Israel Stamps

More on the press sheet

2012-02-06T13:38:00.001-08:00

In today's Linns stamp news, there was an add by Marlen Stamps offering the entire uncut press sheet for the Children's Games issue for $159. So, if you missed out on the offer to get it from the Philatelic Service (although, I am not sure if it is sold out or not, so you might have a chance to still get it from them), and don't want to chance an e-bay auction (where the lowest start price I have seen is $150), you can get it for just about double the new issue price from Marlen.

And the market comes crashing down

2012-02-02T08:26:00.000-08:00

Last year, when Israel released the first uncut press sheet, lots of dealers on E-bay were asking for ridiculous prices for imperf singles, tabs, plate blocks, and sheets. With the release of the second sheet, the same thing was seen for the first few weeks. Now, I am seeing the complete press sheet listed for a buy it now price of $200, and auctions with a starting price as low as $150. While this is still more than 2x the issue price, it is a far cry from the 20x price on the first sheet. When the speculators find that the crazy prices aren't going to materialize, I expect that we will see next years sheet fail to sell out.

Year of Chemistry stamp plate variety

2012-01-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

It was brought to my attention today that the 6.10 NIS Chemistry stamp from January 2011 has a plate variety. It is in the tab and not the stamp itself. If you look at the blue block with the C in it, you can see that the year 2011 is printed there. On some of the stamps, the top part of the blue wasn't printed completely, so the year is missing. This is a constant plate variety, and I am not sure how many of the tabs have it, but it is at least 1 on every sheet. Take a look at your stamps and see which variety you have.

While we are talking about plate varieties, the 5.90 NIS New Years stamp also has one. On the bottom row of stamps, the Arabic is different than it is on the other rows of stamps. It appears to be partially cut. All of the tab stamps have the incorrect Arabic, while all the other stamps have it correct. Luckily, I collect both tabs and plate blocks, so I have both varieties covered.

Coming in 2012

2011-12-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

I just received my final order of 2011 from the philatelic service. I was surprised to see the inclusion of a sheet with the 2012 stamp program included. I don't recall seeing this in prior years. There are 5 scheduled releases of stamps in 2012:

February:

Pioneering Israeli Women
Technion - Cornerstone Centennial
In Memory - definitive
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi
Justice in Jerusalem, 1961
High Priest Breastplate

April:

Memorial Day
Joint Issue Israel-China
The Generations Center, the Western Wall, Jerusalem
The Renaissance of Hebrew Seamanship
High Priest Breastplate (2)
Children's Books

June:

Joint Issue Israel-Nepal
Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem
Olympic Games, London 2012
High Priest Breastplate (3)

September:

Festivals 2012
International Police Association
Contribution of Veteran Citizens to Israel
100-Hadassah, THe Women's Zionist Organization in America
High Priest Breastplate Souvenir Sheet
Tourism - Visit Israel 2012

December:

Joint Issue with India
Philately Day
Electric Car in Israel
Saving Wild Animals
Koren Bible Jerusalem - 50 Years

In addition, there will be a thematic series of postage labels (I assume they are talking about SIMA stamps) featuring endangered sea creatures. I assume this will be similar to the issue of birds in 2010 and deer in 2011,w here they will have a different label at each machine, and they will be issued throughout the year.

The High Priest Breastplate stamps are called out as a unique multi-part special issue, issued in 3 parts and culminating with a souvenir sheet.

The memorial stamp will be issued as a "My Own Stamp" sheet. This is what I call generic sheets. The flyer calls it an opportunity to memorialize a photo of a loved one alongside an appropriately themed State of Israel stamp.

New uncut press sheet coming

2011-11-10T14:52:00.000-08:00

I have heard from several sources that there will be a new uncut press sheet released this year from the philatelic service. I have had it confirmed from the philatelic service that it will be for the Children's Games mini sheets, and details will be released "very soon". As soon as I hear more, I will let you know. The first sheet sold out quickly, and people were selling pieces of the sheet on E-bay for astronomical prices. I don't think many of these sold, and my offer to trade my full sheet for a set of 7-9 with tabs has had no takers (but, is still open if anyone should want to trade). It will be interesting to see what happens with this sheet.

Scott catalog anomolies

2011-11-07T16:43:00.001-08:00

In today's Linn's the Scott catalog numbers for some Israel stamps were finally updated. The last time catalog numbers were updated for Israel was in March, so there have been lots of new stamps issued, but the new update only covers stamps issued through February.

The first entry has been given Scott number 1472a. The description is Hakhel Le Yisrael type of 2002 and shows an issue date of 11/21/10. I had no idea what this stamp was referring to. I looked at Scott 1472 to try and figure out what this was referring to. 1472 is pictured here on the left. Was there a reprint in 2010 I missed? Nope. Looking through my FDC's, I found what this entry is referring to. It is from the Jerusalem prestige booklet. There are 11 different stamps in the booklet, and they are now listed in Scott as separate stamps. 4 of them have minor numbers (1472a, 1610a, 1827a, and 1830a) and 7 are given major numbers (1861-7). Why the difference? According to the new issues editor at the Scott catalog, the ones given new major numbers are different in size from the originals, while the ones with minor numbers just have perf differences. In checking the prior prestige booklets, I found this is the only one listed in Scott at all. The reason? Previous booklets sold for more than 50% above face value, while this one carried only a 35% premium, so it merits inclusion. How is it listed in my database? As Prestige Booklet #8.

In another head-scratcher, the animation sheet is listed as 1845, with the individual stamps each getting a letter (a-o), So, you would assume the animation booklet would be treated the same, right? Apparently not. The booklet panes are each given their own number, from 1846-1860. Why? I think the booklet should be counted as a whole, so it is Prestige Booklet #7 for me. Why a prestige booklet and not a normal booklet? It was sold at a premium over face, and while valid for postage, was not really intended to be used.

E-bay success

2011-10-31T14:55:00.001-07:00

Well, all of my E-bay lots from last week sold. I was pleasantly surprised. The Mejujaim lots went for a lot more than I had hoped for. As a result of my initial success, I posted another 23 lots. Included in this batch are a bunch of souvenir leafs, as well as a few of the special souvenir sheets Israel has issued in the past few years. I had managed to acquire duplicates of both the Israel 98 imperf sheets (mint and FDC) as well as the Parting of the Red Sea issue form this past year (again, Mint and FDC). Hopefully, my success continues.

What next?

2011-10-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

After doing the in-depth series on the generic sheets of Israel, I was wondering what topic would interest people next? I have the material to do in depth studies of the following:

Tete-Beche Stamps
Showcards
Vending stamps
Computer Vended postage

Do any of these interest anyone out there? Are there other topics you would like to see me talk about?

Been a long time

2011-10-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, it has been over 2 months since my last post. In that time, I haven't really done much with my collection. E-bay has been slow, I think I purchased a total of 3 items in the last 2 months, and those were mostly to use the E-bay bucks that I had earned over the summer. I used to track 40-50 items on E-bay, my list is down to 20, with almost all of these being store items rather than auction listings. I did receive my 2010 white ace supplement finally, although I never did get the corrected pages for the 2009 supplement that they promised. I had hoped they would be included in the 2010 supplement, but no such luck. I also listed 8 separate items on E-bay this week for sale. If you are interested, take a look here. So far, 4 of the 8 have bidders.

Definitive Plate blocks needed

2011-08-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

It has been 18 months since I blogged about the plate blocks I was missing. Since then, I have had a fair amount of success in filling in my want list. I am down to 84 dates (from 237). Of course, some of the remaining ones are the most expensive of all, but most are reasonably priced in the catalogs, but I have just not been able to find them.

Provisionals-3 needed of 42. I am missing PR16, 24, and 26.
Zodiac - COMPLETE!
Town Emblems - 2 needed of 161. Just missing TE35 and TE125.
Landscapes - 4 needed of 169. Missing LS6, 7, 27, and 113a.
Town Airmails - 4 needed of 22. Unchanged, these don't seem to be listed on E-bay often at all.
Bird Airmails - 5 needed of 18. All 5 from the January, 1967 printings
Shekels - COMPLETE!
Standby (Star of David)- COMPLETE!
Olive branch - 1 needed of 27. Looking for ND21
Herzl - 5 needed of 47
Archaeology - 7 needed of 37
Sunflower - 2 needed of 6
Good Wishes - 19 needed of 41
Architecture - 2 needed of 14
Anemone - 7 needed of 23
Songbirds - 4 needed of 34
Sports - 10 needed of 37
Shrulik - 1 needed of 9
Hyacinth - 1 needed of 11
Historic Buildings - 1 needed of 15
Menorah - 1 needed of 13
Greetings - 4 needed of 10
Gagea Commutate - 1 needed of 9

Another new generic sheet

2011-08-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

I have recently seen this on E-bay. This is a July 18th, 2011 printing date of the Happy Holidays stamp. It is being issued for the high holidays. I have not yet seen a day of issue for this.

Bulletin 876, where are you?

2011-07-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

I just got the most recent shipment in from Israel's Philatelic Service. It includes the June issues. There are 4 sets of stamps, Israeli Achievements (Agriculture), Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Clown Care, and Beaches in Israel. The achievements issue is accompanied by bulletin 873, which meshes nicely with the last bulletin from the April issues (Memorial day issue was bulletin 872). The rabbi is bulletin 874, followed by Clown Care at bulletin 875. Now, one would expect that the Beaches issue would be bulletin 876, but it is number 877 instead. So, what happened to bulletin 876? Was a stamp prepared and not sold? Will it be in the next shipment? Or did it just get skipped?

2 New Generic Sheets

2011-07-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

Well, while I was on vacation, apparently the Israel Post was busy adding new generic sheet printing dates.

The first new sheet is apparently for sale from the Philatelic service on the new Winnie the Pooh sheet. This sheet is the same Love stamp that was used on the last few Disney sheets, and this time the sheet has a May 24th, 2011 printing date. If this seller can be trusted, it was first sold on June 19th.

The second new sheet is a new printing of the Flag generic sheet. This has a June 5th, 2011 printing date, and so far I have only seen it on the sheet pictured here. The E-bay seller claims a limited printing of 2500 sheets. It is listed at a rather high $94 right now, and I am hoping that more sheets of this printing date become available at some point.

New offering from the philatelic service

2011-07-05T13:14:00.001-07:00

I just received the June bulletin from the Israel Philatelic Service (#50), and there is an interesting new class of item being offered. You can now get a subscription to Public Souvenir Leaves. According to the bulletin, these are leaves issued to honor public events, government ministries, municipalities, organizations, and institutions, as opposed to the national souvenir leaves that are issued for national events, philatelic events, and joint issues. Each public leaf is numbered (minimum quantity is 1000). There is no set number of these issued each year. Hopefully, this spells the end of the huge ripoff that some people try to perpetuate on collectors by selling these public leaves at hugely inflated prices. Now, collectors interested in these can get them at the new issue price (which is 17 to 30 NIS, according to the bulletin). Not that I will subscribe.

Want list review

2011-05-17T10:41:00.001-07:00

I took some time this week to look over my want list. I have separated it out into five different categories:
1) Main collection items needed
2) Special Cancel items needed
3) Plate blocks needed
4) Shekel specialized plate blocks needed
5) Everything else

Today, I will focus on the main collection items needed. There are 36 items on this list.
1) 7-9 with tabs. I see these for sale from time to time, but they are out of my price range.
2) J1-5 with tabs. Again, they are available, but out of my price range.
3) 10-14 vertical gutters with tabs. Rarely seen, and out of my price range.
Then we move on to Computer Vended Postage:
4) National Science Museum FDC (12/5/96). I managed to find a copy mint, but finding a FDC has proven tough.
5) 11th Philately Day FDC (12/25/97). Again, the FDC has proven elusive.
6) 13th Philately Day FDC (12/7/99). Apparently, there was none for Philately Day 12 in 98 (or if there was, I am not aware of it).
7) 14th Philately Day FDC (12/26/00). Once again, I am lacking a FDC cover.
8) Hebrew Stamp Week Mint (12/90/93). Before there was Philately day, there was Hebrew Stamp week, and while I managed to find a FDC (addressed), I have not been able to find a mint copy.

9-16) The next 8 items are mint versions of the Israel 98 labels. There was a different one for each day, and I am missing the complete set. I do have the set on cover though.

17-20) Remembrance Letters for 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011. I have the complete set through 2006, but U haven't seen the recent ones at all. I am not sure where I found the 2008 one, but I do have it.

21) World Stamp Expo 89 Show card - Mint. I am looking for it without a stamp or cancel. Usually, they are offered as shown here. I know they were sold at the show without the stamps, but most people must have bought a stamp and had it cancelled.

22)Capex 96 show card - Mint. Like the World Stamp expo one from 1989, I am missing the mint version.
23-26) Touring Stamp exhibition covers from the Nahariya (6/4/50), Hadera (11/24/50), Even Yehuda (10/16/51), and Ramatayim (1/1/56). I believe I have the rest of these, but I have only seen them listed in the old Mosden catalog, and I don't believe that was a complete listing.
27-33) The generic sheets that I am missing: Good Luck (7/17/03), Good Luck (10/21/03), Good Luck (12/1/06), Mazel Tov - Wedding (1/12/04), Thank You (1/12/04), Thank You (12/5/06), and Blue and White (5/25/10). I have gone over these in detail in previous postings.
34) B2. 1st Coins, 6x5m, 6x10m, 6x15m, Car advert on back, green covers
The early booklets are hard to find, and a bit pricey when you do find them.
35) B2B. 1st Coins, back cover Giftboxes Oranges advert, both covers white.
36) B3A. 1st Coins, 6x5m, 6x10m, 6x15m, 6x20m, back cover Giftboxes Orange advert, covers orange. I have a copy that the previous owner opened and put on an exhibit page, but I would like an intact copy as well.

If you have any of the above for sale or trade, please let me know. Thanks.

Doar Ivri Plateblocks

2011-05-10T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last week, Tuvalstamps listed 90 Doar Ivri plate blocks for sale on E-bay. These all started at 99 cents, and there were examples of each of the 6 low values included. All 90 lots sold today, for a total realization of $2,218.14 (not including shipping). I am not able to tell how many different bidders or buyers there were, but there were 539 total bids on the 90 lots, averaging out at 6 bids per lot. 7 lots received only 3 bids, while 2 lots received 20. No lots received fewer than 3 or more than 20. 4 of the lots did not have Group numbers readily identifiable from the lot (they were outside of the ranges shown in Bale). The total 2004 Bale catalog value for the remaining 86 lots was $5,408 and these sold for a total of $1,993.66, or an average of 37% of catalog value. 3 lots realized more than there catalog value, a Group 5 block went for $74, or 2.11 times its $35 catalog value, a group 100 block went for $16.50, a 27% premium over the $13 catalog, and a group 94 went for $52 against a $50 catalog price. Just 6 lots went for less than 20% of catalog, with the biggest bargain being a group 66 block going for just $29.88 despite a $250 valuation (12%). The lot that realized the most was a group 139, which went for $265 (38% of its $700 catalog valuation). I didn't verify the dealers group identification, so this may be a factor in some of the realizations. All in all, I am not sure if the dealer should be pleased with his realization of about a third of catalog price. Despite bidding on a handful of lots, I did not win any of them. There were 29 that would have filled gaps in my collection (I have blocks for 75 of the groups). These are not really a big priority for me, so I was only looking for ones I could get cheap, and none of the ones I needed fit into my budget.

