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Newps from Chicagopex (lotsa pics!)
coinpictures
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A couple of weeks late, but I finally got around to imaging all the stuff I picked up at Chicagopex on Nov. 21.
This was a very "revenue-heavy" show, as both Eric Jackson and Richard Friedberg were in attendence (as was Wmlangs, who usually has a lot of revenue material, but I won't do business with them on principle after several poor online transactions; don't like the way they do business). As was typical for me, I spent more than I expected to, and could have easily spent thousands more; there was that much nice material. While the material at these larger shows is of a higher calibre than one finds at the hometown stamp shows, bargains are much fewer to be found. Full Scott and up is the rule rather than the exception, with little to no discounting, even on large transactions. I guess that's what happens when dealers know what they have, as opposed to many of the smaller dealers who often do not.
One thing that rubbed me the wrong way: having a large national dealer openly badmouthing his competition, putting down their inventory, pricing, and expertise. Struck me as extremely unprofessional. It's one thing to puff yourself up, but to be denigrating other dealers seems low to me. If you're that big of a name in the game, you shouldn't have to do that; your inventory should speak for itself.
At any rate, I found some nice pieces to add to the collection. Again, for my collecting tastes, the cancels were more the focus than necessarily the stamps they were on.
And finally, the ones that I think are worthy of some commentary:
Finding 3rd-issue revenues with nice SON handstamped cancels is proving
considerably more difficult than 1st series stamps, due to the increased
prevalence of herringbone, circular cut, and punch cancels. They're just
not out there in great numbers. This nice little R140 proved to be a nice
pickup, with the blue contrasting the orange quite nicely.
This next one is a fancy cancel that I now have 4-5 examples of, all
on different denominations. I think I'm going to see how many different
denominations I can obtain this cancel on... a silly diversion I know.
Straight-line typeset cancels on the $2-$3 imperfs are quite scarce. I think
this one might be the only one I own (although I still have 500-1,000
revenues with cancels that I have yet to image or add to my database,
but I don't recall another example).
This stamp and the next one are an enigma to me. I had never seen these
cancels before, and then within the span of a week, I found these two,
one at Chicagopex, and then the other on eBay. Given their similarity,
I wonder if they were brothers, or perhaps father and son? I also find
it interesting that both stamps are large and infrequently-found denominations
of the era. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
This stamp, despite it being in relatively munged condition, was a major
score IMO. You just do NOT see bold printed cancels on high-denomination
1st series imperfs. This is one where the value of the stamp itself is immaterial.
I had to have it.
And lastly, two fancy cancels that I had admired online for a while, but
finally had to grit my teeth, shell out the dough, and add to my collection.
Too nice to pass by!
This was a very "revenue-heavy" show, as both Eric Jackson and Richard Friedberg were in attendence (as was Wmlangs, who usually has a lot of revenue material, but I won't do business with them on principle after several poor online transactions; don't like the way they do business). As was typical for me, I spent more than I expected to, and could have easily spent thousands more; there was that much nice material. While the material at these larger shows is of a higher calibre than one finds at the hometown stamp shows, bargains are much fewer to be found. Full Scott and up is the rule rather than the exception, with little to no discounting, even on large transactions. I guess that's what happens when dealers know what they have, as opposed to many of the smaller dealers who often do not.
One thing that rubbed me the wrong way: having a large national dealer openly badmouthing his competition, putting down their inventory, pricing, and expertise. Struck me as extremely unprofessional. It's one thing to puff yourself up, but to be denigrating other dealers seems low to me. If you're that big of a name in the game, you shouldn't have to do that; your inventory should speak for itself.
At any rate, I found some nice pieces to add to the collection. Again, for my collecting tastes, the cancels were more the focus than necessarily the stamps they were on.
And finally, the ones that I think are worthy of some commentary:
Finding 3rd-issue revenues with nice SON handstamped cancels is proving
considerably more difficult than 1st series stamps, due to the increased
prevalence of herringbone, circular cut, and punch cancels. They're just
not out there in great numbers. This nice little R140 proved to be a nice
pickup, with the blue contrasting the orange quite nicely.
This next one is a fancy cancel that I now have 4-5 examples of, all
on different denominations. I think I'm going to see how many different
denominations I can obtain this cancel on... a silly diversion I know.
Straight-line typeset cancels on the $2-$3 imperfs are quite scarce. I think
this one might be the only one I own (although I still have 500-1,000
revenues with cancels that I have yet to image or add to my database,
but I don't recall another example).
This stamp and the next one are an enigma to me. I had never seen these
cancels before, and then within the span of a week, I found these two,
one at Chicagopex, and then the other on eBay. Given their similarity,
I wonder if they were brothers, or perhaps father and son? I also find
it interesting that both stamps are large and infrequently-found denominations
of the era. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
This stamp, despite it being in relatively munged condition, was a major
score IMO. You just do NOT see bold printed cancels on high-denomination
1st series imperfs. This is one where the value of the stamp itself is immaterial.
I had to have it.
And lastly, two fancy cancels that I had admired online for a while, but
finally had to grit my teeth, shell out the dough, and add to my collection.
Too nice to pass by!
0
Comments
www.rfrajola.com
Very nice! Thanks for posting
<< <i>Very Nice! How do you organize those - by stamp or by users? That is, do you look for each different stamp with a hs cancel or do you buy all nice hs cancels? >>
I buy anything that catches my eye, ideally cancels I don't already have, but well-struck or good contrasting cancels regardless of stamp type.
The organization is a dilemma I constantly struggle with. I have several components of my revenue collection.
First, there's my denomination and type set, which is collected by Scott number, with the As (imperf), Bs (part perf), Cs (perf), Ds (silk paper) and other varieties, with one per number. Shown here: www.revenue-collector.com/usrevs.shtml.
That's pretty much exclusive of cancel; I've tried to pick the nicest stamp and/or cancel from my accumulation to be represented in that album.
Then there's the myriad of cancels, where the emphasis is on cancel rather than underlying stamp. I may have 1 or 30 examples of the same stamp, but with different cancels. I can't sort them by company, because there are simply far too many cancels that I have no clue what the company was (the cancel is only initials or a geometric design, etc.)
For the longest time I ONLY sorted by Scott #, but that started getting cumbersome, the more cancels I obtained: "What stamp was that bright red oval of XXX Co, on?" so I've now separated them by cancel type. I'm using the dealer sales 3-ring binders (found a guy blowing out overstock at less than $2 per binder shipped so I bought 40 of them). I have separated them as follows:
Handstamp - circular
Handstamp - oval
Handstamp - boxed
Handstamp - single line
Handstamp - multiple line
Handstamp - ornate
Printed
Manuscript
Herringbone/punch/cut
Uncancelled
And then within each binder (or binders) sorted by Scott number.
I've set up my web site so that people can search by the same critera: Link
In the behind-the-scenes admin pages, I also store the price I paid, when I bought each one, and from whom.
It's not a perfect system, but it's the closest I'll ever be to "organized."
P.S. The web site, with all its images, is in effect the perfect insurance documentation....
1/2 Cents
U.S. Revenue Stamps