Barrington Chase, Grand Continent Collectibles

Gseries

Several years ago I purchased "investment error" stamps from this company and was told it was a no lose investment and the seller personally garaunteed I would not lose my principle. I was very young at the time. A year or so later when I tried to sell the stamps through the same company as they instructed, it suddenly vanished from the face of the earth. I read an archived post on this forum from some one who had a similar experience and assume we were both duped. I was wondering if there is/was any way to regain any of the loss. I purchased a 15 cent John Paul Jones "error" stamp for $1,100 and a Royal Family "error" stamp for $2,900. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

dougwtx

Do you have a written guarantee? I don't think investment companies are allowed to make such claims, but if you have something in print, then I would contact a lawyer. Of course, they are going to have to hunt the principals down and could get costly. What kind of errors are these? If these are true rarity errors, then any large auction outfit should be able to recoup some of your money. As you learned, stamps and coins; or anything for that matter; should not be for investment unless you are very knowledgable.

BTW, welcome to the forums.

Gseries

No written guarantee only verbal during the pitch. I thought I did my due diligence but like I said, I was young and obviously very naive. I guess this one will just have to go down as one of lifes lessons. What a lousy thing to do to some one.

I'm not sure what kind of errors they are or if they even are errors. The guy sure was convincing though. There is no contact information for the company which was Grand Continent Collectibles and then changed to Barrington Chase. I paid with a credit card, which also made me feel like it was legit, but it was so long ago I doubt there's anything that can be done.

Thanks for the welcome.

Gseries

dougwtx,

I just noticed that you were the person who replied to someone in a similar situation back in 2005. Thank you for your reply BTW. This is the response by a member named ARFO in that string. The original poster back in 05 was Trish.


Let's try that again....I can help you track down Lloyd's and Franklin Philatelics, as I have dealt with "both" of them and I have spoken to others who have bought stamps from them. There's a reason why these companies are obscure to the stamp collecting community. I don't know what the protocol is for possibly contacting each other via phone or e-mail, but it would be worthwhile.

Other names of interest include Grand Continent Collectibles, Barrington Chase, Bookmark Collections, Lloyd's Certified Philatelics, Chamberlain Philatelics, Franklin Philatelics, Regency Classic, Midwest Marketing, Hampton Collectables, Hampton House, Windsor House, Monroe Collectibles, Set-in-Stone Collectibles, and others from the past, such as First Liberty Collectibles, Financial Frontiers, and Equifin.

dougwtx

gseries, back then, I believed I just googled/yahoo'd those names to find info from the BBB. They may be able to help. Good luck.

edueku

The "error" on the John Paul Jones stamp Scott 1789B is that is perf 12 (vertically an horizontally) I forget the exact story but I think one of the perforating machines broke down and they used a different machine with guage 12 for a VERY small number of the stamps and thus an error or at least a different variety was created. My 2004 Scott lists an unused NH example at $3,500. BUT there are two other varieties: Scott 1789A perf 11, valued at 55 cents MNH and 1789 perf 11x12 valued at 30 cents MNH. Do you know how to measure the perfs?

Gseries

No, but the error that I was told I was buying was for the face being blurred not the perfs. I'm fairly certain I was simply taken for a ride to the tune of about $4K. I tried to find the stamp in the Scott booklet and couldn't find it. I did see the perf error though. Thanks very much for the info.