One more sheet

2011-05-06T13:51:00.001-07:00

As Yossi pointed out, I missed a new generic sheet in my latest update. This one is a new format. It has only 3 stamps and 3 labels. The labels are the old thank you ones. The sheet has a printing date of January 3rd, 2011. It shows a price of 15 NIS for the sheet. I am not sure of the first day of issue, hopefully I will find that out soon.

More generic sheets

2011-05-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

As Mark Goldsmith pointed out, there are 2 new generic sheets available. On March 15th, a new Happy Holidays sheet was released for Passover. This has a February 20th, 2011 printing date. This is the first reprint of the Happy Holidays generic sheet, and the third consecutive year there has been a special generic sheet issued for Passover.

The second new sheet is for the Nachal army song group. It is a reprint of the flag generic sheet with a printing date of March 22nd. I am not sure when the first day of issue was. I have only seen this offered on E-bay starting last week, so it must be pretty recent.

A new look at souvenir leaves

2011-04-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

As I have previously blogged, I am not a big fan of souvenir leaves. They are sold in very limited quantities through private organizations in Israel. Personally, I only collect the ones that are available to collectors through the philatelic service. This weekend, I saw something new. Someone took a relatively common Hanukkah souvenir leaf from 1995, one that was sold through the philatelic service, and added a new stamp and cancellation in 2009. Apparently, the Carmel catalog then added these updated souvenir leaves to its catalog, and they are listed for several hundred dollars. So, to recap, they took a leaf that is available on E-bay for $5 or less, added a stamp and additional cancel, and somehow it is now worth 50X what it was before? It looks like several of these were done with different base souvenir leaves as well as different reasons for adding the additional stamps (I saw a 40th anniversary leaf have a 60th anniversary stamp and cancel added, for example). I don't understand why the Carmel catalog would add these as if they are official leaves. Sure, they are nice, if you like this type of thing, but I don't see any way the valuations are justified. I think all collectors should be cautious, and not just blindly trust any catalog valuation. If a catalog value doesn't make sense to you, it could be because it is not based on sales data, but on what the seller wants to get for them.

Has it really been a month?

2011-03-30T14:48:00.001-07:00

I guess time flies. I haven't had a single post so far this month. Not much has gone on with my collection, I just haven't had the time to do anything with it. I have seen several more dealers selling cut-outs from the press sheet on E-bay. I have now seen singles and tabs being offered, although I am yet to see a lot sell. I have had one dealer offer me all kinds of varieties:

Full press sheet - $3000

Set of 3 sheets with matching serial numbers - $1000

Set of 3 stamps with tab - $220

Set of 3 stamps without tab - $90

PLBL of 3 stamps and 1 label - $230

PLBL of 4 stamps and 2 labels - $290

Set of 3 sheets FDC - $1100

FDC of 3 tabs - $230

FDC of 3 stamps without tab - $100

Set of 3 FDC combo with normal stamp - $240

Again, a huge premium over the $82 cost of the sheet at the issue price. I have also not had any takers on my offer to swap my press sheet for a set of 7-9 with tabs. I am not holding my breath.

And the game continues

2011-03-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

Not to be outdone by the seller offering blocks of 4 from the press sheet, a different seller is offering full sheets (not the whole press sheet, but the panes of 10 stamps). You can see the lot here. The price for the set of 3 sheets is $1499. My offer still stands, I will trade my full uncut press sheet (9 panes) for a set of MNH 7-9 with tabs (with cert). Any takers?

Let the games begin

2011-03-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

As I predicted last week, it didn't take long for a seller on E-bay to list a cut up of the uncut press sheet on E-bay. This lot has blocks of 4 (well, 3 stamps and part of the central label) of each of the stamps up for a mere $390. Since the entire press sheet sold for about 20% of that, it leaves a quite healthy profit margin. The seller should be able to make at least 12 of these blocks from the press sheet, unless he adds cross gutter blocks to his inventory as well. I am disappointed that he didn't mention in the listing that these came from an uncut press sheet that was offered to collectors. If he can get his asking price, I would not mind selling my sheet for that price. Anyone want to trade a set of 7-9 with tabs for an uncut press sheet?

Stop the presses

2011-02-28T15:49:00.001-08:00

Well, at least stop cutting up the press sheets. Israel has joined the US (and maybe others) in offering uncut press sheets to collectors. I received an offer from the philatelic service to purchase an uncut press sheet of the Innovations sheets. The press sheet consists of 3 sheets of each of the 3 innovations sheets that were issued in honor of Expo 2010 in Shanghai. Each sheet is individually signed and numbered by the artist. It was limited to 999 sheets. The offer price was $82. I am not sure if that represents a premium over the price of 3 normal sets of the sheets, but if there is a premium, it appears relatively small. One important difference between the press sheet and the the normal sheets is that the press sheets are completely imperf. So, watch out for imperf stamps and sheets showing up as errors. Anyone that purchased a press sheet can create those easily. According to the announcement about this sheet, they will offer additional press sheets from time to time. They envision this as the first in a new collectors line of prestigious items in Israel. I hope they limit them to once a year at most, since they are not cheap, and I am unsure how to store it, as the format is not convenient to display. Any ideas?

Wow

2011-02-28T15:17:00.000-08:00

I submitted an article on mejujaim stamps to the SIP journal over 6 months, and hadn't thought much about it since then. Until this week, when I received the latest journal, and saw a request for articles. So I sent the same article in again, and this time I got a response from the editor. Apparently, he thinks the stamps are a gimmick, and not worth a write up in the journal. Really? I guess he is entitled to his opinion, but since his target audience is those of us that collect Israel Philatelic items, I would assume he would want to be as inclusive as possible. His response completely floored me, and removed all my motivation to write further articles for the journal. Are all modern Israel topics gimmicky? This is what I collect. Finding information about modern items is next to impossible. Until now, I thought that was just because there are few collectors, but now I wonder if the editor of the journal actively disparaging the topic has something to due with the lack of information being disseminated? Maybe I am just not used to rejection. I would like to think that I would be more accepting if he said he didn't like my writing, or the focus was too narrow, or something similar, that I would accept that without this frustration, but I guess I will never know. Anyway, for the foreseeable future, I will just share my thoughts here, and keep my gimmicky collecting habits to the readers here.

And another one

2011-01-28T07:16:00.000-08:00

A new generic sheet just appeared on E-bay this week. This one is for Family Day (Valentines day?) 2011. It is the first generic sheet I have seen with a 2011 printing date, having been printed on January 3rd. I am not sure when the first day of sale was, but I expect to see first day covers available soon. I have updated the sheet listing, this printing date is GEN14.6, and the specific sheet is SGEN14.G.

Yet another new generic sheet

2011-01-13T10:30:00.001-08:00

I just received my shipment of new issues from Garel. Included where most of the new issues from the Jerusalem 2010 show, as well as some other items. This generic sheet (GEN17.1 from my earlier list) was among the items included. I was going to return it, as I already have an example of this generic sheet in my collection (although with different pictures). Then I noticed two unique features about this sheet. First, and most obvious is the green marks at the top of the sheet. I am not sure what these are, anyone have any clues? The second feature is with the date and serial number in the lower left corner. In my other example, the date and serial number are printed in 2 separate lines, while this one has them printed on a single line. The FDC I received of this same sheet does not have either of the 2 features seen in the mint copy of the sheet. I have not looked at the sheets on E-bay to see if the single line difference is unusual or not. For those of you that have copies of these sheets, are yours the single line or 2 line versions?

Just when you thought it was done...

2010-12-23T09:50:00.001-08:00

Another new generic sheet popped up on E-bay today. This one is a May 25th 2010 printing of the blue and white stamp. I have seen 2 different versions, the one pictured here with the Jonah and the Whale coin, and another with a Menachem Begin coin. Both are from ICMC (Israel Coins and Medals Corp), and both with a 38 NIS sheet price. They are listed on E-bay for $99 each. I have not yet seen this date offered elsewhere, but I am looking. At the $99 price, I won't be adding them to my collection. I have added this to my catalog listing as GEN11.10.

Generic Sheet listing summary

2010-12-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

As far as I know, the previous 7 entries detail all of the generic sheets offered by Israel. I am sure there will be additions in the coming months and years, but it is as complete as of today as I could make it. If anyone knows of any I missed, please let me know.

Since as far as I can tell, no catalog adequately addresses these sheets, I have decided to create my own catalog numbers, and hopefully they will stick.

The *'s indicate dates on special sheets.

Catalog #	Description	Printing Date	First Day
GEN1	Flowers	2/4/2001	3/18/2001
GEN1.1	Flowers - Telabul	7/8/2003	7/15/2003
GEN2	Yellow Flower	12/2/2001	7/15/2003
GEN3	Good Luck	7/17/2003	10/19/2003
GEN3.1	Good Luck	10/21/2003
GEN3.2	Good Luck	1/12/04
GEN3.3	Good Luck	12/1/2006
GEN3.4	Good Luck	12/2/2006
GEN3.5	Good Luck	12/5/2006
GEN3.6	Good Luck	4/12/2007
GEN3.7	Good Luck	6/17/2008
GEN3.8	Good Luck	12/1/2008
GEN4	Hugs and Kisses	7/17/2003	10/19/2003
GEN4.1	Hugs and Kisses	10/21/2003
GEN4.2	Hugs and Kisses	1/12/2004
GEN4.3	Hugs and Kisses	4/12/2007
GEN4.4	Hugs and Kisses	2/10/08*
GEN4.5	Hugs and Kisses	12/1/2008
GEN5	Mazel Tov - Wedding	7/17/2003	10/19/2003
GEN5.1	Mazel Tov - Wedding	1/12/2004
GEN6	Mazel Tov	7/17/2003	10/19/2003
GEN6.1	Mazel Tov	3/21/2006
GEN6.2	Mazel Tov	10/7/08
GEN7	Thank You	7/17/2003	10/19/2003
GEN7.1	Thank You	1/12/2004
GEN7.2	Thank You	12/5/2006
GEN7.3	Thank You	4/12/2007
GEN7A (3 stamps)	Thank You	1/3/2011
GEN8	With Love	7/17/2003	10/19/2003
GEN8.1	With Love	12/5/2006
GEN8.2	With Love	12/1/2008
GEN9	Jerusalem 2006 Generic Flower Sheet - Lily	3/21/2006	5/8/2006
GEN10	Jerusalem 2006 Generic Flower Sheet - Tulip	3/21/2006	5/8/2006
GEN11	My own Stamp - Blue and White	5/15/2007	8/27/2007
GEN11.1	My own Stamp - Blue and White	11/14/2007
GEN11.2	My own Stamp - Blue and White	6/17/2008
GEN11.3	My own Stamp - Blue and White	11/6/2008
GEN11.4	My own Stamp - Blue and White	2/4/2009*
GEN11.5	My own Stamp - Blue and White	3/24/2009*
GEN11.6	My own Stamp - Blue and White	5/15/2009*
GEN11.7	My own Stamp - Blue and White	8/5/2009*
GEN11.8	My own Stamp - Blue and White	12/2/2009
GEN11.9	My own Stamp - Blue and White	1/6/2010*
GEN11.10	My own Stamp - Blue and White	5/25/2010
GEN11A	My own Stamp - Blue and White (8 stamps)	11/14/2007
GEN11A1	Elvis Presley	11/14/2007	11/?/2007
GEN11A2	Moses Montefiore	11/14/2007	12/5/2007
GEN11A3	Mickey Marcus	11/14/2007	6/11/2010
GEN11A4	Jerusalem 2010	11/14/2007	11/21/2010
GEN12	Red Flower	1/30/2008	5/14/2008
GEN12.1	Red Flower	1/21/2009
GEN12.2	Red Flower	7/26/2010*
GEN13	White Flower	1/30/2008	5/14/2008
GEN13.1	White Flower	10/7/2008*
GEN13.2	White Flower	1/21/2009
GEN14	Love	5/4/2009	6/30/2009
GEN14.1	Love	6/5/2009*
GEN14.2	Love	10/27/2009*
GEN14.3	Love	4/7/2010*
GEN14.4	Love	2/9/2010*
GEN14.5	Love	10/24/2010*
GEN14.6	Love	1/3/2011*
GEN14.7	Love	5/24/2011*	6/19/11
GEN15	With Compliments	6/29/2010	8/25/2010
GEN16	Happy Holidays	6/29/2010	8/25/2010
GEN16.1	Happy Holidays	2/20/2011*	3/15/2011
GEN16.2	Happy Holidays	7/18/2011*	8/7/2011
GEN17	Flag	8/19/2010	11/21/2010
GEN17.1	Flag	8/27/2010
GEN17.2	Flag	10/25/2010
GEN17.3	Flag	3/22/2011*
GEN17.4	Flag	6/5/2011
SGEN4	Jetix	2/10/2008	3/16/2008
SGEN11A	Afiko-Man	2/4/2009	3/3/2009
SGEN11B	Pope Sheet #1	3/24/2009	5/4/2009
SGEN11C	Pope Sheet #2	5/15/2009	6/1/2009
SGEN11D	Casi Angeles	8/5/2009	9/6/2009
SGEN11E	Grandpa Nissans Afikoman	1/6/2010	2/21/2010
SGEN11E1	Herzl	1/6/2010	4/14/2010
SGEN12A	My First Hebrew Calendar	7/26/2010	8/1/2010
SGEN13A	Commedians	10/7/2008	10/30/2008
SGEN14A	Disney 2009	6/5/2009	7/15/2009
SGEN14B	Hannukkah 2009	10/27/2009	11/19/2009
SGEN14C	Valenitnes Day 2010	5/4/2009	2/1/2010
SGEN14D	Disney 2010	4/7/2010	5/2/2010
SGEN14E	Cabbage Head	2/9/2010	10/13/2010
SGEN14F	Hannukkah 2010	11/9/2010	10/24/2010
SGEN14G	Family Day 2011	1/3/2011	2/1/2011
SGEN14H	Winnie the Pooh	5/24/2011	6/19/2011
SGEN16A	Passover 2011	2/20/2011	3/15/2011
SGEN16B	High Holidays 2011	7/18/2011	8/7/2011
SGEN17A	Latin America	10/25/2010	11/22/2010
SGEN17B	Nachal Army Song Group	3/22/2011

Generic Sheet Listing, Part 7

2010-12-03T10:24:00.000-08:00

There are 3 new designs that have been showing up recently. Happy Holidays, With Compliments, and the Flag sheet. So far, the first two, which were announced in Bulletin 46, have only shown up with a June 29th, 2010 printing date. These sheets were released on August 25th, 2010.

However, the flag sheet, despite being the newest addition to the generic sheet world, has already had 3 separate printings. The first printing was August 19th, 2010. This was followed up with a second printing on August 27th, 2010. This second printing is a bit unusual, in that instead of having 12 stamps and 12 blank labels to be printed with a design, it has 12 stamps, plus 6 different labels with designs for Jerusalem 2010, and then 6 blank, customizable labels. The third printing was for the bicentennial of 4 Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, and Mexico). The sheet was printed on October 25th, 2010, and issued on November 22nd, 2010.

