Don't Give On Your Worldwide Collection

So high end stamp auctions are considered a wholesale markets? With vintage comic books they are considered retail.

Any auction can be both. Single or small lots at auctions are, in effect, a retail offer. Larger lots that can be sub-divided are akin to wholesale.

That doesn't help much as they said they priced it as if it was broken down and sold separately so where would the substantial profit come from the person who bought it? To me it just seems to be puffery.

Tax free collection? Do tell

dsmith

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. The auction house could have broken the collection down into individual country lots or more valuable sets. It chose to set its estimate on that basis. However, a dealer prepared to take the time (which auction houses do not) to break the lot down into many more smaller units would have the potential to realise a higher net figure.

Geoff

Also the trustees didn't want some parts coming back as unsold lots from the auction house . Wise decision by them ,they were told that the collection wouldn't return the total invested by the deceased owner and fearing a situation they didn't need ,it was sold intact .

So what is the normal profit margin for a stamp dealer to make on his auction purchases? And why specifically did the auction house say this collection would earn the buyer a 'substantial resale profit' while other lots didn't have this type of notation? And how quickly would they get the investment back? Wouldn't a dealer spending that much money just want to purchase a few desirable items to resell vs decades of work?

dsmith ----My guess is that it was purchased by any one of a number of other stamp auction houses, that is a huge amount of money for any retail stamp dealer .The collection will be broken down to high ticket items being highlights in their auction catalogs for a few auctions , then the better stamps would go into A.P.S. sales books , then remaining would be broken down into country collections and regional collections .
The prices for return on investment should be about 20- 50% but that's over a one year time period ,been placed and spread out over 4 stamp auctions .