April weather here was more summer like than spring weather.
We had temperatures in the 80’s and 90’s through out the month. We were fortunate in not getting hit by the strong storms that much of country experienced but did receive more rain than normal – a good time in northern Texas.
Collectors seem to be working more on their collections this spring. Our sales during April were very strong. I have long since given up on trying to predict how busy we are going to be in a given month. Years ago business was consistently best in the late fall and winter. Stamp auction houses took extended vacations during the summer and restarted in the fall. Now there is no discernible stamp collecting season.
AUCTION RESULTS
I watch auction results in both European and US auctions closely – looking for new material and assessing market trends. (I must admit that I ignore auction results for the US area as I do not buy or sell anything US except stamps for postage.) Overall auctions in both Europe and the US have had superb results during the past three or four years. Auctions have been selling for very high percentages of offered lots and selling them for very good prices. The recent Heinrich Kohler auctions and the Daniel Kelleher collections auctions were very interesting. Both auctions were very successful but both had slightly more lots that were passed by buyers.
In general buyers frequently passed on certain types of lots. Collections of low to medium priced covers and cards either were passed over or sold at or below the starting prices. Collections with mostly common stamps only – even if voluminous were passed. Collections from obscure countries also were often passed. Finally some lots were passed because the start bid and estimates were not in line with the material offered. (Starts were too high).
IN April I bid on several better German collection lots in Schuyler J. Rumsey Philatelic Auction but was unsuccessful on all. Most of the better collection lots had images of the better stamps making it easy for buyers to evaluate. Their start bids and estimates were too low and all of the better lots sold well above the estimates.
Similarly Rietdijk Veitinger Auction house in the Netherlands
conducted a large auction which included many German area collections. Of the 83 German area lots offered 79 sold. The 4 lots which did not sell were low value lots offered for less than 100 Euro each. This auction also had very low starting bids and most lots sold way above the start bids. Collections of post WWII issues sold for modest prices with most bringing less then 30 % catalog value.
All of the good lots brought high prices.
A lot of Feldpost stamps starting at 100 Euro brought 500 Euro
A comprehensive mint and used German colonies collection with a start of 500 Euro brought 2600 Euro – another good but smaller colonies collection brought 900 Euro after a 300 Euro start.
A collection of post WWII local issues with a start of 300 Euro sold for 1400 Euro.
A nice collection of Deutsches Reich setenents with a start of 300 Euro sold for 1400 Euro.
Overall – the strongest lots were pre-WWII collections both mint and used but with complete sets and better values. Collections of stamps with modest catalog values sold but at very low prices.
MICHEL GERMANY SPECIALIZED CATALOG 2025
We received our copy of the 2025 Volume I. As we have come to expect this year’s catalog is pretty much a reprint of the last 5 year versions. Most pages are 100 % duplicates of last year’s pages. The major differences are in the placement of advertizing. No section of the catalog had major revisions. We did find a few price changes here and there but only because we carefully compared prices page by page with last year’s version. The price changes we found were all price increases – most were for NH stamps and most were in the range of 5-10%.We found a very few increases greater than 10%.
Reich 53-62 NH increased from 850 Euro to 1000 Euro.
119-38 NH increased from 130 Euro 160 Euro.
Zusammendrucke HB 48B & 49B** each increased from 500 Euro to 800 Euro.
The bottom line is that stamp collectors are best advised to update their catalogs very infrequently as buying new catalogs is much more expensive now and the new catalogs offer little new information. We will continue to review catalog revisions and if we note any new catalogs with substantial new information suggesting that a new catalog would be worthwhile we will advise!
Our Printed Price Lists
It has been three years since we stopped mailing our printed price lists monthly to our customers Sadly we have lost a few customers who order through mail only. We still maintain price lists for all areas we stock but update them far less often.
In an attempt to accommodate our by mail customers we will periodically revise our price lists but will include far fewer Michel listed varieties and reflect mostly Scott listed items. Most of our varieties are now listed on our web site. This change will permit us to keep our mailing lists more up to date if not quite as comprehensive as we would like.
