New low for press sheet

With the third press sheet from Israel just starting to show up on E-bay, I was surprised to see the 2nd sheet (Children's Games) show up on E-bay with a buy it now price of only $93 with shipping of $4.  The price direct from the philatelic service was $88 including shipping, so this listing represents less than a 10% premium over the new issue price.  The previous low price for this sheet I had seen advertised was $125.  Lets hope the philatelic service sees the writing on the wall, and stops releasing these.

Early start for 2013?

In the June 2012 bulletin distributed to subscribers, the philatelic service is offering a 24 page prestige booklet for the upcoming Tel Aviv 2013 International Stamp Exhibition.  This features the birds of Israel.  The price is shown as 49 NIS (about $12).  I placed an order for one, but it is unclear to me if they will be sent soon, or only after the show.  Time will tell.

New press sheet

This month, Israel will release its third uncut press sheet.  this one is for the "Renaissance of Jewish Seamanship" issue from April.  The announcement indicates a limited edition of 1,500 sheets, with the sheet available direct from the philatelic service for $88 (including $6 in postage).  This is 501 more than were offered for the first press sheet.  I don't recall how many of the second sheet were offered, but while the first press sheet sold out quickly and the price sky rocketed on the secondary market, the second sheet fizzled, with sheets being offered at less than 50% over the new issue price just a few weeks after distribution.  The bulletin makes no mention of whether this sheet will be imperf like the first two.  The picture seems to show perforations, so perhaps it will come with perforations this time.

Trip to House of Zion

I had to travel to Santa Clara California for 4 days of meetings last week. I have been going to Santa Clara pretty regularly for work, but usually it is a quick day trip on the company shuttle. This is the first time that I have had to spend overnight, let alone 3 nights. Knowing that Ed Rosen's House of Zion is based out of Redwood City, about 20 minutes up 101 from Santa Clara, I decided to see if he would have some time to meet. After a few e-mails, we agreed to meet at his office on Tuesday night.

When I got to his office, I was surprised at what I saw. It was a small warehouse filled with boxes and boxes of stamps. He had pulled a few collections of plateblocks out for me to look at, so I started with those when I got there. I didn't find much of what I needed, but managed to fill in a half dozen or so. Then I started going through boxes. I found a box of Israel flight covers that I thought looked interesting. It must have had 300 covers, although many were duplicates. Unfortunately, Ed priced it at $750 dollars, which was a lot more than I was expecting. I guess E-bay has distorted my view of the stamp market, because I would expect a large lot like this to fetch under $300 on E-bay.

Next up was a bunch of Artist signed FDC's. These he priced at $9 each, which is about triple what I would have expected to pay. Just this week, I picked up about 50 artist signed presentation folders on E-bay for less than $5 each, and I tend to think these are much more interesting than just the normal FDC signed by the artist, since each is designed by the artist and expands on the theme of the stamp. Is my sense of the market distorted due to the low prices I can pay for items on E-bay, or is it that the retail prices that I was being charged haven't adjusted to the new reality of the stamp market?

The last box I looked at was a large box that Ed had labelled postage. It was basically just random sheets and part sheets that were sold at face value. I picked up a bunch of plate blocks I needed for my collection here, and probably would have found more had it not been so late. I called it a night after about 3 hours of looking through the warehouse. We will see if I make it back there anytime soon.

More on the press sheet

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

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

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.