Generic Sheet Listing, Part 5

2010-12-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

The next set of sheets were first issued for the WSC Israel 2008 show. There were 2 separate flower sheets, the White Rose and the Red Cyclamen. Both sheets were printed on January 30th, 2008, with a price of 27 NIS. I did not see them listed in the bulletins I have. The first day of issue was May 14, 2008, which I believe was the first day of the show. The personalized examples I have show the same printing date, but are missing the price info, instead having the admin information printed under the picture.

The second printing is for the White Rose sheet only. It was printed on October 7th, 2008, and offered in bulletin #37. This one shows the price of 37 NIS. The sheet was issued on October 30th, 2008. According to the bulletin, it was issued to mark the first anniversary of the death of Yisrael (Poli) Poliyakov. He was part of the HaGashash HaHiver trio. I believe they were comics, but that is purely a guess.

Both sheets were reprinted on January 21st, 2009. I have seen several of these for sale, but none yet at a reasonable price. If anyone has some extras, please let me know.

The Red Cyclamen stamp was reprinted on July 26th, 2010 for the My first Hebrew Calendar sheet. This was offered in Bulletin 46, and has a 38 NIS price listed on the sheet. First day for this sheet was August 1st, 2010.

To date, as far as I know, there are only these 3 printings of each of these sheets. One other thing to note is that these sheets are supposedly scented, although I am not sure if they are (or were).

Generic Sheet listing, part 6

2010-12-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Next, we move on to the new workhorse of the generic sheets, the Love stamp. The first printing of this sheet was on May 4th, 2009. It was listed in bulletin #41, and has a 27 NIS price on the sheet with the smiling stamp. The customized sheet does not include this price, even though the sheet is from the same printing. The first day of issue was June 30th, 2009.

Bulletin 44 brought to light this sheet. It was for Family Day (as well as Valentine's day, I guess). This sheet has the same May 4th 2009 printing date as the above sheets, but it lacks both the pricing information seen on the smiling stamp sheet, and the admin printing message under the photo that Mark indicates a personalized order. So, I will call this printing 1A. The first day for this sheet was February 1st, 2010.

To date, there have been 5 additional printings of this sheet. The second and fourth printings of the sheet, from June 5th 2009 and April 7th 2010 were aimed at children, with Disney themes. The first sheet features Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. This sheet was offered in bulletin 41 as well, however it has a price of 37 NIS printed on it. The first day of issue was July 15th, 2009, and I believe the September 9th date shown on the sheet was the first date that the Disney Channel was on in Israel. The second sheet features only the gang from Mickey Mouse clubhouse, and was offered in bulletin 45. The price on the sheet has risen to 38 NIS, and the day of issue was May 2nd, 2010.

The third and sixth printings were for Hanukkah 2009 and 2010. The 2009 sheet was printed on October 29th, 2009, was listed in bulletin 43 and issued on November 19th, 2009. It shows the 38 NIS price for the sheet. the 2010 edition also shows the 38 NIS price, but has a printing date of October 24th, 2010. The first day was November 9th, 2010 and I have not yet seen it offered in the philatelic bulletin.

So, you might have noticed that I left out the fifth printing (if you didn't, you can scroll back and check). The fifth printing was on February 9th, 2010. The only time I have seen this printing is on the Cabbage Head sheet shown here. I don't believe this is a customized sheet, since it lacks the printing info under the picture on the left. The sheet is being sold on E-bay by several dealers, and they show a first day of October 13th, 2010. This sheet does not have the price on it though, so I am not sure what to make of it. Regardless, it is a new printing date. Perhaps it will be offered by the philatelic service in an upcoming bulletin.

Generic Sheet Listing, part 4

2010-11-30T15:35:00.001-08:00

As if the various printing dates for the Blue and White stamp weren't enough, a second version of the sheet has been sold occasionally. This version of the sheet has just 8 stamps (and 8 labels) as opposed to the 12 of the regular sheet. All 4 sheets that I have seen have the same November 17th, 2007 printing date. The only one of the 4 that might be available from the philatelic service is the most recently released one for the Jerusalem 2010 show. It shows a price of 18.70NIS The others are blank.

I am not really sure of the issue dates of the Moses Montefiore sheet. It is claimed by the seller on E-bay to be issued December 5th, 2007. He also claims an edition of 500. The Elvis sheet is one that I have never seen on e-bay, but did see it offered in Linn's, and on the seller's website. He claims an issue date of November, 2007 (no date listed) and a quantity of 1000. The Mickey Marcus sheet is one I have in my collection, and it was issued on June 11, 2010. I have seen no claims as to the number issued. None of these have the serial numbers on the right hand margin, like the Herzl or first Pope sheet, so I have no way of knowing for sure. I assume the Jerusalem 2010 sheet was issued on November 21st, 2010, the first day of the Jerusalem 2010 stamp show. I will know more about this sheet when my order arrives in a few weeks.

Correction to Generic sheet listings

2010-11-29T14:34:00.000-08:00

I just noticed a difference between some of my generic sheets that I hadn't spotted before. The sheet on the left here is the first printing of the With Love stamp, from July 17th, 2003. The FDC of the same printing date is on the right. But, instead of the price of 21.20NIS appearing above the top left label, there are some different marginal markings above the first 3 columns. I see the same thing on the Mazel Tov sheets from the same date. The Mazel Tov sheet from March 21st, 2006 has blank margins above the first 4 columns. The Good Luck sheet from December 1st, 2008 also has the margins above the first 4 columns blank, but has what appears to be the same information printed under the picture in the right column. Does anyone know if this was a seperate printing, or if it is a different pane position?

Generic Sheet Listing, Part 3

2010-11-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

The next Blue and White sheet was printed August 5th, 2009. It shows what I think is a band called Casi Angeles. It was issued on September 6th of 2009 and was listed in Bulletin #42. Notice that the price listed was 38NIS, as opposed to the 37NIS on the previous 3 sheets, and 27 NIS on the original generic sheet.

Returning to the generic sheets, there were printings on June 17th, 2008 (for Mom's birthday, I guess), November 6th, 2008, and December 2nd, 2009. These were all issued without being offered for sale to the public via the bulletin. I do not believe there was a way to know what date you would get on a sheet when you ordered it. I was unable to acquire these with the stock image of the smiling stamp, but I did manage to find them customized.

The latest printing was on January 6th of 2010. It was used on at least these 2 sheets offered in Bulletin 44. The price was once again 38NIS. The sheet on the left is the 2010 Passover issue, which was called Grandpa Nissan's Afikoman. The sheet on the right is for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl. This one has a serial number on the lower right hand side that shows that it was an issue of 10,000. The first Pope sheet also has this same serial number and limit of 10,000. None of the other sheets, including the second Pope sheet, so far have shown this.

Generic Sheet listing, Part 2

2010-11-19T16:17:00.001-08:00

The next generic sheets weren't issued until Jerusalem 2006. It is a set of 2 flower sheets issued May 8th, 2006. Both sheets have a printing date of March 21st, 2006, and I have not seen a reprint of either. The sheets were offered for sale in bulletin 23. I have seen some personalized versions of these sheets, but they had the same print date as the generic sheet.

The next generic sheet offered was the My Stamp - Blue and White pictured here. To date, it has undergone ten separate printings. It was placed on sale on August 27th, 2007 and listed in bulletin 30. The first printing date was May 15th, 2007, and it was followed by a second printing on November 17th, 2007. 2008 brought an additional 2 printings, June 17th and November 6th.

2009 brought a new twist to the generic sheets. For Passover, the philatelic service offered a package of a children's Hagaddah and a sheet of stamps picturing Afiko-Man (and you thought my puns were bad!). This sheet has a printing date of February 4th, 2009 and the sheet was offered in bulletin 39. The first day of issue was March 3rd.

This pattern was continued when the Pope visited Israel later in the year. Two different generic sheets were printed for the occasion, on before the pope visited, with pictures of sites He would see, and one after he left showing the pictures of the Pope in Israel. The first sheet was printed on March 24th and issued on May 4th, and the second on May 15th with a June 1st issue date. Both were offered for sale in Bulletin 40.

I will discuss the additional printings of this sheet in part 3.

Updated Generic sheet listing, Part 1

2010-11-18T14:09:00.001-08:00

I have continued to update my list of generic sheets, and had a few collectors send me lists of what they had seen as well. Since my list has changed a lot over the last few weeks, I figured I would post my findings here. If you have a generic sheet not on the list, please let me know so I can add it. I am missing a few, so if you have extras to trade, please let me know as well.

Flowers. As far as I know, this is the first generic sheet offered by Israel. There were only printed twice. The first printing was February 4th, 2001. The second printing was July 8th, 2003. The second printing was done for Telabul, and has the smiling stamp logo in the blank spots. The second printing was offered for sale to philatelic service customers in bulletin #8. The first day for this was March 18, 2001 with the Telabul one being released on July 15, 2003.

The second generic sheet was also done for Telabul, and was also offered for sale in bulletin #8. This one was printed on December 2nd, 2001. Even though the sheets were printed in 2001, I haven't seen from before this Telabul publicity one in 2003. The first day was July 15, 2003. I do have a sheet with the same printing date but with 24 stamps. The 3 columns of the smiling stamp are replaced with actual stamps, and the column of flowers to the left of the leftmost smiling stamp on this picture are perforated, but I do not believe this was ever personalized.

On October 19, 2003, a set of 6 generic sheets were released. The all had greetings stamps and were offered in bulletins 10 and 11 from the Philatelic Service. This one is the Mazel Tov stamp. As far as I can tell, there have been 3 printings for this sheet. The first was July 17th 2003. The next printing was March 21, 2006. I have only seen this second printing with Israel's gold medal winning windsurfer pictured, but that doesn't mean other personalizations don't exist. The third printing was October 7, 2008.

The next one in the set of 6 is the Hugs and Kisses stamp. I know of 6 printings of this sheet, but only have 4 in my collection. The first printing was once again July 17th, 2003. The second printing was October 21st, 2003. It was quickly reprinted a third time, on January 12th, 2004. The fourth printing wasn't until April 12th, 2007. The fifth printing from February 10th, 2008 was a special one, as I have only seen it on the Jetix sheet. The sixth printing was December 1st, 2008. I am looking for the second and fourth printings if anyone has them available.

Next comes the Thank You stamp. This one has had four printings so far, with the first once again being July 17th, 2003. The second was January 12th, 2004. The third, and only one I do not have in my collection so far was December 5th, 2006. The fourth printing was April 12th, 2007.

The next stamp is once another Mazel Tov stamp. This one has a scene at a Huppa with a bride and groom. As far as I know, there have only been two printings of this sheet. The first was July 17th, 2003. The second is January 12th, 2004. I only have the first printing, and have not personally seen the second printing listed for sale yet, but a collector in Israel has told me it exists. If anyone has a spare, let me know.

The fifth member of this series is the With Love stamp. This has had three printings to date, with the first once again being July 17th, 2003. The second printing was December 5th, 2006. The third printing was December 1st, 2008. I have the first two printings, but do not yet have the third.

The last member of this set of 6 is the Good Luck stamp. It must have been very lucky for the Philatelic Service, since it has undergone nine separate printings. The first, like the other five members of this set was on July 17th, 2003. The second was October 21st, 2003. I have neither of these first two printings, the first I have in my collection is the third printing, from January 12th, 2004. The next three printings were all in December, 2006. The 1st, 2nd, and 5th were the dates. I am missing all 3, as well as the seventh printing from April 12th, 2007. This was followed with an eighth printing on my parents anniversary in 2008 (June 17th for those of you not related to me who are still reading this!). The ninth printing was December 1st, 2008. Hopefully, nine printings will be enough. I am missing 6 of the nine, so maybe the issue has not been that lucky for me.

That time of year again

2010-11-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

Next week, there will be another big stamp show in Jerusalem. This is a five day show, and of course Israel Post will be offering a complete slate of special issues.

To start with, 3 new vending stamps with 11 different varieties. There will be the special SIMA label for the show, with two different machine numbers (001, and 061). The Christmas SIMA label will also be offered, apparently with 4 different machine numbers (001, 010, 015, and 062). And there will be a Massad sheet of 10 for each day of the show (available as 10 x 1.70 or a sheet of 10 different values).

Then, there is the new generic sheet. This is an Israel flag design. There is a normal sheet with 12 stamps, a smaller version with 8 stamps, and a special Latin America friendship version. I believe all 3 will have different printing dates, but I am not 100% sure. This is in addition to the recent Cabbage Head sheet (with its own printing date) and the Hanukkah sheet with a new printing date as well.

Next, we have the booklets. 2 new ones as far as I know. There will be a prestige booklet, not sure what the subject is. The second one is a flip book. It is 15 pages, and has the new animation stamps in a way that you can flip through the pages and see a cartoon.

Next comes the joint issue with Vatican city. This is a sheetlet of 4. In addition, there will be some other special sheets. A set of 3 decorative sheets of bible stories, plus a souvenir sheet. Plus, a re-issue of the 1NIS menorah definitives (3rd printing).

And finally, the special imperf souvenir sheet of the bible story stamps available in the show catalog.

I am not looking forward to the bill for these!

Updates

2010-11-15T15:27:00.000-08:00

I blogged a few weeks ago about White Ace. I finally was able to get a reply from them. They will be updating the Menorah definitives page to include the 40ag value, and to be int eh correct order. They are also adding the correct pictures for the International Year of Astronomy. Supposedly, they will mail me the replacement pages in a few weeks. I am not sure how other people will get the updated pages at this point. They are also still trying to figure out whether to include the Mejujaim stamps in the pages or not. If they do, it will be in next years supplement. The pages with the missing background are normal, as they didn't want the stamps to go over the background, and that is the only way they will fit.

On a related note, I was looking up the Scott catalog numbers for some recent issues, and found that the June issues were not given catalog numbers. The April issues were, as were the August issues. Turns out that Scott gets its new issues direct from the philatelic service, and there account ran out of money, so they missed a shipment. Hopefully, they have that resolved and the numbers for the June issue will be in the December Linn's super issue. Since I had a quick response from the Scott's new issues editor, I asked about some other things that I noticed. The 40ag self adhesive definitive was not listed. They actually didn't know anything about the stamp. It was not included in their standing order since it was considered a reprint of the water activated gum stamp. When I pointed them to the bulletin where the issue was offered, they went to get a copy so they could list it. It should get a new catalog number shortly. The editor then asked me if I had a copy of the Gagea stamp without the oval (syncopated) perfs, and the Hyacinth stamp with oval perfs, since they had heard of these but didn't have them. I will be lending them these from my collection so they can be added to the catalog.

Sacapex 2010

2010-11-09T08:34:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday, I took Julie to the Sacapex show at the Scottish Rite temple in Sacramento. We went last year, and from the day the postcard came in the mail for this years show, she was ready to go. She was up bright and early Sunday, chomping at the bit to leave. Since we had just turned back the clocks, she had to wait an extra hour.

