I accquired these mint hinged stamps at an auction on Monday night in a mixed box. I believe that these are overprinted "Specemin".
Can anybody give me an indication on value as all the catalogues I have do not mention "Specemin" overprints.
I looked on ebay but these stamps were not shown and what was there showed great differences in values.
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In the good old days of the UPU countries had to send specimens of their stamps to other countries foreign mail post offices so that those countries would be able to know what was valid postage from Spain. Some 150+ sets would be sent out for each stamp generated. Depending on the country sets of specimen stamps might also have been sent to other dignitaries in-country and out of the country.
The truth is within and only you can reveal it 01 Feb 2017 06:30:20pm
re: Spanish "Muestra"
Since they are much more scarce than the non overprinted stamps they certainly have value. How much value mainly depends on how many collectors specialize in a particular country. Spain is very popular and I would guess that that popularity has driven the value of the specimens beyond the non overprinted stamps, especially for the lower values. Higher values can be a different deal. High values of some sets will catalog for many hundreds of dollars. The overprinted specimens are not likely to be near as valuable.
When offered for sale I think most sellers are really playing a guessing game when attaching values or opening bids. You would thing there would be a world catalog for the specimens but I am not aware of one.
I actually just sold a complete set of the Goyas yesterday for $12. I would guess yours might sell singly for $4-8
These are just my thoughts from what I have seen with some logic mixed in.
The truth is within and only you can reveal it 01 Feb 2017 10:06:09pm
re: Spanish "Muestra"
Looks like a useful book for collectors of these stamps. However it is of little use to a person wanting to sell them. No values are given anywhere so that's still a guessing game.
Values become outdated quickly and including them in this type of reference book that isn't updated frequently isn't all that helpful. To approximate their value, providing a percentage of catalog of the issued stamps would be most helpful to everyone who has an interest in them.
I have quite a few of these but I don't really collect them, thus my main interest would be their value.
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy.. 02 Feb 2017 01:10:03am
re: Spanish "Muestra"
" ... providing a percentage of catalog of the issued stamps would be most helpful to everyone who has an interest in them. ..."
But that leads us back to the fact that values become outdated quite rapidly over a few years and the regular stamps may be selling for less while the much less common may be holding steady or increasing, sort of like riding the escalator at Macy's 34th Street
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The truth is within and only you can reveal it 02 Feb 2017 03:22:53am
re: Spanish "Muestra"
For the most part relative values stay pretty much the same. Some countries may go up and others down but were talking relative values of stamps from the same country. Of course popularity of collecting specimens may change over time and that would make percentages less useful in estimating values. For me knowing relative percentages (at one time) would be better than having nothing to work with.
