For some difficult to discern reason there are in the United States uninformed speculators who seek to be duped. They have heard of the value of some stamps and therefore assume that all stamps are desirable and sell for ever increasing prices. Thus, when a fast talker offers them fifty sets of an issue from a country they never heard of at double or triple what it is available for from established dealers, they grab at the opportunity of a lifetime.

These speculators seldom even have a catalog, subscribe to magazines and perhaps limit their philatelic readings to the stamp column appearing once a week in their local newspaper. An exhibition of stamps or an informative talk at the local club would not attract them because they believe that all one must know about stamps to be a successful speculator is how to write checks paying for them.

While it is true that these people are of no consequence to the established stamp trade, sooner or later they receive a grand disillusionment and then widely proclaim that stamp collecting is a fraud. How they should know is beyond me, since they never were stamp collectors.