Stamp Books From Father's Estate

Hope someone can help me please. I have 12 or so stamp albums, some are full and other are partially filled. These were my father's and I need to sell them and get them out of my house. There are some very old stamps and there some modern stamps, US and Foreign. Some are used and some are unused, also a lot of nice Pre-Cancels. If anyone can offer suggestions, I would be very delighted! Thank you.

My suggestion is read this thread: https://goscf.com/t/44105

Perhaps you could scan a page from each of the albums to give us an idea of what you have. It would be a start.

Forgot about that thread Hungry, I stay in CCF most of the time. Anyway, I don't want to go through them, it's just too many!!

I basically want to sell the entire lot of books to someone interested in 1 shot. I care nothing for stamps.

Just to give you an idea of the volume...

Friend, you'll need to find someone you trust if you don't wish to sort through the stamps or to make scans. Your father could have some real beauties and it would be a shame for someone to take advantage of you.

KGB, that's what I am trying to do....

Seems like a Stamp group would have more suggestions than to scan pics, look at all those books! lol

I don't think I have enough posts to auction here, correct?

kakaratt, you'll get good advice here if you scan at least some of the pages. Otherwise, take the lot of them to a dealer in your area--likely in the nearest mid-sized city--and hope you find someone trustworthy. Good luck.

LOL! I suppose you can give a value for coins just by looking at the outside of "books".

You may have a valuable collection or you may have junk. Unless it is looked at by someone in the know (or unless you are willing to post scans such as the first few pages of the US stamp album), you'll never know exactly what you have.

It sounds like you value convenient disposal over having an independent assessment of value, and/or maximizing value. If that's true, then options include:
-- use an internet search engine or internet map to search "North Carolina Stamp Dealer". Pick one nearest you. Phone them and ask if they are buying estate collections. If yes, bring the lot there and request an offer. A reputable dealer will review the material, make a spot offer and write you a check. The amount will be 1/10 of catalog value and 1/3 of retail value, in some scenarios. If there are "gems" in the collection they won't necessarily tell you. But you'll be rid of it and get some cash.
-- same process, but go to the American Stamp Dealers Association, or American Philatelic Association, and pick a dealer. www.stamps.org; www.americanstampdealers.com
-- look at Linn's Stamp News on the internet, or get a sample copy. The larger dealers will travel to your home, make the value assessment, write you a check and take the lot. Because of the cost in travel, their offer may be even lower than via the other processes, and there will be the "hard sell" pressure of the fact that they are sitting in your living room.
-- if you want a realistic value assessment on this SCF site, you will have to start by taking (at least) camera phone pictures of every page of every album and posting them here or using a bulk photo site like Photobucket. If a page looks interesting, members will ask you to make an image scan of the page, or individual items. It is a tedious process that will take a couple of weeks, but it could increase your net by thousands, if there is anything good in the collection. And if not, at least you will know what range of dealer offers are right.
-- if you take those photos, you could also list the collection on www.ebay.com/b/260/" rel="nofollow">ebay and see how you do. Don't underestimate shipping cost. This stuff is heavy.

Good luck. You will need to decide how much work is worth it to you, to know you have the best price.

Sounds to me like all the OP wants to do is make a buck. What a turn-off. Then he's offended that no one can tell him what he's got by looking a a pile of binders and junk.

Postscript:

You can try to find a local stamp club and have someone there assess it, or try to sell it there.

You can go in person to a stamp show, bring the lot with you, and request offers from multiple dealers. Again, it depends on your tolerance for time, trouble and cost. The country's biggest show is coming up in Detroit. There's a large show in the Chicago O'Hare Airport area in the fall. The APS website and ASDA website have lists of shows. So does Linn's.

Hi Kakaratt.. I'm following ur thread b/c I'm kind of in the same position, but with a lot less stamps. Lol. I only have one book. I, like yourself, have no need for stamps and just want to sell them all. After reading and researching about stamps I realized that I didn't want to put that much time into dissecting my collection.. and yours is way more overwhelming I'm sure. Maybe it would be worth it for you to get an appraisal. Your father seemed like he put a lot of time into his hobby and you wouldn't want to be taken advantage of (as someone else stated). The only way to know what it's worth is to look at all the stamps.. and knowing what your looking at helps. :) Best of luck!