La Posta January 2002 65
Comments on the Demand for State Postal History
ming and Montana. Both of these states rate higherBy Jim Forte
right now than they should. Time will even out the
I have issued U.S. town cancel pricelists since 1985.
numbers.
One of the most common discussions I have had over
There are two ways to rank how well covers sell. The
the last 16 years has been from what states do covers
first is to count how many covers have sold from each
sell the best and from what states do covers sell the
state. If you have 100 covers from one state and 100
worst. The conversation starts out promising. It’s fairly
covers from another state and you sell 70 covers from
easy to anecdotally decide the fast moving and the slow
the first state and 50 covers from the second state, you
moving states. The conversation quickly slows. There
would conclude that the first state sells better than the
is little anecdotal evidence for ranking the great range
second. The second way to rate states is to look at
of states in the middle. I have a record of every cover
how much money is derived from selling covers from
I currently have in stock. I have a record of every cover
that state. Assume every cover you sell is sold for
I have sold since mid 1992. A bit of analysis of all this
$10.00. With state one you sell 70 of 100 covers for a
data should prove very helpful in determining which
total economic impact of $700. With state two you
states actually are the most popular and which states
sell 250 covers of 1000 for a total economic impact of
are the least popular.
$2500. One methodology favors small states. The other
In order to understand the results of the analysis, it is
favors big states.
vital to understand the data. The information is de-
I think it is reasonable to present the data in three ways.
rived solely from my sales. There is no input from
First, I rank the states based upon the percentage of
anyone else’s sales or any auction data. My business
the covers I have sold. I added the number of covers I
is 90%+ derived from pricelists. I list covers priced
have in stock for a state to the number of covers I
starting at $5.00. Therefore, my numbers do not take
have sold, I divided that by the number of covers sold
in demand for covers under $5.00. Most of the covers
and then expressed that result as a percentage. Sec-
I sell are under $50.00. The numbers have more lim-
ond, I rank the states based upon the total sales for the
ited value for expensive covers. I do not list covers
state. I totaled the sale price of all the covers I have
after 1945. My numbers cannot make any statement
sold for a state, divided that number by the total sales
about more modern material. I focus on serving be-
for all town cancels and express that number as a per-
ginning and intermediate collectors. In most cases I
centage. Finally, I took the average of the ordinal rank-
do not sell to the leading collectors for the state. There-
ing for sales by percentage and the rank for sales by
fore, demand from advanced collectors is
dollars to get an overall rank.
underrepresented. With all these caveats, these num-
bers represent the heart of the market.
There are other factors which affect my numbers. Since
I issue lists for all 50 states, I try to acquire covers
United StatesPostal History
from a good mix of states. In general, I try to avoid
buying large collections of any one state. This is not
Town Cancels. D.P.O.’s, machines, adver-
always possible. Over the years I have bought several
tising, R.P.O.’s, stampless and much more
large collections. These tend to skew numbers a bit. A
are featured in my state price lists. Which
collection inflates the number of covers available from
state may I send you?
that state. It also tends to increase sales from that state.
This increase tends to even out over time. Over the
past few years I have purchased significant collections
P.O. Box 94822
of Arizona, Californian, Kansas, and Nebraska. While
Las Vegas NV 89193
I have not made any alterations in the data to correct
for these collections, numbers for these states will be
(800) 594-3837
higher than they might be. I have had two instances
FAX (702) 369-9139
where I sold virtually every cover from a state to one
person in one order. This had happened with Wyo-
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