Ron Stiles inherited a few stamps from his grandfather, collected with his father a bit when he was a kid, and reentered his hobby in earnest some 20 years ago when he was about sixty. He was never a passionate philatelist. He collected in fits and starts, buying heavily during some periods and neglecting his […]
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In addition to our Public Auctions, Apfelbaum almost always has a Buy it Now sale posted on our web site. Listing anywhere from 600-6000 lots ranging in price from $50-$5000 these sale lists items for direct sale at prices that are often considerably below auction prices. We list new inventory as well as older material
Collectors, like hikers, enjoy a challenge. They may want an easy philatelic climb some of the time, but for long term appeal most collectors need some difficulty in their pursuit. For a philatelic specialty to be popular, items after the basics, should be hard to find. Perhaps there are rarities that require great monetary outlay,
Let’s say you want to become a part time stamp dealer. Let’s say your reasons are the usual ones. You like stamps, everything about them. You like to find them and acquire them and you love thinking that you purchased something that in the vernacular would be called a good deal. But you have all
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Most countries have collectors that specialize only in Airmails. It makes an interesting specialty. Early airmails of most countries are scarce but usually affordable and the addition of early flight covers and zeppelins makes for a manageable but sufficiently exotic sub specialty. Russian Airmails are perhaps the best example of this. They are mostly scarce
One of the dampers on the stamp market right now is the the high cost of fees associated with selling. Over the last five years, EBay has nearly doubled its fees to sellers. Many marginal sellers have been forced out of business and many stronger sellers have been compelled to reduce the price that they
The 2011 Scott catalog has begun “quality pricing” for the first time. The main listing is still for a Very Fine example of each stamp, as it has always been, but now there is a center section that prices most US stamps in different numerical grades. This is not an advance and Scott has lost
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Geopolitics has always occupied governments. Today it’s the Middle East and Central Asia. In the late nineteenth century, European perception was that Africa needed to be partitioned and each country scrambled to increase their area of influence. Like much geopolitics today, this drive was ostensibly motivated by the desire to control natural resources (just as
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The Federation International de Philatelie sponsors an international stamp show once a year where all of the winners of scores of national stamp competitions compete for the international grand prize. Every ten years the exhibition is held in the United States and in 1976, the first year that I was working full time in the