When we did make it to the show (at 10:05), she went to the youth table and started picking out stamps. Unlike last year, she didn't just grab every flower stamp she saw, she would check each against the ones already in her pile to make sure she wasn't getting doubles. After about 5 minutes, a man came out from the main room of the show, and asked Julie if she had a stamp album yet. She said she didn't, and the man handed her a two volume Harris Statesman album. She was thrilled. Since I was the one that had to carry this through the rest of the show, I was a little less so, but I am sure she will love filling them up. I bought her a pack of hinges from a supplies dealer at the show so that she could put her stamps away later. Julie also picked up a USPS comic book, a stamps coloring book, and a couple of US Stamp yearbooks. When she was done at the youth table, we walked into the main show. Several dealers gave her free covers, one even gave her a few colorful souvenir sheets.

I didn't expect to find much at the show for myself, although I did spend a few minutes at each table looking through their Israel stock. Most had nothing, and the ones that had anything mostly had common singles. Then, at one table that Julie was looking through a cover box, I asked about Israel stamps. They had a small box with common singles, and when I finished looking through it, the dealer said he thought he had some in a stock book he had just bought. The stock book had a bunch of different countries included, and about 4 pages of Israel.

It was on those 4 pages that I found a handful of Town Emblem plate blocks. I checked the dates, and lo and behold, there were 3 I needed. He even had duplicates of each of them. I assumed they were common dates that I was just missing. I asked the dealer how much for the 3 I needed, and he said half catalog. I didn't have my Bale catalog with me, having assumed that I wouldn't find anything that I needed to look up, but the dealer went to the table next to his to borrow a catalog to figure out the price. He returned with a Scott catalog. I told him that Scott doesn't price Israel plate blocks. He said, no problem, it will be just 5 times the price of a single. Of course, all 3 stamps were valued at the minimum price of 20 cents a piece. Meanwhile, Julie had found a cover she liked, so for $3 I got the 3 plateblocks shown above plus Julie's cover.

When we got home from the show, I showed Julie how to hinge stamps into her album. She is still working on getting the hang of it. I am not sure how Harris chooses which stamps to picture int eh album, but it appears that many of the ones she has aren't pictured, but she is working through the ones that are. While she was doing that, I pulled out my Bale catalog to check the value on the 3 blocks I had bought. The first one I checked was listed at $25, not bad. The second was $65. So, those two weren't common ones at all. Then I checked the third one. It is listed as TE25. $750. The rarest of the Town Emblem plate block dates. I was shocked. I had just bought 3 plateblocks that catalog for over $800 for about $2. And then I started thinking, he had at least one more of each of these in his stock book. I could have had one for my collection, and one to sell. If I had the catalog with me, I would have known these were rare, and purchased all he had. Then, I remember, if I had my catalog to know the value of these, the dealer would have known the value as well, and I don't think I would have gotten them for $2 at that point. I guess it worked out OK.

While not expecting to find anything for me, I found perhaps my biggest bargain to date (eclipsing the UPU booklet FDC I bought on E-bay for $5). And Julie had a great time. Yes, it definitely was a great show. Too bad the next one is a year away. Maybe that same dealer will be there with that same stock book...

White Ace pages...missing stamps?

2010-10-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

I finally received my White Ace pages in late August, and put them in my album a few weeks ago. I found some curious design issues with the pages. I sent a mail to Washington Press asking for feedback on the issues I found, but have yet to receive a response. So, I decided to post here to see what others thought of the issues. There are two cases where half of a booklet is needed. I am not sure why they choose half a booklet, it would have been much easier from my perspective to just include the whole booklet. I guess they made this choice to save collectors from having to purchase the whole booklet, but I have yet to see a dealer offering half booklets for sale, and you certainly can't get them from the philatelic service, so I don't see the point. If you have to buy the whole booklet, why not just display it intact? There are also 2 pages missing the decorative border. I am not sure if this is just my copy of the pages, or all of them, but pages 370 and 374 are borderless. The International Year of Astronomy issue is shown as a set of 3, but all with the same picture and value. I assume this is just a copy and paste error.

Now we get to the bigger issues I have with the pages. The set of Menorah definitives is shown as 3 stamps (30ag, 50ag, and 1NIS). The 40ag is not included, even though it was issued in September of 2009. The stamps are also shown out of order, with the 1 NIS being first, followed by the 30ag and then the 50ag. Normally, the high value is last, so that would put the 1NIS last. The last big issue is the Mejujaim stamps are not shown at all. This is a unique issue, one that I have spent a lot of time documenting here. At the very least, I would expect the 8 sheets available from the philatelic service would be shown. While the stamps are the same as various definitive issues from past years, the fact that they are without phosphor, with rouletted perforations, and self-adhesives make them very different from the earlier versions.

Fruit booklet varieties

2010-09-20T10:39:00.001-07:00

Notice anything different about this booklet? The serial number is not in the normal location. It also appears to be a different font. Other booklets show the serial number in the correct location. According to Bulletin #46 from the Philatelic service, this was an inadvertent error. Both varieties of the third printing are offered for sale at $8.60 directly from the philatelic service. I guess they wanted to avoid speculation. In addition to these varieties of the third printing, it appears a fourth printing is now available.

Before E-bay

2010-09-17T13:44:00.000-07:00

I first started using the Internet while I was at RPI in the early 1990's. I had my old 486 computer set up in my dorm room, and there was an ISDN line that I was able to use to connect to the college network. FTP and Telnet were the way to access other computers on the network, and the place to go to find things was Usenet. Usenet is still around (I think it got swallowed up by Google, and is now called google groups), and while looking at the various groups available, I came across rec.collecting.stamps. My Israel collection was still just a basic collection in those days, with lots of gaps in just the basic tabs. One day, i came across a post on the newsgroup advertising a box of Israel items. I remember the post described that it contained a few coin booklets on presentation sheets, and a bunch of other items. I think the asking price was $50. That was a lot of money for this college student, but I e-mailed the person who had posted, and eventually ended up calling him after a brief exchange of e-mails. Long story short, I sent him a check and a huge box arrived at my dorm room a week or so later. The box had a ton of stuff, including 2 of the booklets. The picture here is one of them. The only other items I recall from that collection are a couple of early FDC's with short tabs, including the Camel and the Menorah stamps. But, I still consider the booklets to be among my best finds.

Special cancel...special ink?

2010-09-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

I collect both FDC's and special cancels. Most new issues from Israel have a special cancel designed to go with them, and this Simon Wiesenhal sheetlet of 4 was no exception. Do you notice anything different about the cancels? The one in the center of the block is in silver, while the one on the bottom is in black. The special cancels provided from the Israel Post with my standing order were in black only. This is not the first issue I have seen it on (I believe they used the silver ink on the Holocaust remembrance stamp earlier this year, and maybe one or 2 last year as well). It is just interesting to me that they would only provide the black version to there special cancel subscribers.

L'shana Tova

2010-09-10T15:36:00.000-07:00

The Israeli post offices have been selling New Years cards for years now. I have never seen them listed in any of the catalogs, and I am pretty sure there was no reason to list them. after all, they are similar to Hallmark greeting cards, and would need to have a stamp added to them in order to be mailed. However, this year it appears things are different. The scan here shows one of the five envelopes included in this years New Years cards being sold at the post office. The imprint at the upper right is the postage. Does this make the envelope postal stationary? The five cards included in the package are all different, but the envelopes are identical. Apparently, they were issued (not sure that is the correct term for these) on July 1st. I was able to pick up a package of 5 from one of the people I buy stamps from in Israel, and he was kind enough to provide me with one of them with a first day cancel as well. As far as I can tell, these aren't listed in the bulletin from Israel post listing new issues (while other postal stationary is). What do you think?

While I was sleeping....

2010-08-24T15:35:00.001-07:00

Looks like Israel Post was busy releasing new stamps. Once again, they are heavily slanted towards collectible topics and formats. There are 2 new sheets issued in both the generic sheet format and a regular sheet format (Happy Holidays and With Compliments) plus a booklet containing both stamps, a mini-sheet with Animals and their offspring, a sheetlet of 9 celebrating 150 years of settlements outside the old city walls in Jerusalem, an Urban Renaissance stamp, the seemingly annual Zahal stamp, and the annual Festivals set of 3. I still haven't put away the last set of new issues I received. Looks like I better hurry and catch up!

Is this real

2010-08-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

I saw an interesting lot on E-bay today. It is a copy of the Imaba booklet with tab pairs of the Doar Ivri stamps. This is a fairly rare booklet, and it is more common to see it with blocks of 4 stamps, rather than the tab pairs. The stamps are normally hinged into the booklet. From the pictures, it looks like the tab pairs are placed in mounts, rather than hinged into the booklet. Maybe someone took the original stamps out of the booklet and put them back in using mounts. Or, it is possible that someone bought a booklet with blocks of four and replaced the stamps with the more valuable tab pairs. I don't know if it is possible to tell for sure what happened. Maybe someone who knows more about the Doar Ivri issue than I do would be able to tell if the right versions of the tab stamps are included or not. To me, the value of the booklet is severely diminished by this. What do you think?

Negev Auction #72

2010-07-17T18:05:00.001-07:00

In the latest Negev auction, which is scheduled to complete next week, there is a lot that contains a large collection of definitive plateblocks. Since no listing of blocks was available, Sid Morginstin was nice enough to send me the lot to preview. The lot is well over 200 plateblocks, and I need only 19. When I look at the catalog value of those 19, I was shocked that the Bale 2006 value was $701. However, the majority of that value was in only 3 blocks. JA18, the 1NIS value from the Archaeology set printed on 5/5/89 was listed at $500, and SH19 and SH20, both the 10ag value from the Herzl definitive set with printing dates of 8/8/91 and 2/23/92 respectively list at $50 each. I was so shocked, that I went back to my 1998 Bale catalog to check the value there, the JA18 was listed at $4, and the 2 Herzl blocks at $2.60 and $2.75 each. That is a huge difference, so I checked the 2000 catalog, and the JA18 was listed at $10, and the Herzl blocks at $5 each. I can think of no reason that the blocks would have doubled in value between 1998 and 2000, let alone why they would have each at least added an extra 0 to the price somewhere between 2000 and 2006. Does anyone else know of one?

My own stamp, again

2010-06-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

Do you notice anything different about this My Own Stamp sheet? I recently saw this listed on E-bay, and it caught my eye. There are only 8 stamps on the sheet, while they normally have 12 (2 columns vs 3). According to the seller (Marlen Stamps), this Moses Montefiore sheet was "issued" on December 5, 2007 in a very limited quantity (500). On E-bay, the seller is asking for $69.95 for the sheet. The same seller has an ad in Linn's, offering it for $59.95. He also has a similar sheet for Elvis Presley, this time claiming a print run of 1000. None of the bulletins from the philatelic service have offered this sheet, although most of the other special print generic sheets have been offered for sale through the bulletin (as opposed to the private printings where you can get your own pictures added to a sheet). The sheets that the philatelic service offer are in the $12-15 dollar range. While this is an interesting variety, I am unwilling to pay such a steep premium for the sheets.

Israeli Fruit and blue boxes

2010-06-03T11:26:00.001-07:00

On April 11th, Israel issued the second printing of the Fruit booklet. Like all recent re-issues of the self-adhesive panes, they added a second menorah on the back cover to show it is the second printing. However, it appears this time, there were two separate varieties issued. Some of the booklets have a blue box in the upper left margin, next to the second stamp down. You can make it out in the scan attached here. I am not sure of the frequency of this variety, but it is not on every pane. So far, it does not appear that dealers are charging a premium for this variety.

I am also being told that a third printing for this pane was released on June 1st. I am not sure if this same variety exists on the third printing as well. I have not seen any mention of it having occurred on the first printing, from 11/26 of last year.

Generic Sheets and Printing dates

2010-05-17T16:29:00.001-07:00

I keep seeing new generic sheets offered on e-bay at outrageous prices. People get them printed, then list them on e-bay as "rare" or "error". I normally don't look twice at them. Except, today I decided to look at the printing dates of the sheets. I noticed that several of them had been reprinted, and the reprints were not sold as generic sheets (as far as I know). For example, the Blue and White stamp (the beach scene) has had at least 10 different printing dates. Of these 10, I only have 7 in my collection at this point. The first printing was on 5/15/2007, and there was a second printing on 11/14/2007. I have both of these with the generic smiling face stamp on them. Then, there were two printings in 2008, 6/17/2008, and 11/6/2008. Both of these are offered on e-bay only with custom printed designs. In 2009, there were 5 different printings. The first was 2/4/2009 for the Passover comic book, then came the 2 sheets for the Pope's visit (3/24/2009 and 5/15/2009). The Casi Angeles sheet had an 8/5/2009 printing date. The last one in 2009 was the 12/2/2009 printing that again I only see offered on e-bay with custom printed designs. So far in 2010, there was 1 additional printing date (1/6/2010) that was used both for the Passover 2010 and the Herzl sheet.

The fun was not restricted to only the Blue and White stamp. The greetings stamps from 2003 also saw some reprints. It looks like the original set with the generic picture had two printing dates (7/17/2003 and 1/12/2004). There is also a bunch of good Luck stamps sheets with custom designs with a 12/1/2008 printing date, as well as a Thank You design with a 4/12/2007 date. The Good Luck design was also used for the soccer issue, with a 6/17/2008 date. The Hugs and Kisses stamp was reprinted for the Jetix issue on 2/10/2008.

The red and white flower design each had multiple printings. The original printing run was dated 1/30/2008, but the white flower sheet was reprinted on 10/7/2008 for the comedians issue, while both the red and white flowers appear to have been reprinted for custom designs with a 1/21/2009 printing date.

The Heart stamp has also seen multiple printings already. The initial printing was on 5/4/2009. That was followed with a 6/5/2009 printing for the Disney issue, and a 10/27/2009 printing for the Hanukkah issue. There was a 4/7/2010 printing for the second Disney issue as well.

I am missing several of these issues. Does anyone have some available for sale at reasonable prices? I am not interested in paying the hundreds of dollars a sheet some of the dealers want for their "scarce", "rare" and "error" creations.

To page or not to page...

2010-04-27T09:52:00.001-07:00

That is the question. Whether tis nobler to make ones own pages, or to use a pre-printed album? So, my Shakespeare may not be the greatest (I was never a fan), but the question is serious. I use the White Ace album for my tab collection, but just recently I found out that Lindner makes a Minisheet album, as well as an album for the Klussendorf stamps. Both of these are rather pricey. Does anyone use them? How complete is the Klussendorf album? Right now, I am using a SuperSafe sheet album to hold my mini-sheets, is there any reason to switch to the Lindner minisheet album?

April new issues are going to get expensive

2010-04-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

Judging by the new lots appearing on E-bay this week, Israel released a bunch of new items. First, there is a second printing of the Fruits of Israel booklet, as well as the 30ag Menorah self adhesive sheet. This is followed by the SEVENTH printing of The Israeli booklet. There is also a new SIMA label, a continuation of the Birds of Israel series. There is also a set of 3 sheets for Innovations in Israel. These sheets were issued for a show in China, and have 2 labels in the middle of the sheet, which means I will likely need the full sheets for my collection. Next is a joint issue of Canada-Israel friendship. Since the Canada side of this issue is a booklet of 6, I imagine the joint FDC's will be a bit on the pricey side. Then comes an issue for the 150th anniversary of the birth of Herzl. It looks like there is a souvenir sheet for this, as well as a special generic sheet that was issued in a very small quantity (10,000). In addition, there are several normal issues, such as Memorial Day and a September 11th memorial stamp. I am not looking forward to the invoice on my new issues.

