I Would Like To Be A Full Time Stamp Dealer But...

I was told that conservatively for something like selling through the APS salesbooks one should have an inventory of $30,000 or so. And a good working knowledge of the stamps of the world.

I'm embarrased to say that I started my stamp business with $600. in seed money. That was about c.1971 I guess. But in fairness, I also had a repectibe full time job at Bethlehem Steel, and my wife also had a decent job at Air Products. So the focus was simply to keep plowing any profits back into new inventory. And from that grew into the largest philatelic auction in the world staffed by only two people. When we stopped auctions (about 7 years ago) we had run a total of 157 sales between early Net Price Sales and then auctions. So it CAN be done. But in today's market, $600. would buy you squat! But the principles we used - plowing profits back into inventory, is a smart one for ANY newer dealer I think. And if you can't do that, I don't see how you can succeed.

I'd like to be a full time dealer but I don't trust myself to sell the best items and not keep them. I also don't think I have enough knowledge to weed through various faked, forged and altered stamps.

As a dealer you would have to sacrifice the best stamps if you are to succeed and sell them for profit not keep them. You may have to take the risk of listing some below your cost and hope you get more for it at the end of the auction. Bill is correct you have to plow profits back into inventory. The trouble with a big inventory of $30,000 of stamps is it actually to much for one person to have the time to sort through that amount of stamps and keep each stamp being listed regularly? Or would you end up with stacks of unsorted stamps in your stock because you don't have the time to sort and list them all? Unsorted unlisted stamps sitting in stock would be dead money and no profit.

duncanvr to answer your first question: I have been selling on ebay and on bidstart Canadian stamps for around five years. Many start their stamp selling inventory with their collecting duplicates.

This sort of relates to the subject at hand and may be worth reading:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/commu...y-powerhouse

The ASDA magazine has a great ongoing column entitled (approximately) "So you want to be a stamp dealer..." that in each issue addresses some of the issues and pitfalls that people new to stamp dealing encounter.

P.S. Great magazine! Easily worth the subscription cost. I read far more in it than in Linn's or the American Philatelist each month. Link to free issue online:

http://www.americanstampdealer.com/free/index.html


I'll never be a fulltime dealer; I'm too much of a philatelic hoarder and enjoy my collecting to ever want to convert it to saleable inventory (well, for the next 30 years or so anyway).

That said, I am ramping up my selling on ebay, through the APS store, and elsewhere though, to convert my collection duplicates and excess into income... but that's as far as I go. Even when I retire (someday), I don't see myself as becoming a dealer.

...but I like to keep a roof over my head? :)

Going full time and trying to make a living doing it is a tough proposition, especially as a show dealer. One of the nice things about the hobby is that you don't have to be full time; you don't have to do shows. I take an occasional table at a local bourse, and used to sell a bit on ebay though I haven't done it in the last few years after not having much time to get things listed and shipped. When I was in law school and just starting my career, I funded all of my personal acquisitions through other ebay sales. I haven't been able to keep that up, as my tastes got more expensive and I had less free time (i.e., 3 kids). But I still have retail stock that can be pulled out when I'm ready to do another show or to start listing again, and of course I still can't lay off buying things that I know are good value!

Something of the flavour of a Jerry Lee song there -

"I know I'm not a model husband,
Although I'd like to be.
But payday nights and painted women
Do strange things to me".

"Payday nights and Cape triangles" on here, of course.

Since I retired, I've been selling in a smallish way on ebay. My conclusion - accepting that I'm not the most organised person - is that I could never have combined the photography/scanning, describing, uploading, packing and posting with my full-time job.

If I had designs on being a full time dealer - where my business would pay my mortgage, put my kids through school and allow me to take the occasional vacation, etc - I probably wouldn't be buying a lot of unsorted accumulations, at least on purpose. In order to make a reasonably comfortable living I'd want to have at least $10-$15,000 per month in gross sales, which would mean buying and selling a lot of expensive stamps (relatively speaking). Expensive stamps are more prone to forgery and fakery, and are more sensitive to condition issues, hence my earlier comment about myself not having the knowledge to weed through all that. Overpaying for someone's collection full of forged, faked and otherwise misidentified stamps could wipe out a lot of profits really quickly, and I would think it would be a large potential danger for a new stamp dealer.

The miscellaneous uncatalogued and low-cat items would probably go into some kind of bargain bin and/or I'd sell them as bulk lots. Not having too much money or time tied up in low-demand, low-priced items would be a key best practice, in my estimation. On the other hand, one would want to maintain as comprehensive a price list as possible as well so as to draw in the largest number of potential customers. Not every collector is willing to spend $100 (or even $20) on a single stamp, but a lot of smaller orders would still add up, and a good comprehensive price list would be key in this area, I think. It would be really interesting to me to know the average selling price for a single stamp and the average order size for some successful dealers. I want to think that the successful dealers make all their money on high-dollar stamps, but maybe they make more by selling lots of less expensive ones (under $5 or $10 each)? I'm sure it varies from dealer to dealer, but it would be interesting to know nonetheless.

I rather consider myself a full time collector who dabbles in dealing/selling although my love of this hobby will always make me a collector first. I'm always collecting (auction lots, private collection purchases, ebay and purchases) more, so I always have alot to sell. Selling keeps me busy which is its own reward.

I think there is a fine line between the two as we all gather stamps from many avenues...some just constantly use the old sell some, buy some more concept.
If I ever won the lottery....hmmmm.

My wife knows I'll never sell "MY COLLECTION" and knows my wishes when I'm gone...never sell at face value

Qoute: in order to make a reasonably comfortable living I'd want to have at least $10-$15,000 per month in gross sales.

I think thats very hard to do especially on ebay, you would have to have a lot of returning customers, make piles of small sales and big $ sales as well. Your first year would be smaller then it would build as time goes on. On $10-$15,000 per month if its ebay your going to be paying several thousand dollars a month in ebay fees.

Honesty is also best policy for a stamp dealer, I just had one lie to me. I bought a old 1930s Siam cover cheap in November paid for it on the same day. It never got marked as posted and its never arrived. Its a single cover with stamps so if it had been posted it would not have been held up. Anyway seller said first that he held in for five weeks to avoid the mail rush, he never advised me of this. Then I told him that was very bad service. He then claimed I did not pay for two weeks, so I showed him proof I paid the same day I won it. Finally he issued a refund this morning. Whats the bet he kept the cover to try and resell it later on? Dishonesty never pays off so its best if your going to be a dealer to be really honest with each customer. And post their items when they pay. I know for a fact I would not buy again from sellers who do not post the item, buyers should not have to complain to get their items posted on time. I post my buyers items out daily. Why can't many other sellers do the same?

Becoming a dealer is much more difficult today than it ever been in the past . The internet demands too much time listing material and customer questions are a waste of time .Customers are hunting not for items to add to their collections ,they are hunting for your mistakes .They are also hunting for stuff they can resell ,it is a different world out there. I sold mixture lots for years ,then with ebay I started to have problems of with complaints like there was not enough $5.00 and up stamps in the lot {the price came out to 1 1/2 cent per stamp in the mixture lots ,then I got complaints about the box wasn't stuffed or fill to the top ,and my favorite was that I shipped parcel post and charged the correct rate for parcel shipping and was receiving negative feedback because they didn't get the box in three days [it took two weeks]. Then people wanted me to count the exact number of stamps in a bulk lot before they bid on it .

"Can you send me scans of the individual stamps in the mixture?"

floortrader.....that is ebay. You are 1000% correct!!
Seems only negative complaints are from the "bottom feeders"