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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gsalexan, post: 1848191, member: 24274&quot;]You&#039;re completely right about inflated catalog prices for stamps. I don&#039;t know any dealer who doesn&#039;t discount at least 50 percent from the listed price in Scott. Establishing an average market price is always awkward, with any collectible. Essentially you&#039;re just giving dealers an agreed-upon basis to work from. But Scott is in a particularly difficult spot as the standard bearer in the philatelic market. If they were to list the true selling price for most issues -- say, the average selling price on ebay -- it would be such calamitous drop that collectors and dealers would probably throw up their hands and we&#039;d see an abrupt end to stamp collecting. Even if they adjusted slowly downward to reach a more realistic level, the effect would create a death spiral. Or I should say it would hasten the inevitable. On the bright side, it&#039;s a very affordable hobby, and if you view it as historical education, rather than an investment, then there&#039;s no reason to give it up.</p><p><br /></p><p>It would be interesting to know how Krause goes about defining their catalog values. I don&#039;t see anything in the U.S. Standard Catalog that explains their formula. But I will say it aligns fairly well with retail dealer prices. That&#039;s probably a good test for the health of the paper money market (or any collecting hobby) -- the industry standard catalog(s) should closely match prices on the ground.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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