How To Make Kiloware Attractive?

Hello everyone, and thank you for allowing me to join your forum. I signed up because I wanted to ask a question from people in the know.

I used to collect stamps as a kid, but sold my stamps and stopped around the age of 15 or so. I never managed to make up a great collection of anything, but I did learn some basics about collecting.

I recently found a large and steady supply of used stamped envelopes, that could but turned in to kiloware with some scissors and some work.

I wanted to find out, how can I make my kiloware attractive?

In other words, how could I go about sorting it, to maximize appeal and potential profits?

I know some basic things, such as unpicked is good, also good if it is single paper, and not many repeats, but was wondering is there is any general advice, on how to make the most of my supply.

Thanks

Note: This is not spam, and I am not trying to sell anything. It would be months of work wit the scissors before I could sell anything.

Welcome JackBrown. First of all I don't know a lot about kiloware (there are many others here who do, so I'm sure good advice is coming) but I would first suggest that you look at the covers themselves and see if they are worth keeping intact. Many collectors now collect these (myself included) and if they are older pieces of mail or have nice cancels, they could be more interesting, and possibly worth more kept as is.

Welcome To SCF JackBrown and Merry Christmas.

Basically if you are purely looking at what you have as an asset.

Stamp trimmed on paper in kiloware is worth .03 of a cent. Off paper .3 of a cent.

Stamp on cover 20c to a couple of dollars if it has a nice cancel.

If you were to collect and sort what has come you way it would be priceless.

If you have been away for a while you will find your intact covers are much more marketable than kiloware. You will find that recent self adhesive stuff does not soak off well. Even if the material looks like common cancels you should consider dividing it into lots by state or topic, airmail, special delivery, auxilary markings, etc. There are countless ways cover collectors want things, but once you cut the envelope it is just kiloware. You will then limit your possible buyer to beginning collectors or a specialist looking for PNC's or special cancellations and they would still prefer a full cover.

Jack, I just noticed you are from Spain. This all still applies to Worldwide covers.

Thanks for all the answers so far.

@pjsstamps when yo say "once you cut the envelope it is just kiloware", do you mean once the stamp is cut from the envelope, or once the envelope is opened? Are the contents also required? as I would only have access to the envelopes, most of them likely to have been cut open to get at the contents.

Thanks.

Also, I had no idea that they would be worth more on the envelope.

Well JackBrown I reckon you are on the right track now, good on you!

A cover is a envelope and normally means it is without contents. When these items go up for sale and have contents it is an extra part of the description and usually adds value to the cover.

If the cover has been opened without to much damage this is good but if a cover has deep rips all over it,it is worth nothing.

The cancels on the covers are a study all on its own.

Keep asking questions and someone will try to answer them.

Here is some covers from WWII. Notice how they are open and there general condition.









Just something to look at that was easy to post. Your covers are just as important.

Leave the stamps on the cover and keep the contents in it. They will sell better than a mix of stamps eg:kiloware.

For old envelopes or covers the contents give a part of history and add value.

The term cover comes from the 1800's when the letter itself was sometimes written on the inside of the paper and the paper folded to cover the written words, and then an adress was written upon it.

This was done to save money as mail cost quite a bit more to send at that time than it does now (like $5 an envelope or so, speaking in money earned per hour terms).


For modern (now to around 70 years ago or so) the contents sold (if available) could cause a problem about privacy I would think (not completely sure).


Stamp kiloware is made up of stamps on pieces of paper, sold by the kilogram or gram (metric) or pound or ounce (Imperial or US measure).
Canada stamp kiloware:


Sometimes collectors enjoy having the cancellations (cancels) or postmarks included on the paper or on an envelope but I think most of the time stamp collectors like their kiloware (stamps on paper) to be on close-clipped pieces of paper, without having damaged stamps (ripped, torn, cut into, mangled, creased, etc) or extra paper included in the mixture.

I meant to say welcome.

Hello, JackBrown, welcome!




The kiloware I enjoy looking at on ebay (or wherever) is the best displayed. That is I can see most of what is for sale.

So the more pictures of what is actually on sale, the better. People will pay more for stamps they can see than for stamps they cannot see.

If the mixture has a good selection of modern stamps and they are shown well, then the price you can sell for is much higher.

Show the stamps upright, that is in the orientation that shows them so people can see what the stamp is without them having to tilt or turn their head. This takes extra work but people don't like to bid on things that are upside down too much.

Try not to overlap the stamps on top of each other as this feels like you are hiding imperfections to the viewer (or possibly can).

Avoid fancy shapes made of the stamps like circles or spirals or anything other than what will show in a square or rectangle. People are there to buy your (their) stamps and not the artwork.

Look on ebay and Watch some items to see what they sell for. Look at the items that sell for more and try to figure out what the seller is doing right so you can do similar.

Don't try to be unreasonable with your shipping costs. An amount over the stamps' cost is OK as you do have to pay ebay and PayPal fees and for boxes (perhaps) and paper and ink and a small amount perhaps for your time or to cover any mistakes you may make (now or in the future).

Try not to read super-long postings by Puzzler! (more work and less play)

JackBrown, If you have a scanner or digital camera, you may want to upload images of a few of your covers. Show us one or two that appear to you to be very common and also show some that you think might be special. Then some comments from other collectors may help you decide what to do.

Welcome, JackBrown!

The suggestions here are great. You may also want to look on ebay to see how other people have done it to see what would appeal to you if you were going to buy it. As with anything, you would want to see what you were buying and what condition it was in.

Also, search under "stamp covers" and you will see what people mean by the price difference you could charge for entire covers, especially if they at all interesting. The more ordinary ones you could bundle and sell in lots.

Show us some pictures! We love to see what our members have!

Karen

This is all real good news, it is interesting to find out about these covers, as that is exactly what I will have.

I will upload some for you to see at some point in January, at the moment they are all being stored on the other side of the island I'm living on.

I must say it is quite exciting, I see on ebay that even modern covers from 2012 sell for good prices, and seeing as I will be having about 4.5 million of them delivered in the next few weeks, I am eager to see what I have and what it is worth.

I have got cash symbols in my eyes at the moment.

EDIT: and to think I was going to take scissors to the whole lot.

Use a lower DPI setting to scan bigger items with (if you wish) so the file size will be less would help in this instance.

Did you say 4.5 million covers? Even if you meant 4.5 "miles", that would still be a lot of covers.

Puzzler has provided some excellent advice, plus those who have commented on preserving full covers. The display is essential as well as avoiding significant duplication if you want to continually market what you've obtained. Good luck.