Best Way/Place To Sell A Few Stamps, Etc.

Hi all.

I am thinking of trying to dispose of some stamps/covers through online sales. Any thoughts on the best service for a beginner? BidStart? Stamps2Go?

I might have anywhere from 10 lots ... to a few hundred (I have the material, just want to take it slow).

Or should I just try to hawk them through one of the forums.

NONE of the material is high end.

Lowest stuff might be nothing more than a dime (or should I combine a lot of low stuff to make a minmum, like a dollar or two); highest could be about $25.

Thanks.

If you're doing it to get rid of them, as opposed to trying to make money, you could consider donating them to a youth program at a local club.

i have plenty I can donate as well as try to sell - I would just like to try peddling some

You might be farther ahead to find a dealer who can give you a good price. I've sold on ebay with varied success, but there's also the time factor, and you may end up sell items for pennies.
Depends where you live I suppose. I've been lucky enough to find a dealer in Toronto (not far from where I work) who's given me a good price on some stock books full.
But, that said, had a dealer rip me off too, because I was inexperienced. Live and learn.

Here on the forum.
Best place in the world.
Group the low-end stuff.

Much more relaxed and a whole lot more fun.

Good luck

Londonbus1

Thanks for advice so far. I would put on forum, though I thought the forum only had a weird ebay link now. I don't think it is the kind of stuff forum folks would be interested in .. a lot of US and Canada. That is why I was thinking about a bigger audience, but I will review my items over the next weeks and see.

It's not that hard to sell on ebay. It's actually kind of fun to be on the other side for a change.

I would say ebay myself because I like ebay best. It's friendly feel and ease of use (once you get used to it of course) are good points.

Delcampe (new and changing all the time) in Europe is worldwide more than ebay and costs less altogether.

BidStart is OK, not much experience there.


Groups of stamps as suggested above are a good way. Singles sold as topicals, with good descriptive titles, (good clear stamps where you can see the design sell used as well as mint) sell slowly but OK.

Cancels and postmarks sell as well, well described again, and I am looking for modern Canada ones myself, or will help you with other older ones, on or off paper.

For mixtures or assortments or selections (see what a change of words will do, makes you think differently about what you are looking at) the words used are important also. The word 'lot' is more used worldwide (if you sell that way) that others..


Selling online requires a PayPal or similar account as a Seller, that is a Seller Account, to avoid the higher fees when you are only a buyer with PayPal selling.

Thanks all. Those all good points Puzzler. I appreciate it. I have been an ebay buyer forever so I am familiar with that side of things.

As I said, right now I do not have a ton of material. But I know that I sometimes buy this kind of material and I cannot believe I am the only one, so I thought I would try.

My biggest startup problem might be scanning. The 3-in-one I bought in the fall does a nice job. But the problem is over on my computer I don't seem to have a good easy program for taking something like 15 stamps scanned at once and breaking them into 15 pieces. I have a tedious process where I have to pull out one at a time. And then, not sure what images ebay will accept, but over here they are way too big for what is accepted on this forum and they have to go through the pains of the optimizer .. ugh.

Centerstage, I scan into MS Paint. Pretty much every Windows PC has Paint on it. You go to file -> from scanner or camera, then you should see your scanner listed. I put a page full of stamps on a Vario sheet on the scanner, and then I can scan them one stamp at a time - without removing the sheet once - by previewing the image and then narrowing it down to just the stamp or stamps you want to scan. Save it as a .jpg and you're good to go. I can scan a dozen separate images in ~15-20 minutes at 300 dpi that way. You probably could scan a whole page and then cut each image out and paste it elsewhere, if you'd rather do that, but I doubt it would save much time and it probably wouldn't look as good.

On Stamp Community here there is discussions about this type of program. I forget where though.

I just use an older HP Photo program and do it one at a time. There must be a quicker way because this is a big time user.
Thank to Theartfulhinger, typed his in while I was typing. Good ideas and info.

I use 200 dpi and crop as he does.

For beautiful single images you can go as high as 600dpi and reduce after to 50% or so of the image file size. Nice detaila but perhaps un-nessessary for ebay.

With a history on ebay I would start with the 40?(not sure how many on .com) free listing per month with no ebay store cost. To start slow with 10+ listings per week would get you use to things without stressing yourself to the max.

With your page position that you would be given I would use your title description to the max so you can be searched as many ways as possible.

Our ebay selling structure has been to break thing down to single or set listings, as we have found lots of people will pay a bit extra rather than end up with heaps of stamps that they do not want at a cheaper over all cost.

There is always heaps of help here.

I know some do well selling on SCF but that is not my experience here! It is nice to relax here and sell somewhere else.

I sell off excess things mostly to earn a little more cash to reinvest in my collection.

I have stuff listed on BidStart, and have for quite some time. I've only sold one item there, and many items never get a view. I'm not sure I've ever had a single item get more than 4 or 5 views on BidStart. It could be the item, of course.

I have had a bit more success on ebay. I've sold more items and the items that haven't sold get a lot more views.

The key for me is I set a minimum bid price I can accept. But my attitude is if it sells it sells and if it doesn't I'll try again down the road.

Thanks again for even more advice.
I was wondering about BidStart, because I like to buy there. But I also frequent Stamps2Go AND ebay. But I had heard so many horror stories about ebay - high fees, difficult to get payments, etc.

I am still in the process of downloading some images, though, have been distracted this week with job search and I have a presentation or two coming up about my book. (If anyone asks about stamp collecting I am surely going to mention this site as a good one!)

Hope more sellers contribute to this thread.

If you're just looking to get rid of a few duplicates or unwanted stamps and just put a few dollars in your pocket, I'd just go with ebay. I find it very easy to use and you're going to get more eyeballs there than anywhere else. Payments are easy with PayPal. Once in awhile you run into a buyer that doesn't pay, or takes forever, but that's the exception, not the rule.

I sell and buy enough there that, to me, it's kind of like trading my duplicates, since I just leave the money in PayPal and then use it to buy more stamps from other sellers. I've been able to get a lot of nice stamps that way that I otherwise might have considered out of my range.

I will second this advice. I have sold duplicates or items I no longer want on ebay without any difficulty or trouble. You will need a PayPal account, however. Also, I have found it difficult to sell stamps as there are so many similar listings. Something a little different, though, such as a cover with good franking or postmarking will attract bidders.

Don