Even un-assuming looking postal stationary items broke all price records at this sale.  An otherwise unremarkable looking 3d Kangaroo PTPO envelope with extra 1d stamp added used in 1922 was sold for over treble the bullish estimate, bringing $26,795.  An Australian buyer also needed to add 10% GST on the hammer price.

Such 3d stationary items generally went overseas, and many could still be sitting unrecognised in the collections and stocks of foreign readers.  With or without the extra 1d stamp a similar value would prevail on this 3d olive Kangaroo envelope with 2 determined buyers as this sale had.

 

Even "standard" 20th century stamp issues broke records.  A facially attractive MUH 1913 £1 Kangaroo sold for $A18,640 making a joke of the current catalogue and "retail" prices.  Two large dealers who looked at the stamp told me the gum was not quite fresh, i.e.a little "suntanned".  A VERY expensive sun-tan is all I can say!

The Australian stamps above set records, but nothing locally gets near the USA biggies.

 

The 1847 cover illustrated nearby will be auctioned May 13 in New York. The estimate was “$US1 to $US1½ million”.   It sold for $US1.2 million plus 10%, or $US1.32 million = $A1,552,980.  

As I am typing this column mid May the world's largest stamp related scandal was unfolding in Spain.  Some 400,000 "Mum and Dad" investors in stamps had lost about €5 BILLION. (=$A8.26 BILLION.) 

 

 

On May 11, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, promised to protect the “rights, interests and expectations” of hundreds of thousands of small investors caught up in the biggest suspected fraud scandal of any kind in his country’s history.

The unmistakable smell of fresh plaster alerted police executing a search warrant to a package hidden in the wall of Francisco Guijarro Lazaro’s lavish $A15 million home in La Moraleja, Madrid’s most expensive district.  It is set in nine acres, has its own tennis court, parking for a dozen vehicles and a basement discotheque.

 Closer inspection of the prominent stamp dealer's Madrid mansion revealed a cache of €10 million (=$A16,727,000) in cash, in €500 notes, the most dramatic discovery from raids this week.

Lazaro claimed the cash had been honestly made selling stamps to Afinsa.  Why he chose to quickly hide it plastered behind the wall was not explained.  Lazaro and several others appeared before the Spanish courts on charges of fraud, money laundering, embezzlement, tax evasion and criminal insolvency.

Spanish police sources said the seized €10 million cash exceeded the largest hauls seized from the Russian mafia, crooked Spanish council officials, or even British criminals in the old days of the Costa del Crime.

For years, Afinsa invited investors across Spain to buy antique stamps "that were completely overvalued if not fake" and then paid them interest that did not come from appreciation in stamp value, but rather from money chipped in by new customers, the official charge sheet says.

Forum Filatelico did the same things, except for using counterfeit stamps, the sheet stated.

"In this way, the defendants designed a business that could only work if it repeated ad infinitum this same fraudulent practice with new customers" the prosecutors wrote, adding that apparently large sums of money also went to the defendants themselves.

The group persuaded savers to invest in postage stamps by promising high returns and then made interest payments using the investments of new clients, prosecuting magistrates Alejandro Luzon and Juan Pavia said in court documents May 11.

Some investors received interest payments as high as 10 percent a year - much higher than rates offered by banks these days for savings accounts or fixed-term investments.

The stamp collections were stored by the companies.  In many case, the investors never saw their investments and knew little about them.

Afinsa Group owns about 67% of the Nasdaq listed ESCALA ... previously called the Greg Manning Group.  Over 50% of Escala revenue was derived from selling material to Afinsa group companies.

Ecsala shares dropped from a $US32 close on May 8, to $US4.34 on May 11 close, as I typed this - and were heading south rapidly in after market sales.   A class action was lodged in the USA May 9 by Escala investors.  The complaint alleges violations of US federal securities laws. 

Many major stamp auctions are owned by this Manning/Escala group.

The group's North American operations include huge names like Greg Manning Auctions division, Ivy & Manning Philatelic Auctions, Greg Manning Galleries, Greg Martin Auctions, Spectrum Numismatics, Teletrade, Nutmeg Stamp Sales, Superior Sports Auctions, Bowers and Merena Auctions, Kingswood Coin Auctions, and H.R. Harmer.

 

In Europe, the leading stamp auction houses affiliated with the network are Auctentia Subastas (Afinsa Auctions) of Madrid Spain, Corinphila Auktionen of Zurich Switzerland, and the Koehler group of auction companies of Berlin and Wiesbaden Germany.

 

In Asia, Escala's auctions operations are conducted through John Bull Stamp Auctions Ltd, the oldest philatelic auction house in Hong Kong.

 

My guess is these auctions have been incredibly profitable.  They typically make about 35% on all transactions, in a very strong market for quality stamps.  It is the activities of Afinsa stitching up 400,000 clueless mums and dads in Spain with overpriced junk that seems to be the problem.