Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I would like to get everyone's thoughts on stamp condition and if and how it affects its collectiblity TO YOU.
I collect used US mostly all before 1930. I try to collect only copies that are lightly and/or face free cancelled. I try to be a little on the picky side. If a stamp has a slight crease or a thin spot that does not deter me from acquiring it. I certainly don't want to pay too much for a stamp with faults but I've seen slightly faulty stamps that looked fantastic once put into a showguard mount and put into an album.
Would love to hear from collectors on this issue.
Thanks in advance,
Ernie
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Hi Ernie,
Been having a nice Sunday afternoon adding some stamps to my collection
As far as condition. Basically, in philately, condition IS everything. It will greatly affect the value of your stamps and your collection as a whole. However, for the average collector, it is a balancing act, right? You have to balance the stamp you want with what you can afford and trying to stay within your stamp budget 
. I have seen a lot of collections or albums with a lot of stamps in them, but where most of the stamps looked "ratty" Meaning a lot with missing perts, part of the stamp missing, heavy cancellations, etc. Obviously, this looks terrible and not something I would want to buy. On the other hand, if there was the same collection where all the stamps were in VF condition, that would be another story.
So, I try to buy a stamp in the best condition I can afford. That being said, I don't worry too much about what the back of the stamp looks like (e.g., no gum, small thinning, etc.), especially if I can get them at a discount.
Happy stamping
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Did I ever upload to SOR the stamp grading table that I compiled years ago?
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I like to collect older (19th century) stamps that have reasonable centering and a decent cancel (face free or fancy). One or two short perfs are OK. No gum on mint is preferred and I have no problem with natural straight edges like my avatar.
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In my experience most collectors' do not care about condition or grading as a hard factor, but apply a subjective standard of "is it good enough for me." I believe this is quite reasonable. In a good collection, the standard likely is issue specific. For instance, early issues were not always well centered, and so there will be more compromise on the centering for some issues, but not for others. Generally, however, what was "good enough" for many collectors years ago, appears to be not good enough for most today (mh vs mnh etc.).
Generally, I believe that high-quality, i.e. truly vf, or even xf, used foreign stamps are very difficult to find in the U.S. market. Here is the theory: Scott used to price stamps in f-vf condition which caused the market to be swept clean of good stamps that found their homes in the more discerning (and better paying) homes of European collectors. Of course, even back then a f-vf stamp should have sold, for instance, at 50% catalog, and a vf stamps for perhaps 80%, but in reality, many collectors are unwilling to pay much of a premium for stamps in better condition (instead, the "strategy" is to wait until a vf stamp is offered at the 50% price of a f-vf stamps). Of course, this meant that the vf material went to Europe, to be sold at the higher catalog prices benchmarked against vf condition, while the sub-standard stuff was flowing in the opposite direction.
I believe in 1997 (?) Scott switched to valuing stamps in vf condition, but I don't think most collectors or dealers really internalized this change. Collecting habits don't change that quickly. If you go through average dealer's stock at a show, or consider the sad state of internet auctions, most stamps are not in vf condition. This is somewhat expected, because vf is not the standard/common/normal condition, but a premium condition. Not all stamps can be above average, right? I have some favorite dealers at shows, but they all have difficulty supplying used stamps that are actually in vf condition. If they come around, they sell quickly.
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Given the choice, I’ll take a perfectly centred, post-office-fresh fresh, faultless stamp any day, but that’s not always possible, of course. I have purchased many “imperfect†stamps which are “perfect†for my needs; I gave up the dream of developing complete collections of Canadian or any other country’s stamps when it became clear that some pages in my albums would never be filled because of the rarity and high values of certain stamps. More significant was this: I really dislike some stamps! It’s prejudice, for sure, but if a modern Canadian postage due stamp lived in my apartment building, I would never invite her to dinner! They are the dullest, most boring stamps ever issued at any time by any stamp-issuing entity in the Universe! In my opinion, of course.
These days, I only buy stamps, covers, and postcards that I admire or that suit my needs at the time. I mainly use my stamps, covers, and postcards to use as examples or illustrations for my exhibits or web pages. Only occasionally do I add a stamp to my U.S. used collection, housed in a Lighthouse album with pages from 1845 through 1947; I store my collection in Unitrade stock books and Vario stock pages.
