Stocking up at the show

As we work our table at the stamp show,  I try to do a walk around to see what deals might be available.   I saw two good lots and made mental notes to check them out at the end of the show.

One was an old notebook packed with Egypt mostly before 1950, for $195.  Clearly the first page with the old pyramid sets was worth $195 all by itself.  There were rows that were thick with mint 1930s-1940s sets,  2 to 5 each at $4-6 per set.   And in the back there were some early special delivery and postage dues at $5-20 each and a few salt tax and cut squares.

The second lot was full of 5x8 stock cards with about 1000 typical sets, mini sheets and booklets that were marked at about $5 on average,  all for $240.  I don't usually get these kids but we have people asking for topicals all day long and many of these were from less common countries like Marshall Islands, Bangladesh and Comoros.  And they are in clear mounts so they can be slapped on the scanner with no extra work. Maybe we can get the little binders for the rest and have a whole new stock for people to flip through.   One slight headache is how many of them have 2 or 5 or 10 copies of the item stuffed into the one sheet -- it's not as easy to get a clean scan of them, and sometimes we forget to check for extra copies when mailing the item, but these are mostly meant for the show, so there's always something new for people to look at.

I couldn't decide which box lot to get so I ended up getting both lots for $400.  I don't see any way to not get 3x that amount fairly quick and without a ton of work.

It's a good sign when another dealer came over and asked what i got and then said what a deal that was.   I got that for both lots, almost did a quick sale of the big box for $300.

We were exhausted after driving home and unloading the car but by 5pm (after some rest) I had filled about a 2 inch thick stack of 102 cards with Egypt stamps at $3 to $25 each with the top set at $38.50.

From 8-9pm I manged to get about half the stock cards sorted by country.   More than a dozen were in the $15-30 range. 

On Monday night I finished sorting all the stock pages.  There was a small stack of St. Pierre, all MNH, all valued at $20-$100 each.  So, that box will pay for itself many times over.

Now it's Tuesday night and here are some of the top picks...