Insurance?

I currently insure my collection through Collectibles Insurance Agency (CIA). I have had them insuring my collection since I moved to California. Originally, you could only get insurance through them if you were an APS member, but that changed about 10 years ago when Hugh Wood took over as the APS insurer. At the time of that change, the rates were comparable, but to go with Hugh Wood, I would have to spend an extra $40 or so a year to stay an APS member. I choose to drop my APS membership and keep my insurance with CIA.

I have never had to use my stamp insurance (knock on wood), but still think it is prudent to maintain coverage. I had no issues with CIA. Until now. I received my renewal notice in the mail yesterday, and they have tacked on a $25 Policy Fee to my renewal amount. This is about 24% of the total policy. I think this is ridiculous. So I called Hugh Wood. They can give me a policy, with no fees, for $40 less than the total renewal price with CIA. The only catch is I have to be an APS member. Membership is $45 for a year.

So, I have a choice. It will cost $5 more out of my pocket to use Hugh Wood, but I would get all the added APS benefits. Are these benefits worth $5 a year?

Bale catalog complaints

While I have been entering the prices for the items in my database, I have been using the Bale catalog a lot more than I have ever before. And boy, is it a pain. I have been primarily using the 2004 version, since that is the one I have sitting on my desk. When I go to stamp shows, I bring the 1998 version, since that was the last that was published by the original editor. For some reason, when the new owner took over, they renumbered some things (I have noticed it in the booklets, but I think there are other areas renumbered as well). My major complaint today is with the pricing. Why in the world do they have pricing for ust a tab, sheet, and FDC listed for most issues? What about a plain single without tab? There is no price listed. Plate blocks? Forget about it. I did find a footnote that says that plate blocks are 4x plain price. Of course, there is no plain price listed. Is it so hard to add the price to each entry? Also, why is the note buried in a crowded page? Can't the notes be consolidated to the beginning of the section? If you want to quickly look up the value of an item, it is impossible. You have to look up the item then start paging back looking for the notes that explain what the non-listed prices are supposed to be.
There has to be a better catalog out there for Israel stamps. Does anyone know of one?

New project

I haven't had much time for my stamps the last few weeks. I finally got a chance this weekend to put some of my latest purchases away, although I am still hopelessly behind. However, I did have a few spare minutes to work on my database program. I decided to add some fileds to track the catalog value of an item, the catalog usedfor that valuation, the purchase price, and the purchase source. It turned out to be more work then I expected. Inserting new data structures into my program is a bit complicated, especially when I wanted to hook tehm up to the inventory and want list generation functions. I also need to enter the data. I have about 17,000 entries in my database, and adding a value and catalog source to each is going to take a while. So far, I am up to 1250 entries updated. Total catalog value of the items I have: $13,548.56. Total catalog value of items I need: $9,402.80. Since I am starting with basic stamps, the numbers spiked up early and should level off as I go through the 60's and 70's. Surprisingly, most of the value is in the plateblocks. Those Doar Ivri specialized plate blocks add up a lot faster than the 10 cent stamps of the 60's.

Where did this come from?

I was going through a stack of items to put away (finally!) and found some booklets. The one on the right is the normal one. The one on the left? The sleeves are brown instead of purple (I have another booklet where the sleeves appear to be blue, but it could just be a darker purple). Originally, I thought this was the only difference. Then, I opened up the booklet to look at the stamps. Both booklets have 10 With Love stamps. But,t eh top one has 2 extra blank stamps. You can just make out half of a plate number on the bottom "extra" stamp. I looked in my Bale catalog, but no mention is made of this difference. This is also one of the few Israel booklets that was not sold as a separate Tete-Beche sheet, so I have no idea what the sheet configuration was, but this is a new variety for me. Hopefully, it is unique and worth a small fortune, but somehow I doubt it. Any ideas? I can't even recall where I got these from at this point.

Another item to drop from the list!

This my stamp thing is getting ridiculous. Today,

I got an offer from a stamp dealer offering this sheet for $100. Apparently, only 2000 or so were made. That is in additon to this set of sheets, a different My stamp sheet with a 9-11 rememberence theme. Last month, it was this set of sheets wishing good luck to some soccer team. There are jsut too many sheets being printed, and they are all being offered at huge markups. For a mint sheet they are being offered at $25 and up per sheet, with FDC's starting at twice teh mint price! Time to back off and just collect the basic sheet with the generic picture they come with from now on, I guess.

What?

I was looking at E-bay today, and noticed something new. You can see here what is being marketed as a Souvenir Leaf. Now, Israel does put out souvenir leaves for collectors, although to me they are of dubious value, at least they are done by the Israel post, and have some degree of collectibility (though, I don't believe anywhere close to what the editors of the Carmel catalog would have you believe!) Anyway, these at first glance appear to be souvenir leaves, and the title of the auction is "ISRAEL SPECIAL SOUVENIR LEAF X 3diff BANK ISRAEL 50YEAR", but these are clearly not souvenir leaves. Real souvenir leaves look like this one. Notice the Israel Post logo? Also, notice at the top, it says "Souvenir Leaf", not "First Day Leaf". To me, it looks like someone is trying to make it appear that these are official philatelic items, while in reality, they are just a private FDC with a different cachet. Not that there is anything wrong with that. There might be a market for Israel FDC's with private cachet's, but I think these First Day Leaf's are int eh same category as the private booklets. They are philatelic creations by a dealer, and are not a must have if you are trying for a complete collection.

Not in my album

Here is the latest special souvenir sheet from Israel. This one was only available at the Jerusalem stamp show in May. It came as part of the show program. The major differences between this one, and the normal version of this souvenir sheet is that this one is imperf and has a serial number printed on it. Are we going to get one of these each year now? I am just speculating that this won't be in my album, since the pages for 08 won't be out until August of 2009, but based on prior history, I don't think this will be included in the White Ace album.