Your Duplicates - What Do You Do With Them?

Just finished going through a lot of 1700 US, and I have to 1/2 pound lots on the way... I am just trying to fill the holes in my US collection, and of course, I am ending up with tons of duplicates.

I figure I'll maybe start to organize them topically, but seriously, for some stamps I might have 30 or 40..

Just curious what everyone else does with their excessive duplicates?

Eric

Plonk them, disorganised into cheap Chinese stock books
and put them to auction.
They always sell, well, nearly always :)

Well the ideal is to find another Gentleman stamp collector with an needs list and try to pull some stamps to help him..that way someone gets some use out of them and I may get some stamps I can use in return..i also try to sell at 1/3 catalog..which I feel is a fair buy/sell price.but collectors are fickle !!

sell 'em, trade 'em. actually running low, time to go hunting for more cheap lots.

eBay!

Why not take a second look and see if there are any socked-on-the-nose cancels, any with unusual postmarks, or get out a strong magnifier and see if you can spot tiny variations?

Thanks All - I like all the ideas. The tiny-variations idea is intriguing as well. Latinus, if you have a collection of variations on a single stamp, I would love to see it..

I'm sorting through me and my fathers heritage from my grandpa.. I haven't yet arrived at the counting part, but I am sorting my Swedish stamps. I can with certainity say that I have duplicates in the 100s or the 1000s for some certain series.. Most of these are on cut corners with 2-3 CDS.. I think I should sort them via the CDS instead perhaps? Or should I start soaking? I have checked a few CDSs and they mostly add about $2, as they are from 1930-1950 in general.

Maybe that's an idea for you too? :)

I tend to dump anything thats damaged first off, provided I can identify it as just "general" stock.
After that its auction sites, or exchanges with other collectors - I tend to just bag them by country in lots of one hundred rather than arrange catalogue numbers/values.
I've recently thought of just offering the excessive duplicates to beginners as long as they cover the postage costs. I don't have any stamp clubs near me, but that would be another good source of trades.