I found these stamps in a small accumulation of used Great Britain stamps. Of course, they have zero cash value, being trimmed in such a way that the trimmer should be charged with gross indecency! Nevertheless, they clearly show 19th Century usage of British stamps in the Channel Islands:
Ahead: more images of some “imperfect†items in my collection, with explanations about why they’re significant to me.
Bob
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Here's another of my "imperfect" stamps.
I was convinced when I found the following Japanese stamp, Scott #342, that I had discovered a rare bi-coloured variety of the regular violet stamp. I show it with a normal stamp.
I think that the "bi-colour" stamp must have been contaminated with some sort of chemical or faded in such a way as to turn the violet ink blue. I've wondered if it was intentional. In any event, it's rather nice!
It is stamps like this that turned me off proprietary stamp albums. I was forever finding stamps that weren't illustrated in my albums or ones that I wanted in addition to other copies that I already had, but had no place to mount them except on blank pages, which I didn't want to mess with.
Bob
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Thanks to all for your responses and thank you bob for the images!
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In 71? I obtained a very nice early France collection.
Included were many (dozens) that had been trimmed (with no real attempt to hide it). Some were of rare imperforates, others ? They were not catalogued in the collection.
I kept them because they were nice examples.
A few random ones:
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I have attempted the impossible: documenting the entirety of the Second World War, including pre-war and post-war years. I know, world class hubris! In any event, I keep my eye on postmark dates to see if a given item was posted on a day of military and/or political significance.
On June 3, 1944, Hitler ordered the German field marshal Albert Kesselring to retreat from Rome in the face of the Allied Advance. This Italian Socialist Republic stamp was cancelled on that significant day.* (And, of course, the next day was significant too: on that day, the Allies landed at Normandy to begin the war on the ground in Western Europe.
Except for the cancellation date, I probably wouldn't have kept this stamp, but would have searched for a mint copy and/or one with a cancellation that didn't cover so much of the King's face.
A book recommendation, the subject of which relates to this stamp:
This book follows that Allied attack on Sicily and Italy from planning for the invasion at the Casablanca Conference, in which Allied leaders settled the fate of Germany (unconditional surrender), through the debacle of the landings in Sicily (where a communications snafu resulted in soldiers already on the ground shooting down Allied C-47s carrying paratroopers), across Sicily (with Generals Patton and Montgomery circling each other like bullies on a playground), up the "boot" of Italy, taking horrible casualties from twin enemies (Germans and malaria) at Salerno, Ortona, and Monte Casino, and finally into a Rome largely empty of Germans.
Bob
* A very useful book in my library is World War II Day by Day, by Anthony Shaw, which provides capsule histories of newsworthy events, by date, throughout the war:
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Bob, you would probably like TEXPEX this year. The scheduled presentations and exhibits have a military theme, including the wars.
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Bob,
As an amateur historian (aren't most stamp collectors???) I have an interest in everything WW2. What a great idea. European stamps with clear date postmarks during the war. Would make a very interesting exhibit!
Ernie
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Sometimes, the stamp doesn't matter, but I want a decent postmark. This post isn't so much about stamp condition or faults as it is about postmark rarity. I purchased this stamp because of its SON postmark (which, as you can see, is inverted, or perhaps the stamp was inverted when the postmark was struck!):
I wanted a Kamsack, Saskatchewan postmark as a collateral item to display with a cover from HMCS Kamsack, a WWII Canadian Flower Class corvette which served in the Battle of the Atlantic. Here's the cover:
While British corvettes were named after flowers, Canadian corvettes were named after Canadian towns, and cancellations from Kamsack are hard to find. Currently, two are on eBay, and both are scarcely readable. Since it was the cancellation I was interested in, the stamp is of secondary importance to me, even though in this case it's a very nice copy of Canada 227, picturing a statue of Champlain. I didn't hesitate to buy it, despite the fact I'd have to display the stamp upside down. Now, if I could find a cover from Kamsack posted to HMCS Kamsack!
Bob
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Curious coincidence:
I just noticed the address on the cover in my previous post, just above: 1771 Nelson Street in Vancouver's West End, right across the street from 1774 Nelson Street. Just a couple of weeks ago, in another post, I showed another cover in my collection, posted in 1939 to 1774 Nelson Street in Vancouver:
To top it off, I live just three blocks away from 1771/1774 Nelson Street. 1774 Nelson is the location of Denman Place Mall, and 1771 Nelson is the location of a modern apartment building, where a friend of my wife's lived a few years ago.
