamps are probably the video poker of hobbies. The odds are not that bad. But one must put extra thought into it. What is the endgame?

At a minimum, do no harm. Those deciding to collect stamps are basically philatelic physicians. I am like a free stamp doctor running a stamp clinic. I probably won't get any comments, but if anyone has any questions, I am not too shabby with this topic.

Once valuable stamps are located, preserve them. I put mine in order of countries and year. Putting together the inventory part is not easy, but it is necessary. If one doesn't want to take the time to figure out where stamps lie on the spectrum between common and rare, one is probably going to waste a lot of money. Unorganised stamps border on worthlessness. People have lives to lead. Stamp dealers and serious collectors know all about the hunt. Someone who doesn't know their stamps and is just looking to unload them will get ripped off or perhaps even told their collection is common and worthless. There could be stamps of value in there, but the buyer can't take a million hours to find them and then offer a fair deal.

The saving grace to the stamp hobby is that it's not rocket science. While there is definitely a learning curve, knowledge in anything is built over time. It is called development. It's the same reason why there are 101 courses freshman year. Everyone at some point is a novice. We are born as vulnerable fragile baby humans. Incarnations play themselves out. Stamps despite going into a tailspin for value are not going extinct. They will probably never die out completely. The art is simply transforming.

People will get back into stamps as they age. Some will develop the passion while younger. Once people realise that the internet medium is a waste of time, they will seek out other ways to pass time.

I got lucky buying big boxes from a huge stamp dealer. I got thousands of dollars worth of stamps by buying three of those for around $50. I found a good source and ran with it. Now I see that the same place has jumped the price for those kind of bulk offers.

This is a great time to buy stamps. However, one must not look at it as business, but more of a hybrid of leisure and finance. A lot of the deals offered on EBay look like ripoffs. Most of it is common and/or damaged crap in bulk. But that is part and parcel of the hunt process. Another dealer I found was giving out old stamps in bulk for $30 a batch. I got a few of those.

The costs can start to add up, so one needs to ask oneself if they are into stamps for the right reasons. If one plays their cards correctly, the chance of losing money is low. It is more volatile than collecting silver for the reasons stated above, but if one knows what they are doing, it is not too volatile. But folks need to be serious. I'm not saying be grumpy and not have fun, but stamps deteriorate over time if one doesn't take care of them. The values have dropped. There's no point in shelling out big bucks for high quality stamps because that would be risky. It's like the housing market. That became a bubble. Stamps became a bubble.

I was going to write a big generic DFQ2 styled blog entry today but got into stamps and now this sucker keeps expanding. I had tons of news articles opened up in tabs, but I closed them all and am just going with stamps here. The medium truly sucks and is the ultimate waste of time, not stamps.

In short, I recommend stamp collecting. It is highly enjoyable once one gets through the initial frustration. They do seem overwhelming at first. I now have tons (hyperbole) of nice stamps. I only spend what I can afford. I got lucky in finding sources which has motivated me to continue.

Granted I am very cynical towards stamp dealers. They can put up an ad saying the stamps are unchecked, but I have a hard time believing that. But there are levels of expertise within all the handling and invisible history of the stamps. Maybe the checkers missed something. Maybe the previous collecters and dealers didn't know every stamp and took guesses. Maybe they were swarming in stamps and couldn't possibly check them all.

Stamps have never been so belittled. They are portrayed as a sky is falling financial sector. I think this just means that people are not so impressed anymore with historic stamp dealers, so-called experts and auction houses. They do not like ripoff dealers such as Mystic Stamps. I wonder how those fvckers stay in business. Well, apparently they get older people or others duped into buying at catalogue pricing. Every stamp collector needs to look at themselves as both collector and ultimately dealer or they are asking for a common big mess.

Maybe the collections will be passed on to future generations and the cycle will repeat. If that happens to mine, the recipients will be getting a good deal. They will be pleasantly surprised. Yet, I do want to sell them before finding a new incarnation. Maybe it can become a little nest egg, nothing dramatic or life changing, but with a decent return at the right time. Think of that one holiday one dreams of. Or wtf.

Now take a $20 stamp for example. This is where my knowledge base drops. Should I expect $5 for such a stamp? That would be 25%. Yes, that seems about right. It has to be a nice stamp in good shape. It's probably worth more on its own if one can find someone who wants the specific stamp. But who the heck wants to break up the collection by spending a million hours running an Ebay business?

So eventually I will need to find people who know how to move stamps. They will need to make some money and their buyers on the resell will need incentive to pay more than they did. 25% might be wishful thinking. But that is why one must put solid effort into creating a valuable collection. That's why I remove all common stamps. Granted, 50 cent stamps could also probably be seen as common, but they should clearly be in demand compared to the common crap everyone is tired of looking at. Common stamps represent the bubble.

That being said, those $0.50 and above catalogue listings better be in good condition, placed in context by country/year and logged into an inventory; or they too become invisible meaninglessness. The stamp struggle continues.