Weekend recap

2010-04-12T13:25:00.000-07:00

Julie and I attended the Easter Seals stamp show in Sacramento on Sunday. The day started with Julie waking up at 7am and asking if it was time to leave yet. I managed to get her to wait until 9am, but she was raring to go. We got to the show about 15 minutes before the doors opened, another delay that Julie did not appreciate. But, we made it through that and into the show. We spent the next four hours going from table to table, looking at all the stamps, and filling up 2 pint buckets with Julies finds. And in another repeat of last year, Julie would not even think of leaving the show to grab lunch, she insisted on having a hot dog at the show.

Since I was unable to find anything for me at the show, I spent a few minutes going through the latest APS stamp circuit that had arrived on Saturday. I found a copy of the Mizpe Ramon self adhesive booklet with a different phosphor variety then the one that was in my collection. This sent me digging through my Bale catalog trying to figure out if this was a new variety. Turns out that the phosphor varieties are described, but not in the booklet section. The details are in the definitive specialized section. I now have both a 3 line and an 8 line phosphor booklets. The notes for this issue also mention a copy with a barcode. Neither of the copies I have include this barcode. Anyone have a spare?

In the same circuit book, there was a Hyacinth booklet. The catalog indicates 2 separate prints for this booklet as well, one with phosphor all over, and one with 2 phosphor lines. Neither the booklet in my collection, nor the one in the circuit book, showed any indication of phosphor under my UV light. Are there any other differences in the booklets?

Still here...

2010-04-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

I am still here. Just have not had anything interesting to say about my collection recently. No major purchases, and very few minor purchases. I don't even have a lot of interesting items on my watch list on E-bay. I will be attending the Easter Seals show in Sacramento next weekend (Julie got a postcard about it, and is ready to go!). Westpex is at the end of the month, but it doesn't look like I will be going. I took a look at the dealer list, and it doesn't look like there will be any dealers there that are worth the two and a half hour drive (each way), $5 in admission, $5 in parking, and $8 in tolls.

Definitive Plate Block update

2010-02-24T09:18:00.001-08:00

Back in this post from June 2008, I listed a summary of the completeness of my plate block date collection. I figure it is time for an update:

Provisionals-7 needed of 42
Zodiac - 22 needed of 124
Town Emblems - 45 needed of 161
Landscapes - 6 needed of 169
Town Airmails - 4 needed of 22
Bird Airmails - 7 needed of 18
Olive branch - 8 needed of 27
Herzl - 31 needed of 47
Archaeology - 16 needed of 37
Sunflower - 5 needed of 6
Good Wishes - 24 needed of 41
Architecture - 3 needed of 14
Anemone - 22 needed of 23
Songbirds - 8 needed of 34
Sports - 14 needed of 37
Shrulik - 1 needed of 9
Hyacinth - 3 needed of 11
Historic Buildings - 1 needed of 15
Greetings - 9 needed of 10
Gagea Commutate - 1 needed of 9

As you can see, the list grew quite a bit. I have been able to fill in many of the earlier plate blocks that I needed, but the later plate blocks are still pretty sparse. I do have lots of duplicates to trade if anyone else is in the same situation.

List of special cancels needed

2010-02-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Here is the complete list of what I need:

1 First Day of Doar Ivri Stamps
5/16/1948
Haifa and Tel Aviv
2 First Day of Festival Stamps
9/26/1948
Haifa and Tel Aviv
3 10th Congress of the Maccabi World Organizatiom
12/27/48 Tel Aviv
12/28/48 Tel Aviv
12/30/48 Tel Aviv
12/31/48 Tel Aviv
4 Welcome to the Released from Cyprus
1/28/49 Jerusalem
5 The Constituent Assembly of the State of Israel
2/16/1949
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
7 Tabul First National Stamp Exhibition
5/1/49 Tel Aviv
5/3/49 Tel Aviv
9 The Zionist Executive Council
5/5/49 Jerusalem
10 Israel Becomes a Member of the UNO
5/13/49
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
12 70th Anniversary of Petah Tiqwa
8/10/1949 Petah Tiqva
13 Foundation Conference of the Mizrahi World League
8/14/1949 Jerusalem
14 18th World Conference of the Mizrahi
8/14/49 Jerusalem
8/15/49 Jerusalem
8/16/49 Jerusalem
8/17/49 Jerusalem
8/18/49 Jerusalem
8/19/49 Jerusalem
15 Arrival of the Remains of Dr. Herzl in Israel
8/17/1949 Jerusalem
16 Inauguration of the Israel Railways
8/21/1949
Jerusalem and Haifa
20 Centennial of the Birth of Dr. Nordau
11/7/1949 Jerusalem
22 Jewish Child's Day
2/19/1950 Jerusalem
26 Maiden Flight Lydda-NY
6/25/1950 Lydda Aerodrome
27 Israel Touring Club - Error in Hebrew Date
8/24/1950 Ramat Gan
28 60th Anniversary of Rehovot
9/28/1950 Rehovot
38 Navy Day
5/29/1951 Haifa
38 Navy Day - Arabic crossed out
5/29/1951 Haifa
39 Anniversary of the Death of Herzl
7/24/1951 Haifa
47 National Stamp Exhibition
4/15/52 Haifa
4/16/52 Haifa
216 Rememberence Day for the Holocaust and Heroism
5/5/1959 Tel Aviv
313 UNO Day
10/24/1962 Tel Aviv
419 Christmas, Noel
12/24/1966 Nazareth
431 Hebrew Book Week
5/8/1966 Tel Aviv
434 Tel Aviv Fair
6/21/1968 Tel Aviv
898 Israqua 78 Exhibition and International Convention on Water Systems and Applications
6/5/1978 Tel Aviv
899 Israel Technology and Metal Industry Week
6/5/1978 Jerusalem
1011 Post Office Opening in Qatsrin
3/11/1982 Qatsrin
1068 Tel Aviv 83
9/29/1983 Tel Aviv
1195 50th Anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
12/18/1986 Tel Aviv
1383 120th Anniversary of Nahalat Shivah
9/12/1989 Yerushalayim
1384 70th Anniversary of the Chamber of Commerce
9/13/1989 Tel Aviv
1385 30th Anniversary of the Employment Service
9/24/1989 Caesarea
1386 60th Anniversary of Netanya
9/27/1989 Netanya
1387 40th Anniversary of Haifa Symphony Orchestra
10/3/1989 Haifa
1388 National Stamp Exhibition for Youth Philately
10/12/1989 Tel Aviv
1389 Religious Services Week
10/15/1989 Yerushalayim
1393 Philatelic Day
10/17/1989 Yerushalayim
1394 Archaeology in Jerusalem
10/17/1989 Yerushalayim
1638 Blich Alumni Convention
6/3/1993 Ramat Gan
1672 Special Pictorial Cancellation for the Christian Holiday Season
11/16/1993 Nazareth
1707 The Hebrew Book Week
6/8/1994
Yerushalayim , Ramat Gan, Afula, Ashqelon, Tel Aviv, Haifa
1788 Hebrew Book Week
6/7/1995
Ashqelon, Tel Aviv, Yerushalayim, Afula, Haifa, Ramat Gan
1849 Hebrew Book Week
6/5/1996
Ashqelon, Ramat Gan, Yerushalayim, Haifa, Beer Sheva, Afula
1850 Stamp a Story Stamp Exhibition
6/9/1996 Bat Yam
1851 Capex 96 - Greetings from Israels Philatelists
6/9/1996 Tel Aviv
1870 Beer Sheva Philatelic Club Stamp Exhibition
9/29/1996 Beer Sheva
1873 Hanukkah
10/22/1996 Jerusalem
1875 Hashiloah Periodical
12/5/1996 Jerusalem
1876 Coexistence: Man & Animals
12/5/1996 Tel Aviv
1877 Equal Opportunities for the Disabled
12/5/1996 Tel Aviv
1878 Philately Day Space Research in Israel
12/5/1996 Haifa
1893 Ceremony of the Inaugural Flight
1/6/1997 Haifa
1913 Sport Abseiling
4/30/1997 Yam Hamelah
1923 Hebrew Book Week
6/12/1997
Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Beer Sheva
1958 Bat Ami Fair for Voluntary National Service
1/20/1998 Jerusalem
1979 Israeli Air Force Museum
5/13/1998 Hatserim
1983 World Stamp Exhibition - Mosaic
5/13/1998 Tel Aviv
1984 World Stamp Exhibition
5/13/1998 Tel Aviv
5/14/1998 Tel Aviv
5/15/1998 Tel Aviv
5/16/1998 Tel Aviv
5/17/1998 Tel Aviv
5/18/1998 Tel Aviv
5/19/1998 Tel Aviv
5/20/1998 Tel Aviv
5/21/1998 Tel Aviv
1987 Postal and Philatelic Museum
5/13/1998 Tel Aviv
1995 Israel 98 - Computer Day
5/19/1998 Tel Aviv
2000 Jordan Valley 30 years
6/3/1998 Arvot Hayarden
2001 Hamilton 98
5/31/1998 Hamilton
2023 World Philatelic Exhibition Italia 98
10/23/1998 Milano
2025 Jewish Contribution to World Culture in the Modern Era
12/1/1998 Rehovot
2026 Continuity of Jewish Life in Eretz Israel
12/1/1998 Zefat
2027 Hanukka
12/1/1998 Modiin
2028 Philately Day 1
12/1/1998 Tel Aviv
2055 Preservation of Historic Sites
4/18/1999 Binyamina
2091 Christmas Noel 2000
12/24/1999 Nazareth
2103 Globus Millenium
1/1/2000 Jerusalem
2155 Science Fiction - Rocket to the Moon
12/5/2000 Tel Aviv
2185 Greetings from Israels Philatelists to Belgica 01
6/10/2001 Tel Aviv
2192 Ohilanippon World Stamp Exhibition - Children Paint Dreams
7/17/2001 Jerusalem
2325 Greetings from Israel's Philatelists to Espnana 2004
5/23/2004 Tel Aviv
2352 18th Philatelic Conference
12/14/2004 Tel Aviv
2454 Qiryat Tivon
1/7/2007 Qiryat Tivon
2462 Centenary of world Scouting, the emblem of the movement
4/17/2007 Tel Aviv

Postmark Pursuit

2010-02-02T14:03:00.000-08:00

For the last few years, I have been collecting Israel cancels. I have been focusing on the Special Event cancels. Between the Israel Post catalog and the IPF website, I have developed a list of more than 2600 special event cancels. Of these, I have over 2500, and my want list is down to only 122 items. Of these 122, 28 are from 1948-1949. I actually have several of these 28 cancels in my FDC collection, but I need another copy to put in my cancel collection. I am near complete for the 1950's, missing only 10 cancels for the decade, 3 of which are actually listed as cancels with errors that were replaced with fixed versions. I am even better in the 1960's and 1970's, missing a mere 4 cancels for the1960's and 2 for the 1970's. I am missing an even dozen from the 1980's, 9 of which are from 1989. I am not sure why I am missing so many from 1989, I just haven't seen them for sale yet I guess. Then come the 1990's. I am missing 58 from the 1990's, 23 of these are from Hebrew Book week (94, 95, and 97). The cancel was used in multiple cities each year, and apparently was not sent to subscribers as part of the standing orders. I am also missing 11 cancels from the Israel 98 show. To round out the want list, I am missing 8 from the 2000's.

I do also have a ton of duplicates, so if anyone wants to trade, let me know.

Database dilemma

2010-01-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

I was trying to get a list of the plate blocks I needed out of my database yesterday, and was surprisingly frustrated at how hard it was. The problem is that there are a lot of stamps that don't have plate blocks, and there was no easy way for me to tell which entries should have a plate block, but don't, and which just don't come in a plate block variety. For example, Scott #16 is the Tabul mini-sheet. There is no plate block possible for this issue. This called for me to add some new code to my program, and create a new table, the list of stamps without plate blocks. I now have the database check this list when it creates my plate block want list, and if the stamp is on the exclusion list, it does not get added to the want list. I then had to manually go through all the items on my want list and decide if they belonged on the exclusion list or not. At the end of the day, my exclusion list is just over 100 entries (mostly souvenir sheets, although there were some regular stamps that just didn't have plate blocks). My want list is now at roughly 150 plate blocks, mostly from 1996-2004. This does not include the specialized definitive plate block want list that is handled separately. I had to handle those a totally different way, but that has been done for a while now.

Cover buy of the month

2010-01-12T15:50:00.001-08:00

I recently bought this cover on E-bay. It was a pricey cover, but I think I ended up getting quite a bargain. This is a cover with the front cover and all 3 panes from booklet #5. It is not a FDC, but is dated 7/13/50 (first day according to Bale was 6/1/50). The seller listed both a B4 and a B5 cover, but I only managed to win the B5. I noticed that a nearly identical cover appears as lot 339 in the House of Zion net price sale that is going on now. The cover in Ed's sale is a B4, and he is asking $950 for it. While I paid a lot for my cover, it was still only about 10% of that price. He did offer to buy my cover at a nice profit, but I am going to hang on to it for my collection. I just wish I had bid higher on that B4 cover! I recall seeing these offered in an auction a few years ago (Cherrystone, I think), and they did realize over $500 each. I just wish my stamp budget would keep up with my ability to find bargains on E-bay.

Back to Mejujaim

2010-01-08T09:34:00.001-08:00

I was able to buy a few more unopened packages of the Mejujaim stamps from a contact in Israel. They are no longer sold in post offices over in Israel, as the contest is over, but my contact was able to find a few leftovers. I found a few new sheets, including the ninth different Blue and White sheet and my first with the Good Luck stamp. I also found a few new interesting tidbits. Apparently, there are 2 different backing papers for the sheets. The second paper has much darker printing, with a few extra elements included, such as some diagonal lines. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the scans to come out. I also found one package that contained 4 stickers, but no stamp. The stickers are not on a single sheet, but rather 4 separate small sheets. The stickers also have an Israel Post logo on the back with some text. The text talks about this being the only official collection, watch out for fakes. I am not sure how common these stickers are, but without the stamp, they are not as interesting to me. I now have 70 of the 100 stickers (if I include the labels attached to the stamps, I add 5 more). I am also up to 24 different sheets. I do have a few duplicates to trade if anyone is interested.

Arbor day surprise

2009-12-07T19:30:00.001-08:00

Last week, one of the dealers in Israel that I buy from regularly sent me a scan of an interesting item. It is the 0.01 value from the Arbor day set of 3, Scott number 552. Apparently, it was reprinted. The initial printing was on 9/9/74, and the second printing was on 12/16/74. I had not previously known about this reprint. It is not mentioned in Bale, as far as I can tell, and I don't recall seeing it mentioned in the Journal of the Israel Plate Block Collectors. I am not sure how much the dealer was asking for the set of sheets, but a quick check of my collection showed I only had the first printing. E-bay had no listings for either of the plate blocks, but I did find a full sheet of the second printing on Stamp Wants. It was listed for $1.50 with $1.00 shipping. It arrived in today's mail. I am not sure if it would have been cheaper to buy it from the dealer in Israel, but I am sure that he knows what he has, while the seller on Stamp Wants was probably just as unaware as I was that there were 2 printings of this stamp, and just listed this for what he thought a sheet of stamps would go for.