Bob
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i love that 6c blue Canadian stamp!
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Well then, ernieinjax, now you can enjoy it without standing on your head!:
Bob
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08:18:28pm
" ... Now, if I could find a cover from Kamsack posted to HMCS Kamsack! ..."
Good luck with that Bob.
But should I ever come across one, it is yours.
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Not a bad cross section of opiniions but I'd have to agree with Arno's assement completely...
I keep several collections. When I can find the perfect stamp at the perfect price, it goes into my best album, a very empty album but it's getting there.
For my general collection, I'm not that picky, If you work with knowledgeable sellers, you can find great, albiet flawed, stamps at great prices.
I like cancels on stamps and covers. If I can save a whole cover I will, if it's only the front so be it, if need be, I will cut the stamp and cancel to 2x4 (or smaller), if all else fails, soak the stamp..... hence several collections.
I also cull many a stamp, constantly upgrading an issue. With patience sometimes you break even on the upgrade.
Can think of 2 old saws that apply....Perfection isn't necessary, you can still drink from a chipped cup. High quality stamp collections can be built on a small budget but it's like eating an elephant, it takes time. Pick your poison.
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When I was a kid I was a coin collector. I was impatient and wanted to fill all the slots in my collection, so I'd go through boxes at shows and buy coins in poor condition cheaply. If I could get a whole bunch of coins for what little money I had, I was happy.
I had a friend Tommy who would go to the shows with me with a similar amount of money. He'd come away with one or two significant coins in mint condition for his collection. He was a bit more mature than me in his thinking and his collection was no doubt better than mine over time.
It's the same with stamps. Today we are fortunate that stamps are available on-line 24/7. Go to eBay and type in any classic stamp number and dozens of them will pop up. Focus in on the nicest ones, bid low and hope. If you do this often, over time you will win very nice stamps at low to reasonable prices.
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04:43:51pm
Greetings to all wishing everyone a nice Sunday afternoon!
I would like to get everyone's thoughts on stamp condition and if and how it affects its collectiblity TO YOU.
I collect used US mostly all before 1930. I try to collect only copies that are lightly and/or face free cancelled. I try to be a little on the picky side. If a stamp has a slight crease or a thin spot that does not deter me from acquiring it. I certainly don't want to pay too much for a stamp with faults but I've seen slightly faulty stamps that looked fantastic once put into a showguard mount and put into an album.
Would love to hear from collectors on this issue.
Thanks in advance,
Ernie
Login to Like
this post
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Hi Ernie,
Been having a nice Sunday afternoon adding some stamps to my collection
As far as condition. Basically, in philately, condition IS everything. It will greatly affect the value of your stamps and your collection as a whole. However, for the average collector, it is a balancing act, right? You have to balance the stamp you want with what you can afford and trying to stay within your stamp budget . I have seen a lot of collections or albums with a lot of stamps in them, but where most of the stamps looked "ratty" Meaning a lot with missing perts, part of the stamp missing, heavy cancellations, etc. Obviously, this looks terrible and not something I would want to buy. On the other hand, if there was the same collection where all the stamps were in VF condition, that would be another story.
So, I try to buy a stamp in the best condition I can afford. That being said, I don't worry too much about what the back of the stamp looks like (e.g., no gum, small thinning, etc.), especially if I can get them at a discount.
Happy stamping
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05:32:34pm
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Did I ever upload to SOR the stamp grading table that I compiled years ago?
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07:45:53pm
Auctions - Approvals
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
I like to collect older (19th century) stamps that have reasonable centering and a decent cancel (face free or fancy). One or two short perfs are OK. No gum on mint is preferred and I have no problem with natural straight edges like my avatar.
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
In my experience most collectors' do not care about condition or grading as a hard factor, but apply a subjective standard of "is it good enough for me." I believe this is quite reasonable. In a good collection, the standard likely is issue specific. For instance, early issues were not always well centered, and so there will be more compromise on the centering for some issues, but not for others. Generally, however, what was "good enough" for many collectors years ago, appears to be not good enough for most today (mh vs mnh etc.).
