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Spring 2010 Newsletter
Uncertainty & Optimism Learn to Coexist It used to be a truism that when there was a lot of uncertainty in the stock market, it manifested itself in a downward Dow Jones Average. Right now there is plenty of uncertainty to go around. The future of health care reform is up in the air as well as the prospects of financial reform of the banking industry. The gridlock in Washington makes any kind of reform very uncertain. Despite all that uncertainty the Dow Jones in the last 12 months has gone from 7200 up to the 10,600 range. Of course a year ago no one knew whether we were headed for a second great depression. That seems to be off the radar screen for now, so that might explain, in part, the almost 50% jump in the Dow. The jobs market, while still being in the dumps, seems to have found a bottom. There are some ‘green shoots’, as they have been called, in the economy reflecting what will be taking place with Mother Nature in the next few weeks. There have been two positive growth quarters in GDP with a third positive quarter on the way. Ironically, certain industries reached record highs this last year. Hollywood and the film industry saw record ticket sales, and perhaps less well known, the ski industry saw a record year. And finally, getting around to the stamp industry, the major stamp auction houses had record sales for the year also. And if all that good news makes you too giddy, let me add that those record auction sales didn’t always translate into higher catalogue prices. For all those who don’t invest a couple of hundred dollars in new stamp catalogues every year, I can give you a quick summary of my impressions on the changes in the new catalogues recently released (I’m referring to the Scott and Brookman catalogues here). The general feeling I got on the US stamp prices was that they were down an average of 5 to 10% on pre-1930 issues. In contrast to the US catalogues, Canadian stamp prices were either stable or slightly higher for pre-1940 issues. Modern Canada prices remained unchanged. So the Canadian market seemed to buck the downward trend set by the US stamp market. Also countering that downward trend, the US graded stamp market seems to have found a bottom with some issues even showing modest increases. There was a curious phenomenon at a recent major auction house sale that had to do with large collections, especially foreign ones including Canada. I am unclear on how to interpret it. What happened was that many of the large collections assembled by real collectors (these weren’t dealer discards) brought shocking prices, sometimes three to five times the house estimates. This seemed like an example of where the total was worth more than the sum of its parts. One possible interpretation of this has to do with the fact that so many of the auction items in the last few years are single stamp lots. Since dealers usually can’t successfully compete with collectors for these lots, they have been, in a way, shut out of a considerable part of the auction market. This may have created a pent up dealer demand for new choice material, which may have manifested itself in these high collection realizations. This interpretation is also reinforced by an increasing number of large Linn’s newspaper buy ads seeking to buy large collections, foreign and US, by major stamp dealers. We have made a few changes at our website, www.crotonstamp.com. You will find that many of the prices of the US and Canada specials have been lowered in keeping with what’s happening in our economy. We have added the 2008 Canada year set to our Canada year set price list. Also, under the Graded US Stamps’ section of our site, we have added a section containing just US grade 98 or higher. Some prices on the Canada Early Sets price section have been lowered, although a few were raised because our replacement costs have gone up on some. Go to: www.crotonstamp.com to view changes. Many of our stamp customers may not be aware of this, but I have had a photo retouching and restoration service for years. Our clients are amazed at what can be done to make an old photo look new, or to make a new photo look a lot better. Just the other day I got an email from a photographer who had traveled to be at her grandfather’s funeral. Unfortunately, she did not have her computer with her, so she emailed me a digital image of her grandfather (using her smart phone) that someone gave to her. The image needed some major retouching changes and enlarging to an 8” x 10” size. So after the credit card info changed hands, I made the needed improvements and the final photo was emailed back to her for display at the funeral, all within a two hour period (she had access to a decent printer that could print out a hard copy of the photo for her). It amazes me sometimes at what can be done in such an abbreviated period of time using today’s technology. To view examples of our work go to: http://www.postersfromtheheart.com/PhotoRestoration.htm. Feel free at any time to email us (croton@warwick.net) your current stamp wantlist. Customers in good standing can have us send them stamps on approval. A Wantlist Form is attached for your convenience. Or call us in the evening (845-294-7361) to discuss any philatelic projects that you are working on. Maybe we can help. All the best, Tom Vaillancourt Announcements 1. We now accept credit cards from Visa, Mastercard, and Discover Card. This will be especially helpful to our customers living outside the US. 2. We will be listing one-of-a-kind stamp specials, on a regular basis, at our stamp web site, www.crotonstamp.com. 3. We have a few limited edition Millennium Collection (#1818v-34i) hard-cover books containing stamp designs with slight differences from those in the souvenir sheets. Brookman lists this item at $79.50. We are selling them at $49.00 each plus $15.00 for Priority Mail shipping while supply lasts.
Croton Stamp Co.
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