How to liquidate a stamp collection

Factual Questions
1

I recently inherited a several thousand stamps, primarily American and British, 60-100 years old. I’d like to sell them, but how can I establish a reasonable price? My fear is that the collection may include one or two stamps of significant value, and I’ll give them away for a fraction of their real worth.

2

One of the better auction houses might be an avenue to pursue but be aware their services do not come cheap. You might also hire a knowledgeable expert with a good reputation to grade and price your collection for insurance purposes. This will also probably not be cheap.

3

Two ways:

  1. Take the collection to several appraisers, and pump them for as much info as you can, and/or sell them to the highest bidder.

  2. If you’re into the “if you want it done right, do it yourself” school, you’ll have to acquire some expertise on your own. Look up “stamp collecting” in your favorite search engine and/or the card catalog at your library, and picks up some lists of stamp values. Go thru the stamps and look them up, and find out for yourself which ones are the hidden treasures.

4

Liquidate stamps? Put in blender, set on high.
My advice? You don’t need the money enough to sell those stamps. If you have kids, share the stamps with them and let it become a family heirloom. Your stamps will only increase in value, believe me. Have them to remember who you inherited them from.

But then again, they are your stamps.

5

IANAP (philatelist) but I do collect and my parents are antique dealers. Bottom line, for a collection with a lot of items, especially if there is not telling which of the items may be of highest value, it is not clear how quickly you can act, nor how much you will make when you do act. Watching “Antiques Roadshow” when they quote values, those are retail values, which implies you can identify collectors willing to pay retail. As a rule, dealers will pay closer to 50% of the retail value - they need to make a profit and they provide a vital service in connecting supply to demand. Options therefore include:

  1. Get the collection appraised - could cost a significant percentage of the value of the collection, but you are much more likely to make sure you know what’s in there.

  2. Sell to a dealer - it would help to have some idea of the value before you attempt this - you could easily get taken by someone unscrupulous, or at least not willing to educate you.

  3. Invest the time to learn yourself about stamps - could easily take years, but you would know more about what you’ve got - and it could be fun

  4. Try to sell them through eBay or some other auction site on the web - takes a lot of work, and really depends upon your knowing your topics, which you apparently don’t.

I would either keep them, share them with your family and learn about them - there are a lot of fascinating stories behind them, or get them appraised and sell them, understanding that if you come away with 50% of their retail value, you are doing pretty well.

Hope this helps,

WordMan

6

Assuming that all these stamps are placed in an album, it ought to be pretty cheap and easy (but time-consuming) to get a ball-park valuation yourself on the stamps. Nearly all US albums are labelled with the Scott # (I imagine UK albums are labelled similarly); buy a price guide and look them up. Of course, grading the condition of the stamp takes some knowledge, but you ought to be able to get a reasonable estimate of the total, or at least a high-and-low.

Now, realize that price guides usually list the high-end retail price of the stamp, so the price you’d actually be able to sell it for would be considerably less. For instance, 1930s/1940s stamps (like the ones in the tail end of your collection) are worth not much more than face value, in general. Also (and maybe this is obvious), cancelled stamps are worth quite a bit less than unused ones, in all but the rarest of circumstances. If all you’ve got is a pile of cancelled stamps, mostly from the thirties, then the collection’s probably worth just about nothing at all.

Any chance of a little more info about how the collection’s organized/ what’s in it/ condition?