In 1986, the USPS issued a booklet of 4 stamps in celebration of Ameripex ’86, the world stamp show to be held in Chicago, IL. This is Scott #2198-2202.

If wasn’t long before some booklets showed up missing the black ink. I’m not going to detail the whole story here. In summary, prices shot up very quickly for this error which was probably going to be very popular since this was a popular stamp issued for the show. Prices shot up to a few hundred dollars per error pane. It didn’t take long before many more copies showed up. What many thought was going to be a rare error suddenly became much more common. Today, the catalog value for this error booklet pane is $40. It is one of the most common of US error stamps.

Some dealers and some collectors, eager to get into the action very early were left very disappointed. The copies they bought at $100 and more suddenly lost a lot of their value.

Some folks took a risk and were hurt. Those who waited for the market to settle down a little were rewarded by not having to pay a high price.

Enter too early and at a high price, there is a chance you’re not going to win. Enter too late and the price skyrockets and stays there, you lost out on a chance to buy it at a cheaper price.

What to do? What to do? There is no crystal ball. There are no guarantees.