MaxScore!

A partner-managed MaxSold online estate sale this past week included this lot of Canada Post hockey stamps. The owner was clearly a hockey fan and amassed a small collection over several years and denominations: 46, 48, 49 cents and Permanent stamps. I had an eye to not only adding some to my own collection, but also for their potential use as postage for stamp mailings. 

The pressing question was...how much to bid? Judging from these photos included in the auction, I estimated the total value at $60...if the booklets were complete. (They were not!) With a bid, taxes and fees totalling $30, I was the successful bidder. Picking up the lot north of Kingston, someone had penned "Value $81.78" on the envelope. Score! I was estimating low $60's, but realized I was overlooking some huge $1.80 goalie stamps from 2015 that I didn't know ever existed - in fact I thought these were just cardboard hockey cards. Accepting the penned-in total and total bid amount, this was postage purchased at 36% of face value!

An accompanying one-looney lot included this 1978 Coles Bookstores how-to one-inch paperback with black & white illustrations and...

... a few stamps that one of our grandsons enjoyed looking through. He actually took one of the pre-printed 6-cent envelopes and glued some other used Canadian issues on front and back to make a unique take-home stamp art piece! Now, should I use the other pre-printed envelopes for stamp mail, simply by adding make-up postage to them? Is there enough room?

The key lesson here for inexpensive postage via MaxSold bidding is: know your bid limit, stay within it, appraise the photos realistically and trust that the seller has described the lot appropriately. He stamps, he scores!