How Rare is "Rare," in Stamp Collecting?

I was surfing mega auction site eBay, a couple of days ago.

In spite of the fact that the format of eBay-- and the quality of material offered-- has changed (and not for the better) over the years, I still like to go on occasional "treasure hunts," there... looking for the unusual and esoteric for my collections. It saddens me a bit that the site has moved more and more away from being a genuine auction marketplace to being more like a giant retail store. An often severely overpriced retail store, at that.

But I digress.

It seems that eBay stamp sellers-- of all colors and stripes-- are extremely generous with their use of the word "rare." I am always amazed at the number of listings that include phrases such as "Look! Rare old stamp!" to characterize something that's quite ordinary.

It got me to thinking about what "rare" really means, for us stamp collectors. And I was reminded that "rarity" is a very subjective concept.

No doubt, we can all agree that unique stamps like Sweden's 3sk Bco yellow and the USA 1c "Z-grill" qualify for the designation "ultra rare." A US "Inverted Jenny"-- of which only one sheet is known to exist-- can also safely be called "rare." But most stamp collectors don't spend much time in such lofty domains-- we are typically looking at a whole different type of material... but does that make it "common?" Or, more relevantly, can some of this still be considered "rare?"

Let's take a stamp like this one: This is the 1kr King Oscar II high value from Sweden, issued in 1900 (Facit no. 60/Scott no. 65). As shown here, this may qualify as "old," but certainly not rare. This one is in its typically found condition, somewhat off-center with a typical somewhat messy cancel, probably from a parcel card. A pretty normal stamp, which can be had in most dealers' stocks for about $1.00, or less. And it's available, in most dealers' stocks. Rare? Hardly. I probably have 20 of them, here in my duplicate stockbooks.

However, if we compare this stamp to the 10 öre value from the same set, I suppose we could arrive at the conclusion that it is relatively rare. 3.8 million copies of the 1kr stamp were printed, while 1127 million copies of the 10 öre red were printed. So there are 295 copies of the 10 öre, for every copy of the 1kr stamp.

But in an "absolute" sense, it's still not a rare stamp. For the average collector, there's little or no "searching" involved in finding one. Pretty much any dealer who sells Sweden will have it. Or you can visit a stamp selling web site like Delcampe or Stamps2Go, and there will be a dozen presentable copies for sale, at any given time.

So let us change our perspective, a little.

Let's say that we only want "really nice" stamps in our collection, and so the first stamp shown here would be of no interest to us. We want to get our hands on a "premium quality" copy, like this one at right:

This is a well-centered example with a light cancel, fresh colors, full even perfs and a clean back. Given that this 1kr stamp was the top value in the set, and most were used on parcels (or parcel cards), it does take a little work to find a copy that isn't creased, and isn't heavily or messily canceled.

If you were to look through a random batch of 100 of these stamps, you might find two or three in this condition.

Now, we're still talking about the same "not rare" stamp, but has it become rare, because of our premium condition requirements? Well, certainly less common. We now have to "work a little" to fill that particular space in our stamp album.

Most stamp collectors are familiar with the terminology that describes stamp condition: "Average," "Fine," "F-VF," "Very Fine," "Extremely Fine" and so forth. There seems to be a parallel set of terms to describe rarity, although it's far less standardized: "Common," "Uncommon," "Scarce," "Rare," "Extremely Rare." However, stamp rarity seems to be misrepresented (or overstated) far more often than condition.

Now, let's get back to our 1kr Oscar II stamp.

Let's say we want the stamp to have an upright, readable, almost perfect town cancel, like this example here:

Given that most of these stamps were used on parcels and parcel cards, and these were seldom "neatly" cancelled like letters might be, things get a lot trickier. To get a copy like this, the stamp would first have to be one of the limited number that was used on a registered or "money" letter, requiring a high value stamp... in order to get a neat hand cancel. Perhaps 1-in-50 of these stamps were used for that purpose. But not all of those got a perfect cancel. Cancels of this quality are very difficult to find, on the 1kr Oscar. Perhaps 1-in-100 (of the 1-in-50) would actually get a "lyx" quality cancel like this.

As a collector of early Swedish town cancels, I know how difficult it is to find a 1kr Oscar with a cancel like this-- even if the stamp itself isn't perfectly centered.

