Mad bidders on worthless eBay stamp lots

[parkgateman]

Is that a dot under the 2 of 1/2 in left hand value tablet ?

[The Pom]

Hmmm.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-Good-Cat-Value-New-South-Wales- ... 3129621437

[Allanswood]

Ah, the famous "2d Red" Sydney View that everyone has heard the rumours about!
And from a 36,000 feedback seller.

[norvic]

Hmmm.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A-Good-Cat-Value-New-South-Wales- ... 3129621437

Come on, you know you're supposed to tell us, to save the trouble of looking it up. How can we laugh at it if our catalogues are inaccessible?

[The Pom]

Come on, you know you're supposed to tell us, to save the trouble of looking it up. How can we laugh at it if our catalogues are inaccessible?

Minor details aside, the 2d "Sydney view" is a blue stamp.........

[norvic]

Thank you. I didn't think I'd seen a red one, but then I don't collect these and SG doesn't show a picture of every stamp in the book

[The Pom]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SG1495-502-AUSTRALIA-AUTOMATIC-CA ... 3276954913

Used CV is £7.20, so......

£13.50 for a set soaked off an FDC.

[MJ's pet]

^The seller might have hit on something there.

[MJ's pet]

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Tasmania-Victoria-Australian-Sta ... 4495580501

Tasmania 1899 Registered cover. Buy It Now $250

But, it has *the stamps ripped off* so value in the Real World = $5 maybe

[The Pom]

Shouldn't you have posted that in the "Ebay dreamers" thread?

[BrieffiesWF]

I really like this thread! I often wonder why people would be interested in this for example:

Comment by the seller:

I once bought this FDC as part of a larger batch of older FDC's but have serious doubts about its authenticity (see comments in NVPH catalog) so NO WARRANTY!

Cloud cuckoo land.

This is how a genuine E1A should look like (they do not even exist without address)...

[erich]

Interesting, because the fake would not look wrong unless compared to a real one. As someone who doesn't collect Dutch FDC's, it's not obvious. On the other hand, who else would be bidding on it except people who should know?

[BrieffiesWF]

Interesting, because the fake would not look wrong unless compared to a real one. As someone who doesn't collect Dutch FDC's, it's not obvious. On the other hand, who else would be bidding on it except people who should know?

Exactly! As always knowledge is power. This fake is actually quite crude. A real E1A (with address) is worth about €500,- nowadays.

[MJ's pet]

Shouldn't you have posted that in the "Ebay dreamers" thread?

Yes. But if anyone bids on it, then they would be mad.

[lesbootman]

I don't have the ebay details but quite a number of years ago I spotted that someone had sold a set of the 1985 GB famous trains on fdc and presentation pack for around £80. Anything over face is a result normally when selling 1980's era FDC & PPs.

They'd listed them as railway memorabilia rather than as stamps.

I had a spare FDC and presentation pack of the set so I listed them (as railway memorabilia) and got a similar result. It paid for a nice meal out! The buyer was delighted with their purchase.

You can understand people paying over the odds for something they've been looking for for ages without being able to locate. For common stuff not so much!

[erich]

There was a time, maybe 15 years ago, where you could get absolutely insane prices for, say, Elvis Presley stamps (including questionable stuff like souvenir sheets from fake "Russian Republics") if you ran them as "Elvis Memorabilia" instead of "Stamps". Folks who clearly knew nothing about stamps would get into bidding wars over them.

[The Pom]

This may or may not be a "mad bidder" item. I'm struggling to see £23 of value in this lot. Have I missed something?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/old-stamps-AUSTRALIA-x-11-Kangaroos-/124434179550

[The Pom]

Another one. Anyone care to hazard a guess at why this got bid up to £15?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Australia-1914-4-x-Stamps-mint-hinged-/203180596312

[MJ's pet]

The last two cases are, I think, just examples of UK bidders buying basic foreign stamps that are generally less available to them hence they bid a bit more. Not madness, just supply and demand.

[ViccyVFU]

This may or may not be a "mad bidder" item. I'm struggling to see £23 of value in this lot. Have I missed something?

The only thing that sticks out (to me, inexperienced in roos) would be the broken lines around the HALF of halfpenny, which, if a known variety, seems like a fairly decent copy. That, or the postmark on the 9d (I'm similarly unfamiliar with).

I would focus here .... are those line breaks commons?

(Seems like some fairly experienced bidders, so I'd guess there is something worth having).

As for the latter lot, it looks like just the normal "moving up the bidding food chain", where experienced bidders capped out at £3.30, but decreasingly smaller fish "bid up the scraps". (The penny has two remnants of postmark on, and the glue issues make the description "hardly accurate, at all").

Time to list "your modelling box residue", folks!!

[The Pom]

Wear to the shading lines around the value on Roos is extremely common, so nothing to get excited about.

MJ's Pet suggests that it's a lack of Roo's in the UK causing a fight for material in limited supply. Not the case, in my opinion. While there are clearly less Roos here than in Australia, you don't normally see that much of a fight for lots like this.

I buy & sell plenty on ebay UK & watch most lots going through and this lot stuck out like a sore thumb in terms of realisation.

[MJ's pet]

It is possible people are having a punt on getting some plate flaws (fuzzy scans notwithstanding). But really a little stockcard of old Australia at £15 or £20 is just people having a flutter. No point in analysing (speculating at) their motives (unless a valuable plate flaw/variety/new discovery jumps off the screen).

[Lakatoi 4]

This may or may not be a "mad bidder" item. I'm struggling to see £23 of value in this lot. Have I missed something?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/old-stamps-AUSTRALIA-x-11-Kangaroos-/124434179550

You’ve all missed the extremely rare “Pale faced Roo” flaw on the 1/-............

[The Pom]

No doubting the madness here.....

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TASMANIA-Old-Stamp-Mint-NG-VF-r73e12138/203217759046

[Error]

I feel so very sorry for many ebay sellers that do not have regular clientele. Their items go unnoticed, not even seen among the many auctions that end every minute. Unless they have regs following, they are just fodder for the cross hairs of shhnipers that silently hunt for low starting bid items, that have had no exposure.

But, let me say this about those insanely insane bidders that make 30 bids per auction, days before it ends, just driving the price up. I do not feel an ounce of sorrow for them.

This is my all time favorite thread on this entire board so far