To Whom Should I Sell My Collections?

funny

This whole discussion brings up another issue, why have catalog values at all. No one buys at cv, no one sells at cv, no one lists anything at cv, so why have cv's? The only possible reason, I can think of, is for an insurance claim.

Terry we have this discussion 1 millions time

But I can't tell you it's not the case with Austrian and Hungarian revenues . They sell way more than catalogue value

I hope they hide it well. If this was Eqypt, you would have to deal with grave robbers. 8-)

As a common benchmark.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Catalog values were fine when there was growing interest in the hobby and dealers and sellers had price list to establish a price that reflected what people were willing to pay . The catalog people could depend on these price list and know at what price the dealers were asking . This system worked fine for over 100 years .
The whole pricing structure starts to fall apart as the demand for stamps start to decrease . Adding to the decrease is the ability for collectors to sell their own material to other collectors . When collectors are selling combine with dealers selling and both are competitive to get a sale the price starts to slide downward . That is where we are at now ---A race to the bottom .
The catalog firms have no clue as to what to do .They want prices to increase so they can sell the current years catalogs but they also lost their greatest source of pricing with the vanishing dealer price list . Now no dealer can assist the catalog firms with any kind of updated pricing .

I can't stress to you how important those dealer ads in magazines and stamp newspapers and pricelist were to the hobby . With the disappearance of both, the whole pricing structure is falling apart .Then compound the desire of sellers on the internet to lower their prices to get a sale ------WE ARE IN A RACE TO THE BOTTOM looking for that smaller ,ever disappearing person willing to purchase collectible stamps .

Interesting observations, floortrader. I think you are correct...for 99.5 percent of stamps on the market.

I couldn't disagree more. The auction market is thriving at all price levels and shows no signs of reduced demand. "Prices Realized" lists always have formed a data source for catalog publishers. If anything has changed, it is that catalog publishers must shift their data sources away from dealer price lists (of which there still are plenty) toward auction results, including ebay results. It is just different work for the catalog publisher, who still is awash in data.

Race to the bottom? If true (where is the hard, reliable data?) then it is good for collectors of lower end material, who should be able to buy more for the same money. It may drive greater market segmentation where many semi pro or lower end dealers are serving the broad lower spending collector market, and fewer dealers and auction houses are serving the higher end collector ... I see no problem with that. It is a change but the sky is not falling. Those who say it is always seem to rely on anecdotes and hearsay rather than verifiable hard market data over a multi year period.

Selling stamps in the good old days was a challenge too. HE Harris had a whole checklist of reasons they didn't want your collection.

A side note to the gentleman from Croatia who states that one does not need to be a genius to sell on ebay. That may be true for Europe ebay. But other threads on this web site have noted the decline in sales for a lot of material here in the USA and sellers flooding the ebay market with really cheap stuff.

Hello Steve. I"m selling every day on various internet sites and in the real life. Many ebay buyers from Europe and EU buy on international ebay site. Can 100 % agree with You that there is decline in stamps sales (on ebay, on all other sites and in the Real life).
That decrease happen on all ebay sites. But, whats really cheap stuff for You? ebay and Paypal combination is a killer of cheap cents worth stuff selling. Look at Delcampe site, thats flooding with cheap material. But Delcampe fight against it too, they have fix fees for sold item and reduce flooding.

Dealers also "snipe and buy" stamps on ebay. But they know what to buy. I think that is impossible to get less money selling stamp album,lot or similar on ebay than sell it to some local dealer. Dealers are greedy, they are evil, they see only the money in selling Your stamps on ebay and they see one big sheep in amateur selling stamps.

I am not sure that sweeping generalizations can be made for all dealers. But it is true that the definition of a dealer is that this is a business for them. They are not hobbyists simply selling off extra material.

A wise person once told me that dealers make their money when they buy, not when they sell.
Don

What is a stamp worth? One answer is as much as someone is willing to pay for it. How do you find the person who is willing to pay the most for it? Time.

It takes time to sort out and organize what you have.

It takes time to write up descriptions.

It takes time to take photographs.

It takes time to load all this onto various market places.

It take time to pack the stamp(s) for mailing.

It takes time to build up a reputation for having interesting/quality material.

And, in the end, no mater how careful you are at what you buy, not everything sells.

If you have all that time to invest in selling your stamps, you will trade time for a larger cash return. Or you can sell it to a dealer, who will invest that time, and get more for the stamps than he/she paid you.



If you spend all

All good suggestions. I've written a twenty year clause into my will that means the collection cannot be disposed of before I'm gone twenty years.My heirs will either decide to learn about my stuff or let it rot.They all know I have considerable holdings so I'm banking they will take the time to learn.