How To Auction A Large Collection Schaubeck World 1948-1923

I have inherited my great grandfathers stamp collection. I loved looking at the stamps as a kid but I have come to a moment in life where I really need the money. I'd like to auction the albums on ebay. My grandfather told me it's worth but I have no idea how to offer them.

I have 5 books with stamps for nearly every country of the world dated from 1848 - 1923. They're Schaubeck Permanent albums # I - V 41th edition. Every book has up to 200 pages with 1000-2000 stamps.

I can't place 1000 photos on ebay to cover everything... So how do I do this? What should I tell about the albums?

Any help would be really appreciated!

Hi Paul and welcome to the forum. Well, you have probably made a typo when you said 1948 to 1923? Maybe you mean 1848? And you are from Nederland. Being Dutch myself I know that you can not be far away from a stampclub with knowledgeable folks? If you are we can help, but we will need at least some scans.
Maybe you can scan some of the early pages of select countries, like the US, Canada, England, France etc. Holland will do also, just to give us a bit of an idea?

Peter

The alternative to ebay, and thus addressing the problem of showing the contents of several albums, is to use an auction house, although you will pay commission @10-20%. But scan a few interesting pages here first.

Look more interesting than the usual inherited tread we see time to time

Thanx for the initial response guys.

I'm still busy counting and going through everything. Once I'm done I will make some kind of webpage with pictures of all the pages of the books and I'll post the link.

What I'm wondering is what would be the propper title for an auction on ebay?
For example:
"Schaubeks Permanent Albums I-V 41th ed. Lot 6000 Collection stamps World 1848-1923"

Would a collector recognise this title for what it is? Any improvements?

I've shown the books to a local stamp dealer once who showed little interest and wanted to give me $120 for them. For this price I'd rather keep the books myself and it probably wasn't enough. I might approach an auction house in Holland for a taxation, which would be the best one for a collection like this?

I've already spoken to one but I just don't get the feeling they take enough time to get the propper value.

That is your best bet....sell to him.
More time is less money.

Im sure he made a fair offer.

Old does not mean valuable.

That's a genuinely bad sign... If the collection had any obvious value, the dealer would have made you an better offer. No ifs or buts, that's simply how stamp dealers work.

It's all about what stamps are inside the books AND what condition they are in. The books themselves are more or less 'zero value' (no matter how nice the binders/album covers may look).

Collecting 6,000 (face different?) stamps from the era is not that big a challenge, nor expensive. Two cents per piece sounds pretty fair if it's 'common stuff' and random better pieces in mixed condition.

So with current details I would not hold my breath on 'breaking the bank'. But of course if/when you put out images of all those 6K stamps then I might feel very different, LOL.





Unless you can point them out what specific items are 'worth something', then dealers will assume everything is of 'minimum value' unless it's a well known 'better item' (such as Penny Black, high value seahorse etc).

Again, that is just how things go. If you want the bids go higher, then you must point out what's worth something. This applies not just to dealers but also with ebay (just guess how many similar classic worldwide lots are already in there, and yours will be competing against them).

-k-

[fixed a typo]

Paul32 - you have already got lot of good feedbacks - now I think it is a bit up to you if you expect any better indication of value than what the dealer offered. I recommend you yourself follow your own idea by

The way to go - as already suggested - take a few scans/alternatively high-res photos from the album. Petert4522 has already indicated the normal 'hotspots' - share with us the first page/pages of the mentioned countries. May I add China to the list, as market value for old Chinese stamps has rocketed the last decades. When you have taken the time required to share the photos with us - folks in here have experience to tell you if you are sitting on something else but the common stuff.

That dealer told me opposite, he said the books were worth $120 and the stamps were all useless. My grandfather told me never to sell them for less than $6000. To be honest for less I'd rather keep them for my kids and sentimental value.

$6,000 would buy me an awful lot of interesting stamps in a lot of albums ... such as ...

http://www.warwickandwarwick.com/au...logue/127110

Well I have no idea, I only have a Dutch catalogue so I can't cover all these countries. There's stamps from nearly 200 countries with many mint looking unstamped complete series. I'll post a link when I'm done.

I agree with keijo- not a good sign.

Unfortunately, today, albums are essentially valued "free", and one just values the stamps.

i just obtained a Portuguese and Colonies collection in a very nice Scott specialty album, and both myself and the dealer didn't even think about valuing the collection higher because of that. It's all about the stamps.

Well I've been finding a lot of numbers next to stamps throughout the albums which seem to be prices. Though I don't know which currency, perhaps old guilders, perhaps euros.

Here's two examples, I think they're in old guilders so the Newfoundland green cod from 1866 would have been worth f65,- and the Newfoundland Prince of Wales f50,-.

Unfortunately prices in guilders have absolutely no meaning anymore since we have euros now..... What would be the current value of these two stamps?

Here's two Seated Brittania's from Barbados, rated f55,- and f200,- what would they be worth now?

Paul, those are both pretty stamps. The numbers may be the catalog price, but you are never going to get that. One of the main problems here is condition. Both stamps are "foxed", little brown spots on the edges.
If you would like to look up catalog value, go to http://stampworld.com . They show all stamps of the world with a selling price. But please do not forget that condition is everything! The two stamps you show seem to be hinged, and that is also a no-no with today's collectors.
Can you divulge to me what town or area you are from?

Peter