Since no one else has responded your question, I'll take a shot at it, but I'm no expert either.
First, are the FDC's all cacheted? Are they all addressed or unaddressed? The answer to these questions will be critical in determining what you can expect to gain should you decide to sell the material.
Second, I don't think you can group the FDC's and the specialty cancels together. There are some collectors who would desire one but not the other and vice-versa.
Third, to summarize your holdings, you suggest that there are 850 FDC's and another 300 specialty cancels, that's 1150 covers. If you expect to realize $1000, that comes out to approximately 87-cents a cover. I doubt the secondary market would support that price (unless there is some very special material within the lot). In fact, a quick look at
ebay suggests that lots of Canadian FDC's from the 1980's are being offered at under 50-cents apiece, with NO BIDS. In fact, one lot of 30 FDC's from the 1980's is being offered at a BIN price of $12.99 (43-cents each) with NO BIDS. This is hard material to move from that time period, as first day covers were produced in large quantities and the supply is typically much higher than the demand for such items.
Fourth, if you want to attempt to sell the items, you have to remember the old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words". In other terms, you will have to take the time and scan at least some of the material in order to entice any potential buyers. To only describe the lot(s) in words and expect someone to bid on them sight unseen is not going to give a potential buyer much interest in bidding. If you cut corners, and don't bother with this critical task, you will typically realize much less for the material then if you take the time and do it right.
Frankly, the 300 or so cancelled covers from various post offices would be of interest only to a specialty collector, but I suspect they would have little monetary worth unless a specialist is looking for specific material.
You will also need to keep in mind shipping costs to any potential buyer(s). Sometimes it might be easier to sell the items in large lots than in smaller ones, as the shipping costs and your time involved in packaging the material and taking them to the post office for mailing, may easily equal or exceed any financial benefit you may realize by selling them. You also reference that there are (8) albums containing these covers. Depending on shipping costs, some buyers may prefer that you remove the covers from the albums as the albums are often not worth the shipping costs, based on weight. Of course, that is yet another time consuming effort that is placed on you, as the seller, and once again the value of your time in all of these efforts may not bring anywhere near the market value you anticipate for such material.
I know you may not be pleased with some of these comments, but the reality of the situation is that covers are really not worth all that much on the secondary market and there is often the occasion when the actual postage on the cover doesn't even cover the resale value of the item(s), not to mention the time and effort the seller must put forth to market the material.
Maybe I'm being too negative...and as I said at the beginning of my post, I'm no expert in these sort of things, so it's only my opinion. In any case, I would welcome some other collectors to chime in on their experiences.
Posted 06/05/2012 8:09 pm