Generally, I believe that high-quality, i.e. truly vf, or even xf, used foreign stamps are very difficult to find in the U.S. market. Here is the theory: Scott used to price stamps in f-vf condition which caused the market to be swept clean of good stamps that found their homes in the more discerning (and better paying) homes of European collectors. Of course, even back then a f-vf stamp should have sold, for instance, at 50% catalog, and a vf stamps for perhaps 80%, but in reality, many collectors are unwilling to pay much of a premium for stamps in better condition (instead, the "strategy" is to wait until a vf stamp is offered at the 50% price of a f-vf stamps). Of course, this meant that the vf material went to Europe, to be sold at the higher catalog prices benchmarked against vf condition, while the sub-standard stuff was flowing in the opposite direction.
I believe in 1997 (?) Scott switched to valuing stamps in vf condition, but I don't think most collectors or dealers really internalized this change. Collecting habits don't change that quickly. If you go through average dealer's stock at a show, or consider the sad state of internet auctions, most stamps are not in vf condition. This is somewhat expected, because vf is not the standard/common/normal condition, but a premium condition. Not all stamps can be above average, right? I have some favorite dealers at shows, but they all have difficulty supplying used stamps that are actually in vf condition. If they come around, they sell quickly.
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Given the choice, I’ll take a perfectly centred, post-office-fresh fresh, faultless stamp any day, but that’s not always possible, of course. I have purchased many “imperfect†stamps which are “perfect†for my needs; I gave up the dream of developing complete collections of Canadian or any other country’s stamps when it became clear that some pages in my albums would never be filled because of the rarity and high values of certain stamps. More significant was this: I really dislike some stamps! It’s prejudice, for sure, but if a modern Canadian postage due stamp lived in my apartment building, I would never invite her to dinner! They are the dullest, most boring stamps ever issued at any time by any stamp-issuing entity in the Universe! In my opinion, of course.
These days, I only buy stamps, covers, and postcards that I admire or that suit my needs at the time. I mainly use my stamps, covers, and postcards to use as examples or illustrations for my exhibits or web pages. Only occasionally do I add a stamp to my U.S. used collection, housed in a Lighthouse album with pages from 1845 through 1947; I store my collection in Unitrade stock books and Vario stock pages.
I found these stamps in a small accumulation of used Great Britain stamps. Of course, they have zero cash value, being trimmed in such a way that the trimmer should be charged with gross indecency! Nevertheless, they clearly show 19th Century usage of British stamps in the Channel Islands:
Ahead: more images of some “imperfect†items in my collection, with explanations about why they’re significant to me.
Bob
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Here's another of my "imperfect" stamps.
I was convinced when I found the following Japanese stamp, Scott #342, that I had discovered a rare bi-coloured variety of the regular violet stamp. I show it with a normal stamp.
I think that the "bi-colour" stamp must have been contaminated with some sort of chemical or faded in such a way as to turn the violet ink blue. I've wondered if it was intentional. In any event, it's rather nice!
It is stamps like this that turned me off proprietary stamp albums. I was forever finding stamps that weren't illustrated in my albums or ones that I wanted in addition to other copies that I already had, but had no place to mount them except on blank pages, which I didn't want to mess with.
Bob
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02:19:45am
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Thanks to all for your responses and thank you bob for the images!
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08:44:26am
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
In 71? I obtained a very nice early France collection.
Included were many (dozens) that had been trimmed (with no real attempt to hide it). Some were of rare imperforates, others ? They were not catalogued in the collection.
I kept them because they were nice examples.
A few random ones:
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
I have attempted the impossible: documenting the entirety of the Second World War, including pre-war and post-war years. I know, world class hubris! In any event, I keep my eye on postmark dates to see if a given item was posted on a day of military and/or political significance.
On June 3, 1944, Hitler ordered the German field marshal Albert Kesselring to retreat from Rome in the face of the Allied Advance. This Italian Socialist Republic stamp was cancelled on that significant day.* (And, of course, the next day was significant too: on that day, the Allies landed at Normandy to begin the war on the ground in Western Europe.
Except for the cancellation date, I probably wouldn't have kept this stamp, but would have searched for a mint copy and/or one with a cancellation that didn't cover so much of the King's face.