Remember, we still have the same "not rare" stamp, but has it now "become" rare? Certainly something close to it. In Sweden, cancel collecting is a very popular area of specialization, and if this stamp showed up in a stamp auction, it's a good bet the bidding would ramp up to $50-75-- for a stamp with a catalogue value of $2.25.

This brings up another facet of assessing "rarity," namely the interaction between "absolute" rarity and the "desirability" of a stamp.

Back when I collected British Commonwealth, I had a copy of British East Africa no. 2. This was an overprinted GB stamp, and only something on the order of 2880 copies were created. You'd think this would be an extremely valuable stamp (given that quite a few were used up on mail and discarded), but I only paid $90 for it. Why? Whereas the stamp was definitely "rare" in an absolute sense, only a handful of collectors are interested in that area, so the number of collectible copies of the stamp vs. the low number of collectors wanting/needing it keeps the price low.

In the case of our 1kr Oscar stamp, the superb cancel certainly makes the stamp "scarce," in its own right. However, with potentially hundreds of Swedish collectors eager to own such a stamp, the demand for the available examples in this quality grade this means that it now "appears rare." And the stamp pictured above is far from "perfect:" It's a little off-center, the cancel leans 5 degrees to the left and impression is not 100% "sharp." If all these factors were present, the value placed on the stamp might go into the $100s.

So, to summarize the "meaning" of rarity in the world of philately, the most accurate answer seems to be "it depends." The best thing a collector can do is to become educated about the stamps from their areas of interest... and then take seller claims of "rarity" with a large grain of salt!

Classic Swedish Cancels

I started collecting town cancels on classic Swedish stamps in the mid-1980's.

A nice "SKENINGE" cancel on 5ö green

The collection started more or less "by accident:" I was at university in the US at the time, and had gone "home" to Denmark for the summer-- in part to visit family, and in part to work (I didn't have a work permit for the US, at the time) to make money for school.

One day, I found myself strolling through the streets of central Copenhagen, looking at stamp shops. This was back in a time where "street level" retail stamp shops were still fairly numerous; there were at least 12-15 shops I liked to check out, on a regular basis.

One stretch of Gammel Kongevej had several dealers clustered together-- one of them was a favorite: Usually a "cluttered mess" of boxes and albums; this dealer's specialty was to take in people's collections-- and even entire holdings-- on consignment "as is." His opening hours were... well... sporadic, and I expected depended on whether he was out making a "house call" to an estate or someone who wanted to get out of the stamp collecting business. I don't think more than maybe 1/4 of the shop's stock was actually the dealer's own material. Anyway, this shop offered a constantly rotating "treasure hunt" for stamp collectors-- no knowing what might show up.

Of course, being just 24 at the time and a "starving student," my stamp budget was quite limited. Besides, I was in the business of saving money... not spending it; I needed to pay for my classes. However, I was working the 11pm to 7am shift at a factory AND taking on all holidays and weekends I could get (at the time called "antisocial hours"), and making a rather good wage-- so I had allowed myself a little "stamp money."

At the time, my primary stamp collections were Denmark, Sweden and France. I had pretty good collections for someone my age, and had even (hesitantly) started a couple of specialized collections... Danish numeral cancels and the Danish "Bicolours" issue.

As I looked through the shop's endless piles of boxes and albums, I came across a battered shoebox marked "old Sweden." Inside was an unruly mess of old yellowing glassine envelopes with thousands of classic Swedish stamps, from the "Arms" issues to the "Oscar" issues. Some seemed sorted by stamp; some seemed all mixed together. Mostly, I noticed that there was extreme duplication on some stamps-- and I guessed that was why the box was only marked at 1200,- Danish kr. (about US $200, but still a hefty sum in 1984, to a young man with little money). After all, who would want 1000+ copies of a 10ö red Oscar II stamp? I didn't know much about classic Sweden, but I did know that "bundleware" (even old) tended to be cheap.

Originally, I included the Oscar II series

I am not sure what possessed me to take a second look-- but as I scanned through the old glassines, I noticed a few had been marked "better cancels" (in Danish) in pencil. I also noticed that these "better" cancels were lovely strikes, by any measure-- most of them were on 12 öre blue "ringtyp" stamps, as well as the "Oscar II" issue. Having recently started my collection of Danish numeral cancels, I decided that collecting old Swedish cancels might be a fun sideline-- since I had reached a point with my Sweden collection where adding more stamps generally required me to spend $20 or more, per stamp.

