1939 Baseball Centennial Stamps with Album
 

Hi Gang:

I am out of my realm with pre war stuff but a local non collector friend turned up an uncut sheet of 1939 Baseball Centennial Stamps with the album.

The owner has done some research and asked me to find out more about what they have. See images below.

The most recent thing he found is:

https://aug21.hugginsandscott.com/cg...?itemid=952475

where an uncut sheet only sold recently.

He is curious if his sheet with the album would sell for a similar price. I think he is willing to let it go should he get something comparable, but he is wondering if the album is harder to find than the stamps.

Any input is appreciated either by posting here or via a PM

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide

Fred,

Your friend's sheet has some issues compared to the almost pristine looking sheet in the recent H&S auction. This is also one of those "You don't see one of these everyday items." that have consistent ongoing sales so you can get a better current FMV for the item either. I'd use the H&S recent sales price as a starting point, and discount from there. Because of the obvious issues the sheet has, and possibly additional ones to individual stamps that we can't tell from the scan, you may even want to look up recent sales of individual stamps if you were to break them off from the sheet and try selling them separately. Individually, the stamps look to be okay, with obviously the Ruth and Cobb stamps likely going for the most money. If you could figure an approximate condition for each of the baseball stamps, I'd look up comparable prices for those sold separately, based on their condition and ungraded, and then add up those supposed values to come up with a low-end amount for your price range on the complete sheet. The non-baseball stamps individually aren't going to be worth much, so I would basically just ignore them value-wise. Because of the damage to the sheet, I would expect it's value to be closer to the composite value of the individual baseball stamps added up, whatever it turns out to be plus maybe 10% or so because it is a somewhat complete sheet still, as opposed to valuing it closer to the H&S sales price. If you try to figure this going by graded stamp values, be sure to factor in potential grading and associated costs, and the time element for grading.

The book itself is a nice companion piece, but not an overly desired item. If in somewhat nice shape I'd maybe add $50-$75 for the stamp book then.

This could be a toughie due to the issues and missing parts of the stamp sheet. Anyway, my two cents worth. Good luck.

regardless it is a nice piece and it will look good in someones collection

Whoever won the sheet at H&S presumably will be out of the market for another one. For all we know, the $3100 result in H&S derived from two collectors battling it out. Now that one has a sheet, this one may well sell for a lot less for reasons other than the sheet condition. I'd probably bust it up and sell the individual stamps, same as I would with any perforated issue that has damage and splits.

I hate to see original formats broken into single units but I agree with Adam. In today's market on ebay you could realize a nice penny for just the Ruth, Cobb and Wagner. Look at asking and sold prices for psa graded stamps and if you price them right could do better than the one that sold on h&s.

This would be a great item for the next top-of-the-page auction.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Don't forget to have the "big dudes" encapsulated by PSA and be sure to let everyone know that the population reports for this collectible shows "these" are the (only) highest graded examples in the pop report. That should make some investors salivate.

Agreed, it would be a shame to have this pulled apart but that's how this "hobby" is going.

To the OP - I would think that the booklet is going to be worth a bit more to someone that only has the stamps and is looking to have a nice companion piece for the stamps. The booklet could be great trade bait.

I think so too. It wouldn't bring $3100, but I think a couple collectors including myself would bid on it. I collect the 39 envelopes, and this would be a cool companion piece (intact).

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

The sheet does have some condition issues.

If it was mine and I was keeping it, I wouldn't break it up.
But if I was selling, and it was something that's not very rare as a complete sheet I probably would.

For example, the post office stamp from the same year and subject is readily available as a complete sheet. If I had a damaged one I would probably part it out.