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Glen Stephens
Monthly "Stamp
News"
Market Tipster Column
April 2010
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The million dollar block
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This block shown nearby caught my eye from a January 31 auction
in Hong Kong.
People's Republic of China 1968 "Great Victory of Cultural Revolution" 8f prepared for use, but not issued. Depicting Chairman Mao and Lin Biao. A MUH imprint block, Yang W82. The post office at Hebei had it is said, already begun selling stamps prior to the official issuance date - before the order was given to cancel the issue, and return the stamps to Beijing. The block realised $HK6,670,000 -- or near a million dollars - $A970,000 as I type this. This late January sale broke all kinds of previous records. A Vertical “All China Is Red” MUH pair got $HK1,725,000. My column last month showed the corner block 4 that got HK2.3 million in November, and THAT was an all time record – now totally smashed! |
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Price doubled in 4 months
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The 1897
$1 on 3c
“red
Revenue”
with
toned
perfs at
top got
double
estimate
$HK5,520,000
– or
over
$A800,000
at the
same
sale.
There
are 32
copies
of this
stamp
recorded.
This is DOUBLE what another copy sold for in September in Hong Kong at the “Zurich-Asia” Auction .. and THAT sale of $US333,862 set an all time record for the stamp! This PARTIAL stamp shown nearby with a crease and some grubbiness sold for $HK2,185,000 – or around $A318,000. |
HALF a stamp sells for $A318,000!
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The stamp was the 1967 unissued
40th Anniversary of
Establishment of Jing Gangshan
Revolutionary Base 8f.
Chairman Mao & Lin Biao were depicted on a podium overlooking Tien An Men Square in Beijing. Sold was the right half of the stamp, see Yang note following W84. Popularly known as the "Big Blue Sky", this stamp was intended to be part of a set to be issued in September 1967. It was to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Chairman Mao's and his Autumn Harvest Army joining forces at Jing Gangshan in October 1927. He planned to meet up with Zhu De and his Insurrection Army of August 1 Nanchang, and establish the revolutionary base there. Only a few examples of the illustrated stamp survived. None are known of any other value in the set. There are MANY theories on why the set was not issued. They are all outlined tinyurl.com/LinBiao here where we ran a poll, and very few had a clue it had just sold for anything remotely like $A318,000! |
“Little Red Book” Treasure
Funnily, I got caught up in the
Cultural Revolution excitement
myself, and am now the proud owner
of this kid’s special notebook shown
nearby.
A third of it is filled with a
youngster’s careful copying out of
the Great Leader’s teachings into it
by hand – the exact reason it was
given out at schools.
Now THIS is history!
Average AGE of collectors?
Where
do you fit in?
$30 very well spent
Under $A30 post-free
The student has affixed a few used stamps to the cover of it ..
which INCLUDED a copy of the great rarity - ”All China Is Red”!
As a mint pair of that just sold in same sale for over $A250,000, I
figured the entire book at $A42,000 had to be a absolute steal to
add to my Rarity page.
Would I rather have 8 of these books – or one HALF of a creased
stamp for the same money was my thought!
Seeing the book is clearly unique (and the half stamp is not) it was
a moot question, but the comparison was a valid one to make.
The other 4 stamps depicting the Red Guards, Mao, and his
calligraphy Poem, all add to the appeal of it – even those as 4 used
stamps have soared in value this year.
To me it has far more appeal and connection to the Cultural
Revolution than any isolated mint stamp, but hey I am biased here!
Mao would have fumed if he saw this “All China Is Red” stamp,
depicting “Renegade Province” Taiwan in WHITE, adorning the cover of
his Communist manifesto I imagine.
I have often wondered what the average age of collectors is, in this modern era.
As a dealer I’d have guessed my typical client is male, and middle aged or older.
Possibly due to the material I sell, my client base is a little skewed, but looking around me at any stamp show it seems to fit the bill pretty much exactly!
On stampboards.com recently I started a poll asking - “What age group are you?”
tinyurl.com/stampAge lists the full discussion, and all the votes.
As you can see from the first 200 votes – which is a decent sample cross section, fully 80% of those responding are 35 or over in age.
You can still vote if you wish – the more votes . . the more accurate the data sample.
I am always surprised at how strong a
“crossover” there is between stamp and
numismatic collectors.
About 10 years ago I owned, edited and
published the “Coin and Banknote” magazine.
(“CAB”)
It is a great read each month, and has long
been under the safe stewardship of John
Mulhall.
I am sure if you email him on
auscoinbank@bigpond.com John will be
pleased to mail you a recent copy as a
sample.
Back then, we cross referenced the
subscriber names against the stamp magazine
subscriber names, and the overlap was about
25%.
Clearly a decent chunk collect both areas.
With banknotes in particular, the recess
printed notes are VERY akin to recess
printed KGV and KGVI stamps etc, hence the
ready appeal.
Back then I retained Greg McDonald as the
editor – as he had been, since he founded
the magazine.
So that introduction touches on why I have
mentioned this new colour NUMISMATIC
catalogue in a STAMP magazine.
It is the first ever colour edition of this
well respected work …. this being edition
17, the first being published in 1993, so
felt it was long overdue for a mention.
Greg kindly lists me in the “Special Thanks”
section each edition, and for once I thought
it was time to actually plug his book!
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“The Pocket Guide to Australian Coins and Banknotes” by Greg McDonald is I guess pocket size ONLY if you have massive size pockets, as it is now 456 pages thick!
