Raritan auctions May 29th Sale

As expected the last Raritan sale produced a good degree of interest and most of the Russia lots seemed to sell well going for somewhere between -20% and + 30% of estimate on average.

Having now been through the realisations list there seems to have been no real crowd-pulling, record-breaking single realisations, but rather a good strong healthy interest with prices at a reasonable level. These prices showing moderate overall rises against the markets over the last year or so.

This kind of growth and buying pattern is in fact much more satisfying than the one-off wonders or record prices that often catch the headlines and it reflects a strong and steady market growth in Russian philately. Areas selling particularly well were:

• The early Soviet period, which is expected to grow further as more material becomes available for study, (my advice would be to buy now whilst prices are still relatively low even for very good material). 
• Back of the book material and "oddities"  
• Modern Soviet errors and varieties from the 1980's, these saw some of the highest differences between estimate and realisation. For example a set of the 1989 Soviet circus stamps imperforate went for US$650 against an estimate of US$500 as did several similar stamps of other issues during this period. · 
• The growth of Zemstvo collecting seems also to continue with most of these selling well.

Raritan Stamps Inc. PO box 1539, Highland Park, NJ 08904, USA. E mail: info@raritanstamps.com  Web site http://www.raritanstamps.com/ 
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