This and that

2009-12-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

I don't have anything major to blog about today, but a few small things. last week, 4 of my 6 lots on E-bay sold. The 1948-1978 singles collection went for just over $200, and the US stamp announcement sheets for just over $100. Both revenue lots also attracted multiple bids. I have already used some of the proceeds to fill in some gaps in my plate block collection, picking up another handful of plate blocks.

However, the rest of the proceeds will probably be needed for the next set of special items that the Israel post is putting out now. There is a fifth printing of "The Israeli" booklet (not including the inverted die cut variety and the missing Arabic variety). There is also a special generic sheet being issued for Hanukkah, and a set of Christmas ATM stamps (not sure how many machine numbers they will have this year, but past years have had 3 different numbers).

Here we are at the end of 2009, and there has not been a new Bale Israel catalog released since 2006. They used to be released every other year, so does this mean that they will no longer be releasing them at all? Or, did they just decide to change it to every 4 years (maybe longer)? Anyway, I am not finding that it affects me at all, since I am able to find out what is being released through other means. I used to rely on the catalog to tell me about new postal stationary, booklets, etc. I even decided to not wait on the editors of the catalog to assign numbers to the new issues. They were doing a rather poor job of it anyway (the last postal stationary item listed in Bale 2004 was issued in 1998, before the new publishers took over). Rather than wait any longer for them to assign numbers, I did it myself. One day I will publish my own listings....

Now selling on E-bay

2009-11-21T18:17:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I listed a few lots on E-bay. I am trying to reduce my sizable duplicated pile to something more manageable, and provide some more funds to purchase some items listed on E-bay that I need. Bid often :)

A designer autographed presentation folder for the 1978 Wild Flowers stamp. Somehow, I ended up with 2.
A page of the first revenue stamps. This includes some of the higher values from the set. This came as part of a collection I bought a few years ago, and I already had these in my collection.
A page of the second revenue stamps. This came as part of the same collection. Again, most of the higher values are included.
A nearly complete Israel Mint singles collection. This includes everything from 1948 until 1978, except for a few issues in the seventies. All the key values are there, including 7-9, 16, J1-5, C16, 241a. These are mounted on White Ace pages. I only spot checked the collection, but it appears to be MNH. Unfortunately, #9 has some damage on the back, but the others look fine.
8 pages of Palestine (British Mandate) stamps. I am not sure where these came from, but I was holding on to them in the hopes that I would one day have time to go through and identify the various varieties. They are all different shades, perfs, papers, and cancels for the various pictorial issues. I finally admitted to myself that I don't want to get that into the Palestine stamps. I figure someone out there might want to.
The last item has nothing to do with Israel. These are 200+ US stamp announcement sheets. I have no idea if these have a different name, but they appear to be publicity sheets printed by the USPO to publicise the stamps that were coming out. They contain a bunch of information about the stamp, and say POST ON BULLETIN BOARD. I have ones covering the late 60's and the early 70's. These include all kinds of subjects for stamps, as well as postal stationary.

Hopefully, there is something for everyone there. Good luck.

New booklet variety

2009-11-19T14:17:00.001-08:00

Well, I thought I was running out of stuff to say in the blog, but now I find myself posting something new for the third day in a row. I guess you never can tell what you will find.

What I found is a new variety of "The Israeli" booklet. One of the stamps (lower right) in the pane is missing the Arabic text. I have seen this offered by 2 separate dealers now on E-bay. Both dealers confirmed that the booklets they have are from the recent 4th printing of the booklet. Both show the same stamp missing the same text. Both lots appear to have been listed within a few hours of each other, and both had the same start price, $89. One booklet sold for a best offer price of $69, the other is still available on E-bay (at least, it is as I am writing this). I am not sure how common this variety is. The 2 copies of the 4th printing of the booklet I have (1 mint, 1 FDC) both do not have the variety. I have asked a few other dealers in Israel about it, and they are looking into it for me.

Revenue Redo?

2009-11-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was looking at some stamp sites, and found something I wasn't even aware existed. Apparently, last year, Israel re-printed the latest revenue stamps, which were originally printed in 1986 (the same design as the 1984 revenues priced in NIS instead of Shekels). The new printing is a slightly different color, and the Arabic is noticeably different. In addition, the new printing apparently include phosphor, which I believe would be a first for Israel revenues. As far as I know, there were 8 values printed (as opposed to 10 from the original set), with the 80, 100, and 150 NIS values not being reprinted, and a 4 NIS value added. I have asked one of my contacts in Israel to see if he can find a set for me at the post office. Hopefully, I can get the set at face value.

2006 Plateblock set, at half face value?

2009-11-17T09:44:00.001-08:00

Today, I was the winner (and only bidder) on a set of 2006 Israel plate blocks. The face value of these was listed at 140NIS (~$37). The starting price was $19, roughly half of face value. Since I started collecting plate blocks in mid 2007, I am missing most of the early parts of this decade (older plate blocks were filled in by buying a collection that went through 1996). I am mostly baffled over how I was able to buy stamps that are still valid for postal use for half of there face value.

One possible explanation is that the seller made an obvious mistake in the listing that caused it to miss my normal search. My normal search is to got o stamps.ebay.com and look for all stamps with Israel in the title. That brings up about 2000 listings, 100-200 new ones a day. This item was not present in that search. In an attempt to cram as much info into the title as possible, the seller removed the space between Israel and 2006 in the title. E-bay's search engine fails to recognize Israel2006 as matching the string Israel. I am not sure why, but I am glad I did some deeper searches to find this item.

Does anyone collect Doar Ivri plateblocks?

2009-11-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

The 2004 bale catalog lists the Doar Ivri plate blocks in 157 different groups (not including sub groups). The groups are separated by Denomination, Type (Slug, Star leaning Left, Star Leaning Right, or No.), Paper type, Perforation, and Distance from the top of the stamp to the control. Of these 157 groups, I have 48 in my collection (30%). I have seen an additional 32 of the groups (20%) listed on E-bay at one time or another. The remaining 50% I haven't seen on E-bay yet (at least, as long as I have been tracking this).

Recently, I decided to look at the these plate blocks in more detail. I started tracking all the listings of these on E-bay (and even checked Delcampe and Stamp Wants). There are 85 plate blocks that came up in my search. 6 of these had significant errors (4 were double perf, 2 were imperf). If I exclude these, the start price of the listing was on average 60% of the Bale 2004 catalog value. However, only 7 of these blocks sold. 3 of the lots that sold were from the batch of 4 with double perfs. The other 4 sold for only 37% of catalog on average. This doesn't even tell the whole story, since of the 4 that sold, 2 sold for less than 20% of catalog value, and 2 sold for just over 50% of catalog value.

It is also interesting that only 18 of the 85 lots were listed in the traditional auction format, while the rest are listed in the store format with buy it now prices. The 2 plate blocks that sold for under 20% of catalog value were both listed in the traditional auction format. That isn't to say there aren't bargains available in the store format. There is a 50 mill plate block, group 141, listed at $19 buy it now. The catalog value of this block is $160. It has been listed since June at this price, and there have been no takers, even at 12% of catalog value. There are 3 other plate blocks listed at less than 25% of catalog value, so this is not an isolated case.

One of the benefits of looking at plate blocks is that they each have serial numbers that make identifying them easy. This allows me to get a more complete look at what is going on with the price of an individual item. For example, one seller listed the 15 mil plate block from group 94 with serial number 1030 3 separate times before it sold (to me). The first time, it was listed in his store at $27 (54% of the $50 catalog value). It went unsold until 10/20/09, when the listing ended. The seller than listed it in a 7 day traditional auction with a start price of $12 (24% of catalog value). Again, it went unsold. It was then listed in another 7 day traditional auction with a start price of $9 (18%). I was the only bidder. I could have taken a chance that it would have been re-listed lower, but I decided to buy it.

There is also a significant benefit to shopping around. There are 10 copies of the 50 mill plate block in group 141 currently for sale. They range in price from $19 to $130 (12% - 81%). Some of the blocks in the middle are listed as LH, while both the high and low priced ones are listed as MNH.

I also see one seller listing the same plate block on E-bay and Stamp Wants. The prices on each site are very different. The 20 mill group 123 plate block is listed on stampwants for $1300 (with the make offer option enabled), and the same plate block is on E-bay for $1400 (again, with the make offer option enabled). The same seller has a 50 mill group 139 plate block for sale on E-bay for $399, while on Stamp Wants, the exact same block (identical serial number) is listed at $500. The same seller also has an imperf plate block of the 5 mill for sale on both sites. It is listed at $900 on Stamp Wants, and a staggering $1200 on E-bay. It definitely would pay to shop around if you are in the market for these high end plate blocks!

Too much of a good thing

2009-11-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

These last few weeks, I have seen a ton of material I need listed on E-bay. My watch list is normally 20 items or so, recently, it has topped 75 items. Many of these are store inventory items listed with a buy it now price that is usually not as good of a deal as I can get on an auction, or are just not worth the price plus the shipping. When I buy something at auction from a seller, I will see if there is something on my watch list from the same seller that I can add to the order. This way, I can get the item without paying the added shipping. Sometimes, I will e-mail the seller asking them to make a deal at a lower price for the second item.

Some are very good deals, but I need to wait until my budget will allow me to buy them. Some I am watching just to see if the seller can get that much for an item (Bulletins for $15 each? I hope he gets it, I would be willing to sell 100's at 15 cents a piece if I could get it!).

In order to avoid cluttering up my watch list, I actually bid on a few lots right as I saw them, rather than wait until the last minute like I usually do. One reason I did this, is that if the item goes above the minimum bid, I probably wouldn't bid on it. So, rather than let someone else make the decision for me, I just made the bid and now if someone wants it, they will have to decide if it is worth more than the minimum. I will see how well this strategy works.

Landscapes

2009-10-20T15:24:00.001-07:00

I am getting close to completing my collection of landscape plate blocks. Of the 171 plate blocks listed in Bale, I am missing only 6. 2 of these 6 are well out of my reach (LS6 at $2000, and LS113a at $3000). The remaining 4 (LS7, 27, 51 and 55), should be within my budget, assuming I ever see them for sale. LS55, which catalogs for $8, is the one that doesn't really fit here. LS7 and 51 both list for $280, and LS27 at $110, so these are evidently more rare. I don't think the catalog values are very accurate, since I never came close to paying full catalog price for any of the more valuable blocks (I think I averaged paying less than 20% of catalog price), but they should be useful to reflect relative scarcity. That is why I am baffled that I am missing one that lists for $8. It should be relatively common. Of course, the common ones were where I actually had to pay much closer to actual catalog price (sometimes over it, when you factor in shipping). Dealers seem much more willing to get $30 for a $110 item, then they are to get $5 for a $10 item. It seems counter-intuitive.
Shouldn't the rarer items go for a higher percentage of list price then the more common items? My best guess is that there just aren't that many buyers for this type of material now, and dealers are just trying to clear their inventory before the catalog makers catch up with the new reality of the market. Will this ever happen?

Why did they do this?

2009-10-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

I started to put away my 2008 stamps in the White Ace pages I got a few weeks ago, and found I was missing some stamps. How can this be possible? I get all the new issues, and I am constantly finding stamps that are not included in the pages. How can I be missing some? It turns out that they decided to have spots for some of the booklet singles in the album this year. I have the complete booklets, and I save those in a different album, since there are no spaces for the complete booklets in the White Ace albums. Now, I have to make a choice. Do I buy a second booklet to break up so that I can fill the spots in my album? Do I try and buy just a single from the booklet, probably paying a hefty premium? Or do I just leave the spot blank? My first inclination is to leave the spot blank. I would have no use for the left overs from buying a second full booklet, and I don't think it is worth paying a premium just to fill the spot.

White Ace album pages

2009-09-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

When I started my collection (20+ years ago now), I used White Ace Israel Tab pages to house my stamps. I have continued to use White Ace, with my dad sending me the supplement each year. When I first started getting supplements, they would come out in April or May each year. Then, a few years ago, the supplements started slipping to June or July. I think last years came out in August. This year, it is the end of September and the supplement just became available. I don't get it. Why, in this day and age, does it take over 9 months to put together a supplement that is probably only 10 pages. Nearly all of the 2009 stamps from Israel are already released now, yet none will be included in this supplement. The last 2008 stamp was issued on 12/17/08. I realize it is unrealistic to expect the supplement to be ready for 4-6 weeks after the year ends, but why 9 months? The 2010 car models were available before the 2008 Israel supplement. Something is wrong here.

Reprints, reprised

2009-09-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

Looks like the Israel Post ran out of stamps again. The 50Ag and 1NIS menorah self adhesive sheets are being reprinted, and a new value (40Ag) is being added. The reprinted sheets have 2 Menorah's on the selvage to indicate the second printing. In addition, The Israeli booklet is being reprinted for the fourth time, and this one will have 4 Menorah's on the back to show that. If these printings are handled the same way as the past ones, none will be offered by the philatelic service.

Bargains on E-bay

2009-09-03T16:39:00.000-07:00

OK, so the question was asked how do I find bargains on E-bay. There are some tricks, which I will not be sharing so that they will still work for me, but mostly it is just looking. Every day. I start with going to stamps.ebay.com and searching for Israel. I do this almost every morning. I sort the items by newly listed, and then I only need to look at the items listed since I last looked. Usually, there are 100 or so new items a day. It doesn't take long.

So, what do I find at bargain prices? Here is an example of what I found now (none of these items are being sold by me, nor do I have any financial interest in driving up the prices for them). Obviously, I am not going to list items that I am considering bidding on, since I don't want to create competition for items I want to buy.

The first item is the Ardon Windows imperf sheet. Here it is at a start price of $9.99. My 2004 Bale catalog lists it at $50.

Not good enough? How about the Postal Museum sheet? The same seller has both the perforated and imperforated versions for sale at the buy it now price of $20. He also has best offer enabled, which means you can probably get it for $15. Bale has the imperf one at $50, and the perforated one at $4.

Ok, what about older stamps? How about C1-6 tabs with a start price of $0.99? or the UPU set, currently selling for $5.50? Can't beat those deals.

Ok, so there are 4 different deals that I found in 5 minutes of looking. The deals are out there. If you can't find them on your own, consider being my first customer for my stamp finding service.

Delcampe.net

2009-08-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

I recently have seen some people on the VSC talking about delcampe, an Internet auction site, and decided to take a look. One of the selling points of delcampe is that they don't charge sellers a listing fee, and just by looking at the items for sale on the site I can see this. There were over 35,000 items that came up in my search for Israel stamps. It took a while, but I looked at all of them. This was made easier by the fact that I could see 500 per page, and the site loaded fairly quickly. Also, it didn't take long to look at each item because they were mostly uninteresting. I could break the items into 4 large categories.

The first, and largest, was single used stamps that are basically a dime a dozen (and you would be lucky to get that much for them!) Is anyone really looking to buy used definitive stamps at 2-3 cents each? The shipping costs make this a no win situation, even if there were a lot of people who collect this way.