Current Australian recommended retail price is A$35, although a few large dealers are selling them under $A30 post free in Australia – check here for one instance - tinyurl.com/GregCat There are two excellent and long standing, market leading sellers in this market – this volume, and the hard bound Renniks catalogue, which has been published for nearly 50 years, and is edited by Alan Pitt. Both may have vanished about 10 years back, when a few folks on the Numismatic trade body Committee, had ideas to produce its own catalogue, and decide themselves the “retail” values. I have had a lot to do with Alan Pitt, Renniks and Greg McDonald over the decades. All great people. I made quite a nuisance of myself leading the industry charge to re-consider that idea, given 2 excellent, well respected and long standing books were already out there. That point of view prevailed, and I really do feel the numismatic industry and hobby has stayed incredibly strong as a result, as tried and proven “arm’s length” price guides are absolutely essential for stability. I cannot believe for under $30 a copy posted, how few stamp dealers and collectors buy these Coin catalogues. Even if you only buy one each decade, it is a valuable book to have around. Just one vaguely decent thing turning up somewhere will re-pay it 10 to 100 times over. As a dealer I very often get numismatic product turning up in stamp lots. Often just circulated coins and notes – and more often Royal Mint and Perth Mint “product” bought in the last 20 years. Do not assume this modern material is common and of little value. |
Current catalogue value - $295 -
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This ‘Year 2000’ proof set shown nearby is Cat $295
... and has only $3.70 of face value coinage in
there.
Did you have any idea such very modern issues were so pricey? I sold it on stampboards this year to a very happy collector. The owner had toyed with taking the coins out and using them at Woolworths - from this and several others sets. He assumed as they were “modern”, they’d have little or no collector value! Some of the quite ordinary looking (non bullion) product from around this era are listed in McDonald for much higher than this figure. This week I found in a box from an estate, a 2001 “Centenary Of Federation” $5 coin that is cat $550 to my enormous delight. If anyone needs one please let me know! Even well circulated currency notes are often worth SERIOUS money – even from the relatively modern KGVI era. The very common orange 10/- note design circulated during the entire KGVI reign 1939-1952 is rated in MID grade “VF” for the VERY cheapest type at $A300. Scarce signature combos go to $A4,500 in this mid grade, and of course “Star” notes go to $A40,000. This is all for the 3rd grade of the 6 listed. (The lower grades they do not even list!) |
Even these are VERY serious dollars.
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For crisp uncirculated notes taken from a pay packet etc similar to the one in the nearby photo, you start at $A1,700 for cheapest possible type, and go to $A215,000.
And that is for the lowest face value KGVI note … I will not bore you with detail re the value of KGV notes and higher face values! They can get into the 7 figure region. There is a scarce KGV Australian 10/- note shown on page 9 of this catalogue that sold at auction for $A1,909,000. Well over a million pounds Sterling. I get dozens of circulated KGVI 10/- notes (and other values) a year in stamp collections, popped on a Hagner sheet and stockbook page as a curio etc, and assumed to have only a few dollars value. If these folks spent under $A30 on such a book, they would realise their curio is clearly be worth 10 times that! “Knowledge Is Power” is the mantra I keep preaching for such things – and have done all my life. As a young kid in the 1950s, my grandmother always mailed me a 10/- or £1 (or sometimes £5!) note with my birthday card. That was a very common thing to do. Indeed the most “common” 10/- KGVI signature combination – Armitage/McFarlane as shown nearby has a MINIMUM catalogue value of $1,700 when never circulated. |
A $1,500,000 catalogue coin!
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Even Australian coinage can be worth big dollars. A proof copy of the 1930
Penny is catalogued at $A1,500,000. That is WAY over a million $US, and near
a million pounds.
The example shown nearby is such a coin, that seems to be on offer for about $A2 million in recent times from the Melbourne dealer. Anyway a most useful catalogue, and good to see it now is released in colour. At under $A30 post-free you’d be nuts not to have one. I do not know any stamp catalogue that has a colour listing of all the popular “PNC” issues – the Philatelic Numismatic Covers that Australia Post sells. McDonald does of course list, illustrate and price them all. Again I see tons of these turning up in FDC collections and the owners have no clue they are valuable. The 2000 “For Valour” PNC cover shown nearby is cat $A360, and cost under $A10 to buy from Australia Post. Ditto the 2002 QE2 PNC - cost $A9.95 and Cat is now $A325. I bet a ton of readers have both bought at issue price, and had no clue these were so valuable? |
Cost $9.85 – now cat $360.
The only drawback I ever
have is Greg’s odd
decision not to assign
ANY catalogue number,
ANYWHERE in the book, to
non banknote areas.
Given the vast amount of
mint coin product being
issued it is near
impossible to identify
anything with precision.
Why on earth Greg does
not sit down and give
EACH section logical
catalogue numbers that
can be used universally
by the trade is one of
life’s great mysteries.
For instance - why not
take the PNC section and
give them a “P” prefix
from issue 1.
Thus the 1999 “Year Of
Older Persons” is McP1 -
and so on. Proof year
sets are McPR1, and a
1911 halfpenny is McH1,
a 1911 Florin is McF1
etc.
I cannot ask, as Greg is
near impossible to
contact by phone, indeed
email is an annoying new
beast for him, and as
for having a website
.... !
He’d double his business
if all 3 worked as they
normally do in commerce,
but old habits die hard
I guess.
Anyway, that bugs me
every edition - and
others too, so hope he
can sit down and give
each section a logical
number system ... soon.
The work covers all the
19th Century sovereigns
etc, indeed goes back to
the 18th Century
“Proclamation” coins
etc, and the “Holy
Dollar” and “Dump”
issues.
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Time and Temp in Sunny Sydney! |
GLEN $TEPHEN$ Full Time Stamp Dealer in Australia for over 25 years.
Life Member - American Stamp
Dealers' Association. (New York)
Also Member - Philatelic Traders' Society. (London) ANDA. (Melbourne) American Philatelic Society, etc
"Lothlórien4 The
Tor Walk, CASTLECRAG (Sydney), N.S.W. 2068 |
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