I should add that I really "didn't know what I was doing," at the time. In my mind, I had a notion that perhaps I'd get a hold of a map of Sweden and cross off (or highlight) town names as I found them. I should also add that I found this box before cancel collecting in Sweden really became "a big deal."

My Swedish cancel collection started quite humbly. I bought a 32-page stockbook, which gave me a page per letter of the alphabet, with enough left over to make a separate page for major cities like Stockholm and Göteborg. Aside from that, all I did was put stamps in the stockbook, alphabetically, by place name.

It was actually several years before I learned that there was such a thing as a Swedish cancel catalogue-- the "Facit Postal" catalogue, issued every 4-5 years. And then I was amazed to discover that quite a few of my original "shoebox cancels" had considerable value... and they went on to form the basis for my Swedish cancel collection.

That was 27 years ago. A some readers may know, Swedish cancel and postal history collecting has since become a "big deal." Although "ortstämplar" and "hembygdsfilateli" are mostly Swedish philatelic interests collected in Sweden, I have met many fellow specialty collectors around the world-- from Denmark, to the UK, to the US, to Australia.

"Finds," like my original shoebox lot, are rare these days because awareness of this type of material is so much higher than it used to be. Top quality classic cancels sometimes sell for extraordinary prices at large Swedish philatelic auctions. Even those from relatively common (large) towns have been known to sell for many multiples of their catalogue values.

"WESTERÅS" on an early printing of 20ö red

About ten years ago, I decided to narrow down the scope of my Swedish cancel collection, limiting the stamps to only the "Vapentyp" (arms type) and "Ringtyp" (circle type) issues, Facit numbers 1-51. I still have many of my Oscar cancels, but am not actively collecting them any more-- and periodically have sold off some of the better items on eBay. Even so, my collection has grown to several thousand stamps and continues to grow-- albeit slowly-- as I visit stamp shows and pick up an occasional "box lot" or collection from a stamp auction.

Part of the slowness of the collection's growth can be directly attributed to my own rather particular requirements of the quality of cancel I am willing to include. From time to time, I realize that I may have put unreasonable constraints on myself-- but I am in no great hurry, and hopefully have at least another 30 years of collecting ahead of me!

Along the way, I have had the good fortune to pick up a few rarities-- at least within the limited context of Swedish cancels. That said, I am still missing quite a few "fairly common" cancels... just waiting for examples to show up, in the right condition.

Danish Luxury Cancels

Collecting stamps with superb "socked-on-the-nose" town cancels has been an integral part of the stamp collecting scene in Sweden, for as long as I can remember. Stamps with superior strikes-- especially from small or "dead" towns-- can command premiums that border on the absurd. Although Swedish collectors sometimes center their town cancels collections around a specific issue, the cancels themselves are often more important than the stamps they appear on. I started my own collection of Swedish town cancels in the early 1980's, and chose to specialize in the "Ring" type stamps (Scott 17-51/Facit 17-51).

In neighboring Denmark-- which is where I was born, and where I know stamp collecting to be extremely popular-- the collecting of cancels has bordered on "esoterica" until quite recently. A few people did specialize in early numeral cancels, but they were few and far between. The thought of collecting great cancels on anything but classic issues was pretty much unheard of.

The Danish AFA catalogues (the de-facto "bible" used by Danish collectors) did not consider cancels as part of their "premium quality" definition until the 2003 edition of the catalogues. For comparison's sake, the main Swedish philatelic organization (SFF) adopted standards in 1968.

Collectors in Denmark are only just beginning to pay attention to cancels as a separate collecting area. Building a collection with superior town cancels is still a bit of a novelty, although the number of lots offered for sale with the descriptor "superb cancel" increases every day-- regardless of whether you're perusing one of Thomas Høiland's fine auction catalogues, or wandering through the listings on Denmark's QXL online auction site.

Because I already had the interest in Swedish cancels, I have been saving Danish stamps with nice cancels for some 20 years. As a bit of an experiement, I recently put some duplicates up for sale on the QXL auction site. I'll be curious to see how that goes. Are the Danes ready to pay similar premiums to what the Swedes have been for over three decades?

More here, as it unfolds....