<< Prev  |  Back to Table of Contents  |  Next >>

I'd like to tell you about an incident that happened when I purchased my last catalogues. I went to my favorite stamp shop wanting to buy the latest set of Scott's catalogs. There was another customer who was standing close to me in the process of buying some earlier US classic (pre-1900) stamps. He said that I was wasting my money buying catalogs and that I'd be much better off if I spent that money on stamps instead.

In my mind I was thinking, without the most recent catalog, how could he know a relative price for what he was buying? There could be many varieties of the same stamp with great differences in price. He has to take the dealer's word that the stamp he is buying is properly cataloged and fairly priced. Hopefully, he knows what he is buying.

My own experience tells me that dealers make plenty of mistakes, not intentionally, but they are made none-the-less. I've found that when I order stamps from a price list through the mail, as many as 1 in 5 are miscataloged, with either the watermark, perforation or the variety incorrect. By coincidence they're often catalogued as the higher priced stamp. I'm not suggesting that the dealer is intentionally wrong, but perhaps he or she needs to take a little more time in correctly identifying them. When you order a $10 stamp and wind up with a 25 cent variety, that's a big difference!

If you multiply your losses from my case above many times over the course of a year, we're talking about a considerable amount of money. In any case, I check every purchase that's sent to me. I have a budget that allows me to spend X number of dollars per month. So I buy accordingly. I very rarely return extremely low priced stamps that are wrong, but when the difference is a dollar or more I return them.

In a way, I felt sorry for the man who said I was wasting my money on catalogs. For his sake I hope he always gets what he expects. My own experience proves otherwise. I don't say that it's necessary to buy new catalogs every year. If you collect older stamps like me, you can buy catalogues that are a few years old. I have already bought them from libraries that are getting rid of old books for as low as 25 cents each volume. I've purchased specialized catalogues just a few years old for only a few dollars.

If you're a member of a local stamp club, they usually have a recent catalog you can use to check your stamps. If not, check out the reference section of your neighborhood library for another inexpensive way of checking out your stamps.

<< Prev  |  Back to Table of Contents  |  Next >>

| Contact | Site Map | Search | Technical Issues |

Original Materials Copyright © 2005-2008 Syracuse Stamp Club. All Rights Reserved. All other materials remain with original copyright holders.

Michael Ammann, President

John Smigel, Webmaster