The second category are mint stamps and FDC's listed at full retail price. This was also a fairly large chunk of the listings. I guess when there is no cost to list the items, there is no reason to start the item low and let the market determine the price. Maybe I am spoiled by the prices I can buy items for on E-bay, but I guess this makes more sense for sellers. I just can't see paying 10-15 Euros (almost all the lots were priced in Euros) for an item that catalogs for $15-$20. Once I factored in shipping, I would be paying more than full catalog price. If this was a super fine example of a rare stamp, maybe. But, for an IRC? Yes, it would have removed an item from my want list, but I just can't justify spending that much on it.

The third category is interesting items from sellers who I can't do business with. Admittedly, this is a very small category, but there were a few covers that I was interested in, but the seller would not accept any method of payment I could send. Most of my purchases from E-bay have been done by PayPal, and a few by check. However, there were sellers on delcampe that would only accept a bank transfer, or in Euros (send cash?). If the items were priced better, i may have invested some time in finding a way to make the transaction work, but they were priced right at the limit of what I was willing to pay, and it just wasn't worth it to put in the extra effort.

The fourth category was also the smallest. Items priced well that I needed. There was a single plate block that I placed a bid of $0.40 on. I wish I had found more from the same seller that I needed to amortize the shipping costs across, but I didn't. It is not even a rare plate block, just one that I am missing. Maybe it is even priced at full catalog price, but it was cheap enough that I felt I could bid. I won't be too disappointed if I am outbid, but I would like to win. And the seller even accepts PayPal.

So, out of 35,000+ listings, I found 1 to bid on. Not a good return on the hours of time I spent looking at the site, and not nearly as well as I do on E-bay on a daily basis (I usually find 1-2 items for every 100 that I at least watch).

An update on the special self adhesive sheets

2009-08-24T14:16:00.001-07:00

Last week, I mentioned that I would provide an update on the special self adhesive sheets from the post office. So, here goes.

I had someone at my work help translate the sticker book that was given away at the post office. There is a letter in there basically encouraging kids to go back to simpler times, before video games, and before the Internet, and start collecting again. Not just collect stamps, but collecting in general.

There are 100 spots in the sticker book for the numbered stickers on the post office sheets. There are also additional blank spots for people to put pictures of their friends, their classmates, and their family.

I now have in my collection 18 different post office sheets. 6 of these are with the hugs and kisses stamp, 8 are with the Blue and White stamp, 3 are with the With Love stamp, and 1 is with the Mazel Tov stamp. Based on the philatelic service versions, I know I am missing 4 of the stamps (Thank You, Good Luck, and the 2 different Flower stamps). Based on this data, I am unable to determine how many different sheets of each exist (or if they were issued in even numbers of combinations). I am hoping that some of my contacts in Israel can provide that kind of information. From examining the 18 different sheets I have, I can tell you that the sticker combinations are not unique. Some stickers are on multiple sheets. For example, sticker #56 is on both a Blue and White sheet and a With Love sheet. I also do not have any sheets that exactly correspond to the sticker combination seen on the Philatelic Service version of the stamps, but I can't rule that out either.

Basically, I am still in need of more data. If anyone out there has more of these sheets to sell or trade, please let me know. Thanks.

Latest purchase

2009-08-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

I have been real inactive with my stamps for a few weeks, but just purchased the lot on the left here on E-bay. It is 2 copies of the Shrulik booklet. The one on the top has a cyclometer number next to the printing date, while the one on the bottom is missing the cyclometer number. I remember when these were first discovered, and I was offered a mint tete-beche sheet, a FDC of the sheet, and a booklet all missing the cyclometer number. Each was in the $150 range, and I passed on them all. My 2004 bale catalog lists the mint Tete Beche sheet as IrS.45e, with a $400 value for the mint sheet. The FDC and the booklet don't appear to be listed. I occasionally still see the sheet offered on E-bay, always for upwards of $100. When I saw this lot on E-bay, with an $18 starting price, I figured it was worth a shot. I guess either no one else saw it, or they didn't realize the significance. I was the sole bidder, and picked up the lot for $18. Since both the normal and the error booklet were included, each cost me $9. While I am sure the error is not worth $400, I am pretty sure it is worth more than $9. It looks like there are still bargains to be had on E-bay, you just have to keep looking.

I did receive one other item from Israel last week. It is a book that was given away at the post office to hold the stickers from the special self adhesive sheets. It has 100 spots for the stickers. I need to bring it to one of my friends that speaks Hebrew so they can translate it for me, but at least it is a step to solving the mystery. I will post more details next week when I have more news.

All's quiet on the stamp front

2009-08-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much to blog about recently. Mostly, because I haven't spent a lot of time on stamps. My buying on e-bay has been limited, mostly due to the fact that I just don't see anything worth bidding on. i did pick up one of the Zodiac and one of the town emblems plate blocks I needed, but other than that, my watch list mostly contains store items that I need but don't quite want to spend the money on. Occasionally, if I find a bargain from one of the sellers I will add an item from their store that I am watching to the purchase in order to save on shipping, but otherwise I just watch the same items go unsold for weeks (or even months). I do see 2 of the early Israel booklets for sale, a B3 for $450 and a B2B for $1000. The B2B looks like it will sell, the other has yet to get a bid. Both are well out of my budget, so I will not be bidding. The market for these early booklets remains strong. Otherwise, I just keep looking to see what interesting items come up next.

Recent sales on E-bay

2009-07-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

well, the market for better Israel stamps seems to be holding up strong on E-bay. A set of J1-5 with tabs sold for $2000, and a plate block of 4 of the 500 mil Doar Ivri sold for $400. These are surprisingly high prices to me.

Speaking of high prices, for some reason I am on the Apfelbaum auction mailing list. every few weeks they send out a link to there latest auction. I always look to see what they have in Israel. Usually, it is 1-2 lots. Recently, the same lot has been re-appearing in every auction. It is a basic tab collection up from 1949-1970, missing most of the high value tabs (25, 28-30, C1-6, etc). They have an estimate of $400-$500 on the lot. However, the minimum bid is $750. How in the world do they expect people to bid twice their estimate as a start bid? No wonder it never sells. Not that I would buy the lot, I just find it fascinating that people keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. A lot of what I do at work is looking at failures, and figuring out what we need to do next time to avoid the same problems. I guess not everyone does this on a regular basis.

Plate blocks

2009-07-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I just received my June shipment of plate blocks from Israel Post. The With Love definitive stamp came as a plate block of 4. Unfortunately, looking at the sheet, the plate block should have been a block of 6. The Menorah symbol (signifying first printing) is on the margin of the 3rd stamp down on the right side of the sheet. So, a block of 4 would not have this. Just something to watch out for.

My plate block collection was started by buying a few collections. Unfortunately, these collections ended around 1996. Starting in 2007, I subscribed to Israel post to get the new issue plate blocks directly. So, I have a roughly 10 year gap in my collection. Unlike the earlier Israel stamps, the ones I need are still valid for postage, and are therefore rather expensive, even at just face value. Last week, I saw a lot on E-bay offering 124 plate blocks from this missing decade in my collection with a total face value of NIS1658 (roughly $425). The starting bid was $299 (roughly 70% of face). I was the only bidder. It looks like I saved 30% (plus shipping costs) by not getting these direct from the postal service. A good deal for me, but a bad sign on the future value of my collection of these, I think.

Again?

2009-07-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was checking e-bay and noticed that there was a new generic sheet. This is with the new With love stamp. Instead of the smiling face, this one is themed with the Disney channel. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse has four stamps, Hanna Montana has 4 stamps, and the Jonas Brothers get four. This issue seems clearly aimed at kids and Disney topical collectors. Julie already has said she wants the Mickey Mouse stamp for her collection. At $18-20 a sheet (asking price on E-bay), it is just another shot at getting more money from us collectors.

Batting .846

2009-07-09T19:17:00.000-07:00

Well, if I was a baseball player with that kind of average, I would be in line for about $25 million dollars a year. But, on E-bay last week, it grossed me about $38. 11 of my 13 lots sold. Most went for the minimum $2.99 price, but a few went for a little more. Not the most profitable sales I have ever had, but not bad. The duplicates were just taking up space in my stamp room, and they cost me next to nothing (they came as part of a huge lot I won on E-bay, and I consider the price I paid well worth it for the items I needed, the doubles were just a bonus).

On the other hand, the self adhesive stamps I have been selling on E-bay have done quite well. I have sold all 10 lots I listed, and most have had a lot of bids. Average sale price has been over $6.75, with the highest price being $10. None have sold for the minimum.

Bakers dozen

2009-07-02T18:08:00.000-07:00

I was cleaning up a stack of duplicates today, and listed 13 new lots on E-bay. These are all stamp show related. There are some special FDC's, some special show booklets, and a whole bunch of special show cards. All are starting at $2.99, with free shipping in the US. I have a stack of vending stamps and FDC's to list next week. Take a look.

Plate block swap

2009-06-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

I received a mailing from a fellow plate block collector in Australia today. I believe I first started corresponding with this person from a classified ad he placed in the SIP, but I could have found his e-mail address somewhere else. Anyway, he had 33 Shekel plateblocks from my want list, and I had a handful of seven species and zodiac plateblocks from his, so we did a straight swap. Much better than having to purchase these on E-bay, or from a dealer. There are so few dealers I have found that actually carry what I am looking for that the few who do have the items charge outrageous prices. Anyone else interested in trading? I still have more plate block duplicates to trade, as well as a ton of special cancels and post office openings.

More details

2009-06-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, here are the scans. The one on the left is one of the set of 8 sheets offered by the philatelic service. According to my source, the first day these were available was June 1, 2009.

The one on the right is one of the ones available at post offices around Israel.

While they are similar, they are not identical. The key difference to me is the label attached to the stamp. The ones from the philatelic service have the generic label, while the ones at the post office have different images. There are at least 5 labels for each stamp that you can find at the post office. The other differences are the text in the yellow box in the center, and trhe inclusion of a web address in the white section on the bottom of the philatelic service ones.

Below you can see the envelopes that these are sold in at the post office. There is no way to know what one you are buying until you open the package. It is more like collecting baseball cards in packs then stamps. Each package at the post office is NIS4.90, or about $1.25. Unfortunately, based on my experience at 1 post office, about 80% of the ones you buy are duplicates. Maybe the chances are better if you buy a few at a bunch of different post offices, but I didn't have the ability to test that out.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse....

2009-06-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

I am on a trip to Israel for work, the first time I have been on a business trip in 10 years. I arrived here Sunday evening (having left home on Saturday morning), and I leave here tonight (to arrive back home Friday morning). I took advantage of the trip to meet up with some of the people I have been buying stamps from for years. I found out about some intersting items that I had not heard about before. Apparently, there was a printing 1a for "The Israeli" booklet. It has the die cuts for the stamps inverted. The only way to see the difference is to look at the corner of the stamp, and see if it has a peak or a valley. This printing was released in October.

The next item I found out about was an even bigger surprise. The generic stamps that Israel has been issuing for the past few years have been the traditional lick and stick variety. Now, for some contest run in Israel starting in February, they are selling the same stamp in a self adhesive variety. There are 8 stamps, each with 5 different personalized stamps (I think it is 5, I might be wrong though). They come on a sheet with 1 stamp, 1 personalized label, and 3 stickers. The sheets are sold in a foil wrapped envelope, so when you buy them you don't know what stamp/label combo you are getting. Apparently, the first 10 people to collect a complete set win a PSP. At this point, there is no way to buy a set of these anywhere, and I have not seen any offered for sale (on E-bay or elsewhere) in the US. The only way I found out about it was talking to Zohar here in Israel. I went to the post office in jerusalem myself, and bought the few they had for available there. I only managed to get 4 of the 8 stamps, and no more than 2 different labels for each stamp. I did get a few duplicates, and I will probably be listing them on E-bay when I get home. This might turn out to be one of the rarest new issues from Israel in a long time, and one of the hardest sets to put together. Or, the postal service might decide to offer complete sets to collectors once the contest is over, and it will merely be an interesting variety. Only time will tell, I guess.

There is a second variety of the same stamps that were made available on June first of this year. It has the same self adhesive stamps, but just with the generic smiling face label attached. It is 1 stamp and 1 label per sheet. The sheets are the same format as the ones above, but the text on the sheet itself is completely different, since it is not part of the contest. I did get a set of 8 of these, but they didn't seem to be available at the post office (at least, the one I went to). I haven't seen these offered from the philatelic service yet. I will have to call them and see.

When I get back home, I will scan and post the items so everyone can see what I am talking about.

New ATM Stamps

2009-06-12T10:05:00.001-07:00

Last month, Israel issued a new ATM stamp to commemorate the visit of the Pope to Israel. It was available with 3 different machine numbers (001, 010, 015). I am not sure how long they were available for in the machines, but if you collect ATM stamps, you should be aware of this issue.

Julie's 2nd stamp show

2009-06-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I received a postcard in the mail about a stamp show in Sacramento. Before I even had a chance to look at it, Julie had seen it and declared she was going to the show. The show took place this last weekend (Sacramento Stamp Expo), and Julie and I went on Sunday. We got there around 10:30, and spent only an hour at the show. Julie was disappointed that there were no tables piled high with penny stamps for her to look through, like she had seen at the last show we went to. However, we went around to all the dealers, and several had boxes of stamps available at face (usually 3 and 4 cent plate blocks), and one even took out a book of Disney stamps for her to look through and pick out a few at 20 cents each. There were 2 dealers that gave her some free covers that she liked. She had fun, but not as much as she did at the last show. Hopefully, the next show will have a table of used stamps at a penny or two each for her to spend hours digging through.

House of Zion Auction 76

2009-05-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

I sold a bunch of material to Ed Rosen of House of Zion at WestPex, and I took half as cash and half as credit for future stamp purchases from him. The credit was rather large (at least for me), and I was able to bid on items that would normally be out of my price range in his auction last weekend. I bid on 4 total lots, a set of 7-9 plate blocks (the tabs were still, unfortunately out of my reach), and 3 booklets (2B, 3A, and 5B). I just got the results e-mailed to me by Ed. And I am shocked. I won the 7-9 plate blocks, for just over the minimum bid (which was less than a third of catalog value).

However, I was no where close to winning any of the 3 booklets. B2B had a minimum bid of $400, with an estimated value of $1000. The 2004 Bale catalog lists it at $850. It closed at $1900. When you add in the buyers premium, the winner will have paid nearly 2.5 times the catalog value. B3A had a start price of $600, with an estimated value of $1350 and a 2004 Bale catalog value of $1200. It closed at$1650. I checked the other booklets offered, and the majority of the early booklets went for more than the estimates.

So, it looks like the early booklets are hot right now, and their value should be on the rise. Most of the better booklets rarely come up on E-bay, so it is tough to compare. None of the early booklets have sold on E-bay in the past 2 weeks, and only 4 are currently offered for sale (B1, B3B, B5C, and B6). My earlier data from 2007 E-bay tracking shows several sales of the early booklets, most at about half of catalog value. Of course, I wasn't looking at traditional auction realizations then to know if this is normal, or an upward spike.

Did I do the right thing?

