Bill Gross US Singles Sale Announced - June 2024

Gosh I just love how a stamp, cover or collection can be taken down by those who could never do what it is they a degrading.

Collect nothing but 95 and higher graded stamps and some will say your US collection is not complete.

Collected a complete collection of US and others will complained about centering.

Funny that out of thousands of issued US stamps, there are 75
in the bunch considered top. Those are the same 75 missing from 99+% of collections. Heck why bother to collect.

I have the catalog...that's as close as I'm going to get to having those in my collection.

Two hours in to the auction with less than 50 lots sold, the auctioneer remarked, Gosh, maybe we should have made this a "Top 50" sale.

Earlier he joked they might still be selling lots until 2 AM. (And if they did, maybe whoever is still around at 1 AM would get a good deal on an Inverted Jenny at lot #91).

I agree that I wish the group lots were broken down into smaller batches. I might have bought a small item or two to have a piece of this important collection, but not when the balance lots are estimated between $1000 and $4000 (at 25% cat typically) and will probably go higher. I mean how often do you see a good looking mint 293 and mint 404 in a balance lot?

The quality of the balances looks fine, mostly better than a typical collection, but surely we have seen some better looking stamps in graded collections. I would be satisfied with the quality in the balances, but I can rest well knowing that some of my two-cent reds and National Parks singles are better than what I see in the Gross collection.

ParcelPost Guy - my assessment was based on the relative rarity of the stamps on offer. What was sold last night was not the top 100 US. It was the group of stamps Siegel thought fit best together and had the highest market value. While the postage due were interesting, they really weren't of the same level as many of the other stamps offered. Ditto the too long list of Continental Bank Notes.

Even if the first 100 contained "25% fluff material" all lots sold for a hammer of 5 or more figures.