Can You Explain To Me How This Hobby Works?

Obviously, I'm in this " inherited" forum. My father in law passed with a huge stamp collection. I have been tasked with liquidating some of it (the unsorted bags of stamps).

He had a subscription to Linn's and I see some of the dealers buying collections and having staffs of people that break down collections and resell them. Some have said they spent millions last year acquiring collections.

I'm at a loss for how there's any money in this for them. How much are people buying? Inherently some of these stamps are worth a few bucks I guess. But I saw ads for guys looking for stamps that pay $0.70. One dealer said he had 150 employees!

Anyhow, I can't imagine that selling off a lifelong collection might get you any real money. It'd take hours to sort through a collection to evaluate anything and then you're getting pennies for it I'm sure.

What say you all?

A lifelong collection can be worth some money if and that's a big if, the stamps are in good condition, not torn or damaged Also there are countries in large demand, Canada the US China and the UK and colonies. If you live in a metropolitan area see if there is a stamp club near you and ask for their help, they would help you go to the next step which is deciding what to do.

Hello. Most stamps are worth a penny each. BUT, if they're a genuine, adult collection (as opposed to an unsorted, undifferentiated accumulation or a childhood collection) on which the owner spent some time and money and which he placed in albums, there's much more likelihood of their being some real value to the heirs. As for the unsorted bags you're stuck with, it depends on whence they came. If, for instance, it's what's known as kiloware - large quantities of stamps, often duplicated, sold by weight, it will probably have limited financial value. If it's a quantity of material from, say, auctions that he didn't get around to sorting and classifying, it will have more possibilities.

Show us a few pictures.

Thanks. It's an adult collection. Some in albums, some labelled with the Scott's catalog number. I have not seen all that.

There's also stuff that looks like it was taken from another collection to be picked through and resorted.

Then there's lots and LOTs of unsorted kiloware from all over mostly bought from a dealer that's out of business. I posted about this before. :)

Photos later, as this will take some time.

His previous thread with images

http://goscf.com/t/67726

Don

Yes, that's but a small sample of what there is, Don. Tubs and tubs of bags like that.

Since you are totally in the dark about this I would suggest you contact your local stamp club. For a club close to you go to www.stamps.org and click on "community" and then clubs. Put you state in the search ba, and for Virginia you will find 12 entries.


Peter

Va Steve: it may be a small portion of the overall haul but you would be amazed as to how even a small portion of any collection, and here I am not talking about just stamps, gives you a general idea as to whether you are likely to find anything worthwhile, from the monetary standpoint in the whole mess.

The way a collection is presented or stamps stored ( albums, use of interleaving, dealer stock pages, stock books gives the observer an idea not only how careful and selective a collector was but also how much he was willing to spend to display or preserve the collectible.

In the images that Don referred to in a prior thread, what I see I would characterize as an accumulation, not a collection and statistically not likely to lead to the finding of any gems. This would be the kind of thing I would donate in bulk to Stamps for the Wounded. Speaking for myself only, it would not be worth my time to sort through that kind of pile

Funcitypapa, you are correct. There is a huge accumulation of stuff like that that needs to go elsewhere for someone to have the fun of digging through it. I was gonna eBay it, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth.

There's also a lot of well archived, sorted, put in books kinda stuff I haven't shown you all. This was a guy that was pretty into this...books and Linns subscriptions, etc. More knowledge than I will ever accumulate.

But, I see a ton of ads mentioning that they buy back the same stuff they have sold you over the years. I'm sure at a mere fraction of what was paid/it's worth and then sell it all again. Like many other hobbies.

We'll probably swing by NAPEX and chat up some of the dealers with the good stuff and see what we can do.

Va Steve: show us the "good stuff" as you say and we can probably give you a more enlightened estimate as what the whole magilla is worth. I am not a buyer so I don't really care; just trying to help.

I can't yet. Not trying to be coy or mysterious. I don't have access to it yet.

Well, I did have some photos of something I did have access to but the uploader here was being finicky and the site doesn't like i-mgur. So, we'll have to wait.

eBay shouldn't be a problem for kiloware. Weigh, photograph, list, sell, post. You'd do better sorting it, but it will without much intervention from you.

Hoarding level quantities of bags of Black Cat kiloware does not bode well for the "good stuff". Just sayin'

And why are the exact same questions about the exact same collection in 2 threads? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply add to the previous thread from 2 weeks go?

Va Steve,
If you live near the southwest corner of VA, you could contact the Holston Stamp Club in NE Tenn. I am a member and we might be able to help you. You can google us to find an email address. We just sold a families' collection at out club auctions over the last couple months. The family had a variety of stuff (kids collections in albums, a couple better albums, some loose, a few confederate stamps, lots of fairly common covers,etc.) and I think they made about $600. Did they get a great value for the collection? No, but they put absolutely no time into it and got more than our club members initially thought they would get. For the more common kiloware and loose stuff a local club can probably help you.