The 1919 10/- shipwreck and the Sign of Jonah

Abstract

A few years ago, at a Los Angeles philatelic meeting, a collector remarked to me that the price of a stamp is only the price an individual is willing to pay at a given time and place. There are many factors that go into the price of a stamp-the rarity, the condition, the demand and so on. I decided to see through statistics whether one could predict the catalogue value of the 1919 10/- St. Paul shipwreck, after controlling for condition, solely based on the rarity of this beautiful stamp vis a vis the rest of the mint and used Maltese collection. The first order of business required finding a modem catalogue that contained the number of stamps printed and sold. [excerpt]