Linn's Most Influential Companies In Philately 2024

I'm curious to get others thoughts on the latest Linn's Most Influential Companies in Philately list. I was taken by the varying level of detail / insight of each entry as well as the almost random selection of businesses.

Some choices were obvious (major auction houses; very visible dealers), but some seemed, shall we say, to be a favor to a friend. There's also the question of sequence of appearance. It certainly does not appear to be an alphabetical sort... The entire thing looks like a bit of pay-to-play.

https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...cial-edition

I don't see Ebay on there. That should probably be number 1. Is APS, a company? Those are the big auction houses.

Looks like I would have to pay 2 read.

As one of those selected I can confirm there was no quid pro quo for advertising - I haven't advertised in Linn's or the Scott USA Specialized catalog for many years.
Steve Taylor

Since there's a pay wall, perhaps OP (or someone) can comment on those entries that were surprising in some way? Give everyone (without violating any IP) an idea of the list's flavor?

Rather than my calling out specific entities, here's the list. Many clearly belong, but others are questionable - to this collector. I've re-sorted the individual lists to approximate alphabet order. I've also dropped "Stamps" in any of the names.

Auction Houses
Auktionshaus Christoph Gaertner
Cherrystone
Daniel F. Kelleher
David Feldman Int'l Auctioneers
Dutch Country Auctions
Golden Oak Online Auctions
Global Philatelic Network
Golden Valley Stamps and Coins
Noble Spirit
Rasdale
Robert A Siegel
Schuyler Rumsey
Stanley Gibbons
Vance Auctions

Dealers
A to Z
Bardo
Bombay Philatelic
Brooklyn Gallery Coins & Stamps
Brookman
Champion
Chevy Chase Collectibles
Colonial
David R Torre
Double J
Eric Jackson
Fox River
Gary J Lyon / Eastern Auctions
Gary Posner
HB Philatelics
Henry Gitner
HipStamp
Hungarian Stamp Exchange
Ideal Stamp
Internet Hobby Supply
Jay Smith
KAP

Dealers
Apfelbaum
Lee Clark
Coins, Stamps 'N Stuff
eBay
Foothills
Richard Friedberg
Dr. Robert Friedman
Christopher Green
Patricia A Kaufmann
Steve Malack
Markest
Miller
Mountainside
Mystic
New Orleans Stamp & Philatelic Supply Shop
Palo Albums
Randy Scholl
Sarantopoulos Philatelics
Scott A Shaulis
Stamp King
Southwest
Stephen T Taylor
Sterling
Suburban Stamp
Triple S Postal History
Victoria
Vogt
William Henry Stamp
WIP International
Wulff's Stamps

Postal Administrations
Australia Post
Canada Post
Guernsey Post
Isle of Man Post Office
JSC Ukrposhta
La Poste
Posta Faroe Islands
Royal Mail Group
UN Postal Administration
USPS

Prior special editions were based upon reader's votes. No reason to suspect anything different here.

Edit:




And you belong Steve.

I have to admit I'm relatively new. I don't see any names here that are Chinese or clearly Asian. Seems to be missing a very large chunk of the collecting community. Also I recently asked some folks about UN stamps. Why are their values so low despite such low issue quantities? The answer I got was nobody wants them. Haha! I still like them, and if market values are low, I'm not going to complain, but UN stamps don't jump out at me as being influential. Lastly, were catalog publishers excluded from this list for a reason?

I have to wonder how much this list changes, year to year. I don't know all these names, but I would imagine that hipstamp and ebay are the relative newcomers in a well established field. In an old school industry, where 25+ years (in ebays case) qualifies as a relative newcomer.

It seems to me that generally speaking, for better or worse, these are the choices. The smart aleck in me would call this a comprehensive list.

I believe that this is the first year Linn's has published this kind of list. As a many year subscriber, I assume I would have been included in a survey, but don't remember seeing such a solicitation, but perhaps someone else has / did.

There are indeed some strange inclusions

"Most influential" is tone neutral, and doesn't necessarily mean "Most positive for the hobby." A named entity could be influential in a noisy or negative way. And opinions on positron negative will vary.

BobInRye: please add Schuyler Rumsey to your Linn's list of auction houses.

PPG: thanks for your kind words, hope to see you at Westpex.

Steve

The Linn's Stamp News publication of March 2024 titled "Most Influential Companies in Philately" is 1) a means to inform readers about prominent companies in the stamp hobby and 2) a vehicle to sell advertising to stamp dealers.

Who would buy an ad in such a publication? Answer: Companies that already buy ads in Linn's Stamp News or Scott Stamp Monthly.

That is why the companies listed previously in this thread are almost exclusively companies that have advertized in LSN or SSM in the past year or two. I did not check, but perhaps they all are recent advertisers in LSN or SSM.

By my count, 21 of the 77 auction firms, dealers, or postal administrations profiled in "Most Influential Companies in Philately" bought 16½ pages of ads. Most were full-page ads. Some were half pages. The best outcome for Linn's would have been if all 77 had purchased ads.

The editorial matter in Linn's "Most Influential Companies in Philately" is what gets us to flip through and read such a publication. Yes, the dealers supplied most of that editorial matter, but it took many hours of staff time to put the text and the images together as pages. It was not free.

Stamp dealers, especially those who make the stamp hobby their livelihood, keep the stamp hobby humming along. To do that, dealers pay for ads, pay for show tables, or pay fees to online platforms.

The Linn's Stamp News publication of March 2022 titled "Most Influential Philatelists and Their Epic Stamp Stories" featured 76 individual in 73 profiles. By my rough count, about 40 of the 76 were stamp dealers, auctioneers, or otherwise commercial.