Value Of British Commonwealth Qe 1953 Coronation First Day Covers?

Where can I determine value for British Commonwealth FDCs?

I have Queen Elizabeth II Coronation First Day Covers from 9 different member nations/protectorates. All envelopes are addressed and stamps are postmarked. Includes Ascension, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Kenya/Uganda/Tanganyika, and Virgin Islands.

These were issued in massive quantities and unless you have FDCs with high denomination stamps or really special cachets, the value is minimal.

You might try checking ebay or Delcampe.

Peter

As was mentioned, these were created in vast quantities and there are very few collectors of these so their value will be minimal. To see what the current prices are the best place to go is ebay. Once there you must IGNORE the starting bids on the individual auctions and instead use the advanced search function to search for the covers you also have and you MUST click on the button for SOLD auctions. If you do not filter out everything but auctions that were completed and where the item actually sold you will get an unrealistic idea of the current commercial value of your covers.

Stamp company RUSHSTAMPS in the UK has these...

"1953 Coronation Matching Souvenir FDC's, 59 all different to include G.B. Opts, Hong Kong, etc. (printed address) a very attractive collection...........................£125.00"

I dare say they might have individually priced ones too

Jenny2U, Kimo, scotzm, thanks for your input.

I see in my British Commonwealth catalogs that the lower denomination stamps themselves are almost valueless, so what you say makes complete sense. I don't collect FDCs (so many singles across British Commonwealth!) so someone will get a very good buy one day when I list these on ebay. Thanks again!

The listing mentioned by Rushstamp company for the set of 59 different 1953 Coronation Matching covers is helpful to see, but one must take into account several factors that would bring the actual value far down from their asking price of 125 pounds sterling. A dealer like Rushstamps has to recover many expenses and make a substantial profit on every sale. They have to pay for their advertising in major stamp magazines, pay their staff living wage salaries and benefits, pay the cost of their store or wherever they are doing their business, pay the costs of going to stamp shows, etc. etc. etc. They must also pay for the cost of investing their money in their inventory which can mean tens of thousands, or more likely hundreds of thousands of dollars or pounds or whatever just sitting in the form of stamps and covers and compare that to the amount of return they could get on wise investments in the stock market or real estate or whatever. Then they must get enough to pay themselves a good salary every day, with benefits, and have enough left over to invest in growing their business. In other words, the price they sell their stamps and covers for will include all of these costs and so they must make a substantial profit above what they can buy the stamps and covers for on the open market. When a collector buys from a dealer they are paying all of those costs in exchange for the convenience of buying from the dealer. The commercial value of those stamps and covers is therefore much less. If one were to offer the same lot to a dealer like Rushstamps or pretty much anyone other dealer you would find that the actual commercial value of the lot would be between 25 percent and 50 percent of what they would turn around and sell it for.

From personal observation only, I think that you'll find that most dealers will offer between 5% and 10% on material. The dealer then sells at 50% of catalog for most material, since knowledgeable collectors expect to pay a %age of catalog value.