Interesting cover

Here is an interesting cover I found. It has a complete set of both the second and third postage due issues (J6-11, J12-20). I believe it is a combination last day of use of the second dues and first day of the third dues, but I am not positive. The second dues are cancelled 11/28/52, and the third dues are cancelled 11/30/52. Anyway, it is an interesting cover I thought I would share.

Weekend update

Well, I didn't get any time to work on stamps over the weekend. I did get to watch the Giants win the Superbowl, which was a fantastic game. While the game was going on, I didn't even look at the 8 auctions that I was watching that ended during the game. One of the auctions that closed was the B8 FDC's that I was looking at. They received one bid, for the $45 minimum bid. Another auction that closed was a B2 booklet. This is one of the rarest Israel booklets, and it catalogs for $850. Again, it attracted only one bid, for the minimum of $450. Out of my price range for now.

I still have a bunch of items I am tracking in E-bay, but nothing real exciting. E-bay did recently increase there fees. They positioned it as a decrease, but digging in to the details, you pay more for each sold lot. Listing lots is cheaper, but the Final Value Fee (basically, E-bay's commission) has increased significantly for lots that close at less than $25.

On a positive note, the ads on this blog are starting to pay off. I got my first check from Google last week, for the first 3 months the blog was up, I earned $120 or so. In January, it looks like another $100. If this keeps up, maybe I can finally get the 7-9 tabs I have been waiting for...

Missing overprint

Here is another interesting item I found. The zodiac issue of 1962 was overprinted with new values before being sold. Apparently, some got out without the overprint. Not sure how rare this is, but it is something to add to my collection.

Deja Vu

Well, I did a double take when I was searching through e-bay today. I saw a new lot that looked familiar. Of course, most FDC's from Israel look the same, since nearly everyone uses the official cachet cover. This one, however, was uncacheted. And it looked very familiar. A quick check through my covers turned up nearly the exact same covers as shown in the lot. I think the address is different (it is hard for me to tell), and the ones on E-bay show the designer name on the cover, but otherwise they are the same. At least, they were similar enough for me to do a double take. Now, I will watch the auction to see what they sell for. I don't keep good enough records, so I have no idea what I paid for these covers, nor do I recall where or when I got them, but I know I must have paid less then the start price for the e-bay auction. So, assuming it sells, I did well.

Show Labels

I plan to go through my collection and catalog all the different show labels I have. I think I have at least one from each major show in Israel. I have some mint, some on cover, and some in sheets. For some shows, there were perf and imperf versions of the same labels, and sometimes there were different overprints. I have yet to see a catalog that lists these. Any ideas?

Items I don't collect

While I have spent a lot of time talking about the items I do collect, there are a few things that I have decided to avoid. One item I have avoided is Souvenir Leaves. I do collect the ones that are available through the philatelic service, but the vast majority of these souvenir leaves are never sold to the public, and are instead printed in limited quantities for specific organizations. Some of these limited edition leaves "catalog" for insane amounts of money. The only catalog that I have seen to list these is the Carmel catalog. When I see these for sale on E-bay, the seller usually lists them at 10% of the catalog value, and 99% of the time, they fail to attract a bid. My conclusion is that the catalog values are extremely inflated. In my opinion, these are one step above the gold leaf stamp covers in collectability, and in value.

Shai covers

I have a bunch of Shai covers in my collection. These are first day covers with a rubber stamp saying Shai, or gift, and sometimes with an JNF stamp attached to the cover as well. I assume these were given away to contributors in some fashion, but have not seen anything that says who they were given to, or how many were given out per issue. For some issues, I have multiple different Shai covers, mostly from the JNF, but also a few from other groups such as the Judaica Society of Collectors, or the Army Welfare Committee. Looks like I have about 200 different Shai covers in my collection. Since there is no telling how many different covers exist, I don't have any way to generate a want list. I can just compare ones I see against the ones I have. It is a bit of a pain to do it this way, but it is the best I can come up with. Any suggestions?