I Am Wondering About APS Sales Circuits

I have a lot of duplicate material that I would like to sell and don't really like e-bay. I'm also considering just packing it all up and sending to an auction house. Mostly low to mid value stuff less than $100 cat value stamps, covers , etc. Am wondering about APS circuits. I have been checking out the rules, etc. on APS web site and a couple of things bother me. First it looks like its going to take probably two years to get paid and then may only sell 25% of what I send. Other than that, I really like the idea of the circuits. What is your experience like?

I have never sold on them. I was briefly a buyer, got a few mailings from their Russia circuit. not the best area to receive and form an opinion; I was not impressed. I was getting mostly incomplete sets, cto stuff and much of it over priced. I understand the need to keep the circuits moving but seven days maximum just made me feel hurried.

I've thought bout trying them again,maybe another area.

An inexpensive and easy way to sell duplicates is http://www.stamps2go.com/

If immediacy of payment is a concern, I would submit to the online APS stamp store rather than the APS circuits. You'll reach a larger audience with the online store.

I thought about the APS stamp store too but the listing fee for each stamp is 50 cents which would eliminate anything with a catalog value of less than $5.00 or so. I have 1000's of less than $10.00 stuff. I'll look into stamps2go.

I've sold dups on ebay and APS sales books. The better items sell quickly, other stuff slow or not at all. Selling via APS sales books is slow for sure. There are 192 spaces in the regular sales book and sellers need to have a net value of $30 per sales book. Books that contain country-specific offerings sell better than mixed countries and older stamps better than modern.

Regardless of the venue you choose to sell, selling is not a quick, easy task. It takes patience and a some skill to get stamps loted properly and priced right.

Don

There is a lot to be said for the APS sales circuits. The ability to actually see the stamp you're buying can't be discounted. On the other hand, postage costs on the circuits is high and preparing the book for sale is labor intensive.

The cost of the sales books and mounts and the effort to prepare the books are what prevent me from even considering it as a selling option. But I/m not really sure of the economics involved. Surely someone has done the math and figured out what the costs are relative to the potential profit, for a range of stamp values. I'd like to see such a breakdown.

I assume everyone pays the postage costs to participate in the circuits and not just the seller.

I receive 2 circuits from the APS (US and Canada). They can be hit or miss depending on what you want and your collecting tastes, but that is part of the draw for me. Every few months I get a package of books and will look through to fill some holes or find something interesting. Sometimes quality is an issue as a lot of books have stamps that are probably middle of the road in terms of condition. However, some books are filled with some gem items in them.

Shipping is also paid by the buyers as they are responsible for mailing the circuit to the next member on the list.

I think you may be misreading. The listing fee is 10 cents per item. The sale commission (comparable to Final Value Fee on ebay) is on a sliding scale starting at 20% with a 50-cent minimum.

I have lots of sub-$5 items listed on the Stamp Store.