Make Money Selling Stamps

joe
Most of the people that sell stamps do it because they like it. It's an extension of the hobby. All the time you spend would earn you much more money having a job. For the majority it cannot be compare to a hourly paid job and it's not their main source of income. On ebay I think there is not many seller that make a profit of $40 000 and more every years and that can pretend to make a living selling stamps.

I agree 100%. Which is the point I was trying to make to the initial question. As mentioned, I personally DO sell duplicates on ebay. But I don't fool myself that it is a financially productive usage of my time. I would do better mowing the lawn for others! I do it because I enjoy it. And the thrill of buying something for one dollar and selling it for two. Not as a means of financial success!

Theres a guy that used to come to our stamp club..he was a contractor who did the set up on prefab homes..when asked about selling stamps on the internet he said..."my time is worth 60 dollars an hour" that guy will never understand..i have friends who have thousands of 7 cent listings on Wensy.com . I really wonder how they somehow find the time to collect and list all those stamps !

Timbres667, Very good advice about having a Job, and may I add a little for young collectors from experience.

With a job and the wife/partner contributing (a must) with a part time or full time job, pay off YOUR home "as quick as possible".

Then; by NOT wasting money on New Cars, latest cloths/gimmick fashions, expensive meals, Pubs, etc, 'BUY a SECOND home' and Rent it out - using ALL the received rent, along with the Max' repayment from both of you possible(as before) to pay off the 2nd home.

Buy the time you reach your 40's (which will be in flash - in retrospect) you will be able to repeat the process - each time HALVING the length of time it takes to FULLY repay the loan.

Later in life one will recognize that this is/was the BEST advice possible, to get ahead. Stamps cannot and have never matched additional home ownership in Retirement.

This is getting a little of topic, but as a professional real estate broker/investor/developer, I can't agree more with Finches advice. There is no fancy car in the world that can equal the feeling of knowing one doesn't have to worry about money.

BTW, I sell my duplicates etc because I have an iron clad rule as to how much I will spend from my pocket on stamps per month. To increase my buying ability, I sell excess to free up funds.

One last thought, if it was easy to make money selling stamps, every hobbyist would be doing it!

I have to say, this is the most discouraging topic in the StampCommunity boards ever.

Stamps are a hobby not a source of income unless you have that one in a million stamp that is for big bucks. Otherwise your pricing game is not good for the hobby at all.

If your looking for high income hobbies try a Collectable Card Game like Magic the Gathering, Sport Cards or try your luck at betting or whatever.

Your high profit margins are not going to work here. And this is an economist telling you.

Katchem_ash



Me also I have a degree in economics and like selling stamps I never got rich with it

Joe, I spend about the same each year give or take 200 dollars..i think I spent my first quarter quota by mid January this year..so what..why deny myself a little fun ?

I find your discussion interesting .There are about three or four different subjects that are being thrown around here and mixed together in this discussion .
The first thing I like to bring up is acquiring inventory .
If your a dealer in stamps you have to know how the market place works and where inventory comes from.
STAMP DEALERS get their inventory from two places -------1] private parties and the other 2] from stamp auction houses .I know there are other places like your own collection or friends but on a serious business note there are two main places .
The first is private parties ,this is broken down into the following .Most people who come to you or you go to them and this is 90% of the collections out there you look at are cheap accumulations and not even a real collection ,just cheap junk .
Then there are real prize collections and the hope is the owners don't know what they got and want fast money no questions asked.These are the life time chance all dealers dream of .THIS IS THE GOLD MINE .
But if its a family and they know what they got and your one of five dealers bidding on the estate ,then you got problems ,you need a big checkbook and know the material and were is the best place to sell it and how to break it down. ........more on the next posting about-- supplies from auction houses .

It sounds like duncanvr is retiring already, so he should have plenty of time and I assume his finances are squared away. Right duncanvr?? As long has he is not eating into his retirement income and depending on this as his only means of income, why not give it a try? Many people run a small business in their retirement. They may not make a lot of money but it is something to try... the important thing is to keep perspective and not put all your eggs in one basket. I would guess that a good percentage of the smaller dealers once did something else or work full time and deal stamps on the side.

As far as what to buy/sell, I don't have a clue - except that if I am buying it, stay away as it's probably a really lousy investment. I'm currently sorting through a pile of CTO's...

STAMP AUCTIONS --------This is were most stamp dealers get their inventory ,I know because I talk to them and spent time with many of the big sellers who sell on E-BAY and other websites . Most of these big sellers don't have the connections to the lawyers and advertising bugets to go after the estate sellers . They go to the auction houses for inventory and fight people like me for the lots to sell or fight each other .
There are more website sellers at these stamp auction then ever and they got money {weather they buy smart is a different issue}.
The stamp auction market is broken down to roughly three levels . AT the bottom is the internet sellers ,you can almost guarentee that what they are selling is very picked over and has been push down the level from other levels ,its what collectors don't want that shows up all over the internet for sale .
The middle level is the regional stamp auction firms ,this includes most of the firms in the business.They do get some nice collections but mostly its the 100.00 to $2,000 range collections and bulk lots ,usually the better stuff has been pulled out and you can see that its a remained collection . The bigger bulk lots are full of cheap material and you can be sure its been checked and cleaned of anything that could get $100.00 or more per item .
The last area are the five major stamp auction houses ,this is were the big name collectors sell or their estate sells their collections ,you will find the better material and higher price items here and the firms usually don't pull out anything unless it is over a thousand dollars per item . This is the play ground for serious collectors and big dealer buying,very few ebay buyers because here your talking thousands of dollars per lot ........
......naturally everything I wrote has exceptions

floortrader I used to go down to the Dutch Country Auctions in Delaware and come back with a carload of boxlots for $400...then things changed...the dealers would bid high on everything..if I thought a box was worth 150 they would bid 400 ..of course these medium size dealers from Philly and Baltimore were coming with a van every 6 or 7 weeks and spending 4 to 6 thousand dollars at a clip..i talked to one or two of the friendlier ones that would talk...as we know stamp people can be weird...their method was to cherry pick the boxes and send them back to the next auction..thats how they kept their flow...

Quote it sounds like duncanvr is retiring already, so he should have plenty of time and I assume his finances are squared away. Right duncanvr?? As long has he is not eating into his retirement income and depending on this as his only means of income, why not give it a try? Many people run a small business in their retirement.

Hi all yes I am retiring around May, the good news is I own my own house already. I have a room with the PC in it that I can use to do this. And my mrs still works. So it just needs to bring in a few extra bucks. And it will give me endless enjoyment trying to do the selling.

Another source of getting stamps is through trading. I was trading with this guy in Spain for some years till he vanished? But I got an album full of mint blocks of Spain from him in exchange for Australian stamps. I probably spent the same money during the exchanges but now a few years later I should be able to sell those Spain Blocks for more. Now finding good people to trade with was hard. I gave up exchanging now though. There are not many such places around here to go to markets and get stamps. I have to get things from on line auctions around the world. Would like to find an agent friend in another country who would not want much $ from me but be willing to go to stamp markets or estates and pick up large lots for me. I like stampless letters 19th century and earlier to. Would like to get my hands on a large lot of those for a good price.