A book recommendation, the subject of which relates to this stamp:
This book follows that Allied attack on Sicily and Italy from planning for the invasion at the Casablanca Conference, in which Allied leaders settled the fate of Germany (unconditional surrender), through the debacle of the landings in Sicily (where a communications snafu resulted in soldiers already on the ground shooting down Allied C-47s carrying paratroopers), across Sicily (with Generals Patton and Montgomery circling each other like bullies on a playground), up the "boot" of Italy, taking horrible casualties from twin enemies (Germans and malaria) at Salerno, Ortona, and Monte Casino, and finally into a Rome largely empty of Germans.
Bob
* A very useful book in my library is World War II Day by Day, by Anthony Shaw, which provides capsule histories of newsworthy events, by date, throughout the war:
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01:16:29pm
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Bob, you would probably like TEXPEX this year. The scheduled presentations and exhibits have a military theme, including the wars.
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12:01:16pm
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Bob,
As an amateur historian (aren't most stamp collectors???) I have an interest in everything WW2. What a great idea. European stamps with clear date postmarks during the war. Would make a very interesting exhibit!
Ernie
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Sometimes, the stamp doesn't matter, but I want a decent postmark. This post isn't so much about stamp condition or faults as it is about postmark rarity. I purchased this stamp because of its SON postmark (which, as you can see, is inverted, or perhaps the stamp was inverted when the postmark was struck!):
I wanted a Kamsack, Saskatchewan postmark as a collateral item to display with a cover from HMCS Kamsack, a WWII Canadian Flower Class corvette which served in the Battle of the Atlantic. Here's the cover:
While British corvettes were named after flowers, Canadian corvettes were named after Canadian towns, and cancellations from Kamsack are hard to find. Currently, two are on eBay, and both are scarcely readable. Since it was the cancellation I was interested in, the stamp is of secondary importance to me, even though in this case it's a very nice copy of Canada 227, picturing a statue of Champlain. I didn't hesitate to buy it, despite the fact I'd have to display the stamp upside down. Now, if I could find a cover from Kamsack posted to HMCS Kamsack!
Bob
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Curious coincidence:
I just noticed the address on the cover in my previous post, just above: 1771 Nelson Street in Vancouver's West End, right across the street from 1774 Nelson Street. Just a couple of weeks ago, in another post, I showed another cover in my collection, posted in 1939 to 1774 Nelson Street in Vancouver:
To top it off, I live just three blocks away from 1771/1774 Nelson Street. 1774 Nelson is the location of Denman Place Mall, and 1771 Nelson is the location of a modern apartment building, where a friend of my wife's lived a few years ago.
Bob
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10:55:14am
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
i love that 6c blue Canadian stamp!
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Well then, ernieinjax, now you can enjoy it without standing on your head!:
Bob
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
13 Feb 2015
08:18:28pm
re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
" ... Now, if I could find a cover from Kamsack posted to HMCS Kamsack! ..."
Good luck with that Bob.
But should I ever come across one, it is yours.
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
Not a bad cross section of opiniions but I'd have to agree with Arno's assement completely...
I keep several collections. When I can find the perfect stamp at the perfect price, it goes into my best album, a very empty album but it's getting there.
For my general collection, I'm not that picky, If you work with knowledgeable sellers, you can find great, albiet flawed, stamps at great prices.
I like cancels on stamps and covers. If I can save a whole cover I will, if it's only the front so be it, if need be, I will cut the stamp and cancel to 2x4 (or smaller), if all else fails, soak the stamp..... hence several collections.
I also cull many a stamp, constantly upgrading an issue. With patience sometimes you break even on the upgrade.
Can think of 2 old saws that apply....Perfection isn't necessary, you can still drink from a chipped cup. High quality stamp collections can be built on a small budget but it's like eating an elephant, it takes time. Pick your poison.
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re: Thoughts on stamp condition i.e. faults etc.
When I was a kid I was a coin collector. I was impatient and wanted to fill all the slots in my collection, so I'd go through boxes at shows and buy coins in poor condition cheaply. If I could get a whole bunch of coins for what little money I had, I was happy.
I had a friend Tommy who would go to the shows with me with a similar amount of money. He'd come away with one or two significant coins in mint condition for his collection. He was a bit more mature than me in his thinking and his collection was no doubt better than mine over time.
It's the same with stamps. Today we are fortunate that stamps are available on-line 24/7. Go to eBay and type in any classic stamp number and dozens of them will pop up. Focus in on the nicest ones, bid low and hope. If you do this often, over time you will win very nice stamps at low to reasonable prices.
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