2009-05-27T11:21:00.000-07:00

Another E-bay situation came up yesterday. A single seller had about 15 lots of maximum cards up for sale, at a start price of $1.99. I was planning on bidding on them just before they closed. I noticed that earlier in the day, someone had bid on all the lots I was interested in. I can't be 100% certain that it was the same person bidding on the lots, but it is highly likely. I bid on the first one, and I bid it up to about $15, before giving up and moving to the next. The same thing happened on the second and third lots. At this point, I gave up on the rest of the lots. I could have bid them all up to the most I would pay for the lot, but I figured the other bidder had bid higher than I was willing to pay on all the lots. I didn't think it was worth it to just drive up the price he would pay, without any chance of me winning the lots. Now, looking back at it, I am wondering if I did a disservice to the seller? He got less for some lots than he would have if I had bid on them. Also, the buyer got a better deal then he would have, and now may have more money in his stamp budget to outbid me on or drive up the price on lots I want in the future. without knowing the buyer, I can't know if it is a zero sum operation for him, where he has a fixed amount to spend, or if he is buying to resell later, or what the situation really is. As an occasional seller, I would hate to have a potential bidder on some lots stop because of what other lots went for. After all, it is not like it cost me to bid on items that I don't win. I guess the lesson I take from this is to not list too many lots that are similar at the same time, or risk losing out on potential bidders. Especially on E-bay, where most lots have a low start price and rely on having bidding wars to establish the value of the items.

E-bay frustrations

2009-05-15T15:49:00.001-07:00

I have had some frustrating experiences on E-bay recently. I guess the first one is not just recently, it seems to be becoming a trend. I have seen a bunch of lots offered with 1-2 items that I am interested in, along with a ton of common material that is of no interest to me. This is frustrating, since I either have to overpay for the item I want, and hope to make back enough when I sell the remainders, or just pass on the item. This probably even makes sense from the sellers standpoint. Having a few better (or more interesting) items in the lot will probably get more people bidding on it, therefore giving the seller a better price. But, from a buyer's standpoint, it is terrible. I would rather be able to bid on just the items I want, rather than the lot of duplicates.

The second frustrating thing is that I have been getting outbid on nearly every lot I bid on these past few weeks. There was a set of third coins tete-beche sheets up for sale (each sheet listed separately). While I already have almost 2 full sets, a few of the sheets had differences in the margin perforations (one or 2 edges imperf) then the ones I already own. Since I started collecting plate blocks with margin varieties, I thought I could pick up some of the ones I was missing in these auctions, without having to buy a complete set to just get one new variety. However, I think someone was after a complete set, because I was outbid at the last second on every single one I bid on, despite not bidding myself until ~10 seconds were left in the auction.

I am still watching ~15 items, but most of those are just plate blocks that I am interested in, but not willing to pay the buy it now price. These are all store inventory items, and they have been on my watch list for a few months now. I figure eventually the seller will drop his prices. We shall see.

On another note, looks like I will be going to Jerusalem for work in the middle of June. It doesn't look like I will have any free days in my schedule, but I hope to still meet some of the stamp dealers and collectors over there that I have been corresponding with for the past few years.

Westpex 09

2009-04-27T20:17:00.000-07:00

I went back to WestPex this year. The SIP was holding its annual meeting there, and I wanted to go see what was going on. Unfortunately, I thought the meeting started at 10, and so planned to leave my house by 8, which would get me there right around 10. Unfortunately, I got a bit of a late start, leaving at 8:20, and for some reason, the meeting started at 9. So, the meeting was nearly over when I arrived. I did get a chance to say hello to the members who were still there. Apparently, many of them are reading my blog here regularly, nice to know I have readers out there who are not related to me. A couple of people even asked about Julie, but she didn't make the trek with me.

The part of the meeting I did catch was all about the new SIP website. The new website looks nice. It is nice that you can now buy any of the publications online, and even pay your dues via PayPal. Hopefully, the discussion and trade forums take off. Like I mentioned at the meeting, if no one is updating the site regularly, there is no reason for people to come back to it on a regular basis. If the discussions start going, I am sure people will visit the site daily. Otherwise, it will be just when people hit upon it with a search engine, or when someone is looking for something they know is on the site. I did notice one post on the trade forum, and already sent a mail to the poster. Hopefully, I will be able to trade for some plate blocks I need.

I did walk around the bourse for a while. There were really only 2 dealers with any decent amount of Israel material. Ed Rosen from House of Zion was there, and I spent an hour or so talking with him. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to find anything I needed at his table, but I did learn about some interesting postal history items. There was also a person who sat down next to me at one point talking about his postage due exhibit. I was able to help him out a bit by e-mailing him the postal bulletins for the second postage due issue. I have copies in Hebrew and English in my collection, but, unfortunately no duplicates. Hopefully, the scans will work for him in the near term. As an additional bonus, even though I didn't find anything to buy at his table, Ed did buy a bunch of my duplicates. I took half in credit, and half as a check. He tells me his next auction will have a bunch of items I need, and I will be able to bid for a bunch of items that are normally out of my price range. Looking forward to that.

The other dealer with some Israel stock was Michael Jaffe. Unfortunately, I think it was the same material I saw last year at his booth. He had a handful of revenues that I needed, but they were a bit pricey, so I passed. The other dealers at the show had hardly any Israel.

Last year, I won the door prize at the show, a $100 gift certificate that was mailed to me after the show, good for purchases at this years show. Luckily, my dad collects US, and he had sent me a want list before the show. I was able to find a postal stationary dealer who had most of the postcard first day issues he was missing. I used the majority of the gift certificate on that. I also found 2 sheets he was looking for at the USPS booth, even though they are no longer on sale at the SFS.

A few negative things about the show. There is a $5 charge for admission, which is unusual for stamp shows. Most other shows are free admission. Not only that, but there was a $5 charge for parking, and it seemed like I had to park a mile away from the door to the hotel. I heard one collector who came to the show found out that he would have to pay admission, and turned right back around and left. Also, the dealers were spread out in 3 different rooms, and some of the rooms were hidden. I wonder if it was cheaper to have a table in one of the lower traffic rooms?

New issues...expensive!

2009-04-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

Israel is releasing some new high value stamps in a minisheet format that is going to be very expensive to collect. I collect Tab singles, Plate Blocks, and minisheets, with both minisheets and Tabs as FDC's as well. This issue is 3 minisheets, with a total face value of over 175 NIS (~$45). So, this issue alone is going to cost over $100 at face value. The one seller I see on E-bay that has listed these already is offering the sheets for $76 mint and $90 FDC. Glad I can get these at close to face value through my new issue service! At some point, I will have to stop collecting the minisheets, or at least the FDC's of the minisheets. It seems like almost every commemorative (and even a few definitives) are being sold in minisheets, rather than standard sheets. Maybe Israel Post has realized they can get more from collectors this way. Wonder when other countries will follow suit?

Too good to be true?

2009-04-18T21:07:00.001-07:00

I saw this plate block for sale on E-bay, with a start price of $0.99. This appears to be one of the rarest plate blocks of the Doar Ivri stamp. It is Group 1, according to Bale, with a catalog value (in 1998) of $26,000. I watched it on E-bay to see what it went for. It had been bid up to about $60 with 3 days left, when all of a sudden, the lot was pulled. I e-mailed the seller, and he said he had taken it down to get it expertized, as someone suggested it might be a fake. If it turns out to be real, the seller has a real gem on his hands, and will probably be better served to sell it through a different venue then E-bay. He would not get anywhere near catalog value on E-bay, but would probably do much better through a private sale brokered by a specialist dealer, or perhaps through an Israel focused conventional auction.

New Massad stamps

2009-04-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen this particular issue on E-bay at all yet. But, last month, Israel issued a new Massad Tete-Beche sheet of 10. I received this from one of my contacts in Israel.

In addition to this Massad stamp, there is a new series of ATM stamps being issued. Instead of releasing the same stamps to all of the machines at the same time, they are supposedly going to release a new design to 2 machines at a time. Pictured here is the second issue from February. This one was only available with Machine 001 (Philatelic Service) and Machine 006 (Haifa).

Newest acquisition

2009-04-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

I just picked up a set of J1-5 Plateblocks of 12 from an auction (Cherrystone). Plateblocks of 6 and 9 are listed in Bale, but not 12. However, a set of singles catalogs for about $85, so 12 sets of singles would have a catalog value of roughly $1000, without any premium for the plateblock. I paid significantly less than that, even when you add the buyers premium and outrageous shipping charge ($18!) in. In fact, I have seen a set of plateblocks of 6 for sale at the local stamp show for a firm price of over $500, which is about double what I paid for my set. I haven't been able to win a set on E-bay, despite trying for the past year or so. I was kind of shocked that I won this set for the minimum bid.

Julie's first stamp show

2009-04-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

My five year old daughter, Julie, has been "collecting" stamps for a few months now. I gave her a few spare cover albums I had collecting dust, and she went through a box of covers I had set aside to one day put on E-bay, pulling all the ones that interested her and placing them in her albums. It was fun to watch her trying to build a collection like daddy's. She has been asking me when I could take her to a stamp show.

This weekend was the time. There was finally a show in Sacramento, the Easter Seals benefit show, that was perfect for her. There were 8-10 dealers selling stamps, but the main attraction were the tables and tables of 2 cent stamps laid out throughout the room. These had thousands and thousands of used stamps. There were pint sized containers that you could use to put the stamps in, and she filled one to the brim! She went for flowers, horses, dogs, and birds. Not just one of each, but as many as she could find!

Originally, I had thought we would be there about an hour. We got there just after the show opened at 10, and I thought we would leave around 11:15 or so, get lunch, and go home. Well, that plan wasn't going to work. She spent over 3 hours at the tables, then wanted to grab a quick lunch at the show, and go right back to looking at stamps. We didn't leave until after 2:30, close to 4 and a half hours after we got there. The last time I went to this show alone (probably 10 years ago) it took me about a half hour, since I ignored the 2 cent tables and merely shopped the dealer tables for Israel stamps, finding almost nothing, and I never bothered to go back. Now, however, it looks like we will go back every year.

Not only did Julie find about 600 stamps for her collection, we also shopped at the table of donated supplies. We bought her a bunch of stockbooks and glassines, as well as another cover album. I even managed to pick up a pair of nice sheet albums for a dollar a piece. I think we spent a total of $35, including the $12 we spent on lunch at the show, but it was worth every penny. Julie called it a perfect day, and now we are spending some time together putting the stamps in her stockbooks. If I could only get her to understand that she doesn't need 50 of the same stamp in her album...

Costs of doing business

2009-03-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

I was answering a question on the Virtual Stamp Club about shipping fees, and it got me to thinking. How much does it cost to sell a single item? So, lets look at the costs:

E-Bay insertion fee - the cost to list an item on E-Bay, it is not a fixed cost, but depends on the start price. The lowest cost option is to list an item for $0.99 or less, which costs $0.15.
E-Bay Final Value Fee - the cut that E-Bay takes of the sale. Again, it is a sliding scale, but for items that sell for less than $25, it is 8.75%
PayPal Fees - the cost of accepting a payment via PayPal. Of course, E-bay now requires you accept PayPal, and the majority of buyers pay via PayPal, so this fee is incurred the majority of the time. $0.30 + 2.9% (for all sales under $3000).

So, for an item that sells for $0.99, I would need to pay $0.57 in fees. So, unless I paid less than $0.42 for the item, I am better off tossing it in the trash than trying to sell it on E-Bay.

Of course, that doesn't include shipping costs, which include not only postage, but the packaging material and envelope to send the item in. Most of the time, I get my shipping charges figured out correctly, and the buyer actually pays enough to cover the cost of shipping the item to them. However, in a few cases, I have been surprised at the post office when the postage comes out higher than I would expect. Whether this is because of a non-machinable surcharge, or an envelope being too large to qualify as a letter and going out as a parcel instead, I can never quite figure out. Some countries, like the Netherlands, are just insanely expensive to ship to for some reason as well.

Looking at the fees, it is easier to understand why E-Bay shipping fees often seem quite high. Rather than start an item at $3 with a $0.42 shipping cost, I can start it at $0.99 with a $2.50 shipping cost. Both cost the buyer about the same, but I can save $0.20 on insertion fees by starting the item at $0.99 rather than $3. Also, since the E-bay final value fee is on the final sale price, before shipping costs are added in, I can save an additional $0.175 in fees if the item goes for the minimum bid. I know it is not much, but on a percentage basis, it is huge.

I also know that a lot of dealers have discount postage around. If they sell US stamps, they can use the scrap from there US inventory to pay for postage. If you are willing to play some math games, you can also find large amounts of lower value US stamps for sale below face (left over $0.41 or $0.39 stamps, for example).

Now I am curious

2009-03-27T15:17:00.001-07:00

In volume 1 of the Israel Plate Block Journal, there was mention of 2 different commemorative stamps that have multiple printing dates in the plate block. I went through the nearly 30 years of archives that I got from the SIP, and there was no other mention of what these two issues were, or what the two different printing dates were. Does anyone know what these issues were? I checked my Bale catalogs, and see no reference to this either. Any help would be appreciated.

The blog hits the radio

2009-03-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a comment on this blog caused me to post on the Virtual Stamp Club message boards to continue the discussion. Yariv, a dealer in Israel, posted a response to my blog saying that E-bay sellers were driving down the value of Israel stamps. I disagreed, and posted a message on the stamp discussion boards to solicit other opinions, and hopefully get some interesting dialog going. Well, not only did I get some dialog going, but Nancy Clark, host of the APS StampTalk Internet radio show saw the post, and invited me on her show to discuss it further. My 30 minute interview took place on Wednesday, and today it is available for download.

Although there were some technical difficulties at the start of the show (the VOIP system at my desk phone evidently doesn't like the radio system), I think it went well. The only thing I wish I had done differently was that I didn't have my 2007 E-bay data open in front of me at the start of the show. I had thought we would be discussing more of the impact on prices, and less on my data analysis of market trends on E-bay. Oh well, live and learn.

Israel Plate Block Society

2009-03-20T15:30:00.001-07:00

I have been collecting plate blocks for a while, and I just discovered a great resource. The Israel Plate Block Society Journal. I am not sure if the society is still in existence, as my e-mails to the president have gone unanswered, but I was able to borrow the archives of the journal from the SIP library. The archives contain almost 1200 pages of material, starting with the first issue in 1978, and ending in mid-2005. So far, I have made it through over a thousand pages, extracting about 250 different items that I need to add or modify in my database. The research done was incredibly detailed. Most issues are listed, with the number of panes per printing sheet, number of printing runs, and information on how to tell where a given plate block came from.

So, given all this information, what should I collect. My current plan is to collect all plate blocks that have a visible difference. For example, the four different perforation types, or different colors of plate number, or different printing dated. For the shekel issue only, I am trying to collect each plate and each printing run, but this is only because I have a fairly comprehensive collection already. I will not be going back and trying to collect the various pane and printing runs for other issues. Otherwise, I could go on forever.

One last thing. I said I discovered this resource. The discovery was made on E-bay. I saw a lot for sale of the back issues of the journal. I lost out, as the lot went for more than $75. I then went to the APRL to see if they had a copy that I could borrow, and I sent a request to the SIP librarian at the same time. Both libraries had a copy, and it was cheaper to borrow it from the SIP, so I did that. Had the lot never appeared on E-bay, I would not even know this resource existed.