Another Newbie Here

Hi everyone.
I have a box of roughly 50k-100k of stamps. All jumbled up in bags ands such. No order whatsoever. I want to try to start selling them on ebay and other such sites. Where do I begin. I thought dividing them into countries and then trying to see if anything looks valuable. I am scared to take them to an appraiser ( what if he takes the only one worth anything). So I have been reading up on ebay advice and poking around here.
I am sure you guys have seen this type of post so many times. Couldn't find a similar post.
Any help would be appreciated.
And welcome to my life !

Hi, and welcome to the Forum !!

Some questions need to be answered before I can give any advice of merit...............

Fifty - one hundred thousand stamps is an awful lot of stamps. From where did you get them?

Are they cancelled, or new, on paper (i.e. envelope scraps) or by themselves?

How are they sorted as you got them? By countries or all mixed together?

Are these of recent issue - meaning to me the last 50 years or so - or ???

Not trying to seem negative, but given the bulk state you have them in, it is "likely" they are rather common and therefore of little value. But the only way we can determine that is by pics - which hopefully you can post.

Assuming they are common, and you do not want to get terribly involved with them, I would sort by country, and put them on auction in bulk on ebay. But this is just a preliminary piece of advice, for we really need to know more about them beforehand.

Thanks for replying.
They were my grandmothers. Been moved around heaps. Every once in a while someone would try to sort through them only to give up and make more of a mess.
There are 95% separated. Most of them used. I put three on ebay at random. Well the ones that look older.
User name Koo_korp
But I would say seventy percent are in the last fifty years or so.
Not near them right now but I will definitely post what looks interesting.
Thanks for the tips. A lot of work is cut out for me
- Koo.

Why does everyone think stamp people are crooks? People trust financial professionals to handle their retirement funds but when it comes to a qualified stamp appraiser they treat them like the plague.

You simply take the stamps to two or more stamp dealers and get opinions. See how they match up and go from there. If you find the right person they will look through them in front of you, some may charge a small fee to do this though.

A good friend of mine went to sell his fathers silver coins. He went to two dealers than call me. He knows I am well versed in silver. When I was done I asked how I compared to the coin dealers and he said spot on with their quotes. I asked why he came to me and he said he heard stamp and coin dealers were crooks.

50k-100k of stamps is a lot to got through. Finding a rare expensive stamp in your case may be possible but unlikely since they were not taken care of. Stamps just mangled in a bag tells me that they are just common mas produced stamps.

However it never hurt to go through them to check, maybe grand mother didn't know and has something good.

It pays to educate yourself prior to selling any stamps. That will take a lot of work in the case of that many stamps.

Good luck and have some fun with it all.

PS you can try finding a stamp club near you they may help you go through that large of a collection just for the fun of it.

Hi again,
Dealers will typically offer relatively lower values as they are in the business of reselling. They are not collectors or otherwise end users. If you want top dollar you need to deal with an end user or collector - either via auction or trade shows or internet sites.

Whether you are dealing in stamps or coins or Lionel trains or "whatever", the theme is the same.

Are there crooks out there? Well of course there are. But thankfully, most are on the up and up.

Sorry guys. Didn't mean to insinuate stamp dealers are crooks. Just like everywhere there are good and bad people in everything in life

Here is one that I just came across. Any help as what to do with it would be great.
Thanks
-koo

Hi and welcome to the forum. (I was going to say Hi Koo, but then I would have to come up with some sort of rhyme.)

The stamp plate block you have shown is extremely common, but was very popular to collect in its time. Unfortunately, the current value for such is less than the value printed on the stamp, so less than $0.20. Some people recommend using these for everyday postage.

Keep posting some others ... the older the better ... and we can hopefully find something interesting.

As a relative "newbie" here myself, I probably shouldn't say what I'm about to; however, here it goes. If you are trying to become a collector, then welcome. Let's see more of your stamps and one of the very informed members here will give you good advice. If you are just trying to flip some stamps you know nothing about and have no intention of keeping, then I, for one (and others may disagree), wouldn't have much interest in commenting any further. Hope you are willing to become a serious collector and are also willing to become a full participant on this Board.

I believe the way to go is small batches of stamps from the same country or region on ebay rather than just one stamp at a time. In this racket condition is everything. So list the best condition you have! Good luck!

I hate to be negative, too, but I totally agree with NBSTamper about these postings. Koo - there are many places you can find out the true value of stamps. Start at the library and do some work. PS - Mr. Koo has listed this Dante block on ebay for $1.69 PLUS $2.24 shipping.

What's wrong with that listing!?

Nothing wrong with the listing but be prepared to be disappointed, there is a 99% chance it won't sell at that price. The condition of the block does not look good, almost to the point as if it had come in contact with water, is the original gum still on the back of the block ? Modern blocks like that need to be crisp and "Post office fresh" to fetch the quarter a block value.

Consider these completed ebay listings. One plate block sold for 40 cents and the other for 99 cents (high) and in both cases the condition of the plate blocks were much better:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...H_Complete=1

Thank you so much stallzer. I learnt something I could use. Not near them now but will check later. I thought they looked good. Intact. No creases tears etc. My grandmother used to take the stamps of the envelopes by putting them in water. Could it be from that. Thanks again for the info. Will leave it on ebay all the same. Don't want to waste one of my free listings.
-koo

Thank you as well wt1. Will take me a while to wrap my head around. Appreciate the time and effort. Your the type of people I was told were on this forum and don't make me feel stupid for every question I ask
-koo