Collecting Revenue - Stamps and Documents.
Many thanks, Yannis. This is very kind of you. I would hope that OFS philately and postal history is more robust than you suggest and that I will not be the last guy on the SAPC site to appreciate your material shown here. Without having properly looked at it yet, it does appear to answerr all my questions. Great! Thanks again.
I hope also OFS philately will continue to have a good following. I attach a scan of revenue stamps, so others can see how they look. I tried to think of a value of te item you bought, but is hard. I would say minimum 70GB mximum 150GB.
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Thanks for your images. These are useful to see.
What is curious about my green OFS revenue is its relatively high value of £3 (Drie Ponden STG). As the document was signed by President Brand in 1874, only a few years before the introduction of printed OFS adhesive revenue stamps, it is not that early. I note that you do not show any pound values, nor does the OFS Study Circle website. This makes me think that it should be relatively more valuable than lesser denominations. I am also intrigued by the handstamp that has cancelled the £3 revenue. Sadly, I cannot make out the LHS of it.
Overall, however,this is about the value of this historic piece, not just its component parts. I am pleased that in a display it will allow me to introduce the three 'Basuto Wars' and the loss of their land to the Boers. With regards to how much I paid for it, I saw the item for the first time some six months ago. The dealer wanted £200. I said it was nice but not that nice. I suggested he try and sell it to someone else and if he couldn't I would consider offering him a a lot less for it. Last weekend. I saw him at Philanglia 2023 and he immediately pulled the item out and smiling thrust it at me, saying it was still available at £200. I said no. He asked how much I would offer. I said £50. He said no. I took out £50 and laid it down on his table. He said "make it £60 and its yours". Bob Hill will tell you that I like a good haggle.
One day I will be happy to recover my money on this item or even make a small profit but I won't try to sell it for £200.
Excellent buy and you are obviously good at haggling! A little known fact, in my opinion, at present is that on can get a better buy from dealers than auctions, given the high commissions charged. Since everything went online bidding at auctions has turned out to be too competitive and prices have got very high. This of course indicates to an extend that philately is still going strong.
I am really not that good at haggling. When I was new to the hobby I bought a lot of material I should not have, hence my 'accumulation'. Then for many years I paid too much for items I did not know enough about. At that time I had my own business and making money was relatively easy. I thought it would go on forever. It did not. Finally, after spending a small fortune, I started to haggle about the good stuff. (Q: How do you make a small fortune? A: Start with a Large One.) Today, unless it is something that I feel is correctly priced and which I want, I usually offer the dealer less than they have priced the item at. I usually ask "will you accept ...." At that point it is their prerogative to tell me to get lost, say 'no' or attempt to accomodate me with a discount. Never ask a dealer "what is your best price?" They may double their asking price and leave you feeling sheepish. Dear old Otto Peetoom did this to me.
I made Bob Hill laugh at Philanglia 2023. There was a dealer there who must remain nameless. He sells good material at prices I find uncomfortably high. If after some time he cannot sell this material, it gets chucked in a box and goes into storage. Sometimes it reappears in his box of £5 items. These are usually a good buy at this reduced price. However, if the £5 material does not sell it eventually ends up in his £1 per item box (still marked as £5). At Philanglia 2023 he told me that he had not bought his South Africa with him. Nevertheless, I found a lot of it in his £1 box. What a delight, it was. I took out seven items that will fit very nicely into various small displays I have on SA towns like Addo, George, Knysna and Calvinia. As I had no cash left and he didn't take plastic, I borrowed a fiver from Bob and asked the dealer if he would accept £5 for seven items. "Of course,", he said. Bob thought this excellent negotiating. It got better when Bob accepted one of my purchases as payment for the £5 I had borrowed from him. All fun at the fair!
Yes, I take your point. Auctions are more expensive, especially with the addition of a 20% commission. However, sometimes one can be lucky at auctions. Recently, by being the only bidder on some prestige material, I got excellent material at the reserve price. I recently won an auction lot against three others bidders who tied with me on price. I won because I had put my bid in first. But generally, you are right, the cost of buying material at auctions is higher than at a fair because the bidding process pushes prices up. The thing that prevents me from buying more from SA on bidorbuy is not so much the bidding as the unreliability of postage from SA and the high price of couriering mail via DHL, etc. This can make buying an excellent low cost item unsatisfactorily expensive.
Maybe we should start a new Topic on 'Buying from Dealers and Auctions!" :>)