I Bought A Million US Postage Stamps - Literally ... Is There A Market For Bulk Stamps.

This is my first day registered here and my first post. I collected stamps as a kid 1960s-70s and have bought a few here and there over the last several decades, they have always been of interest. I have not collected based on value, but on what I liked.

A couple of years back I went to an "Estate Sale" that advertised among other things, "a lot of stamps," what ever that meant. The sale entered through the drive way gate to the back yard which was covered with "stuff" and then through the house as well. Just in the gate, I stopped to look at some antiques and my went on down the drive towards a large shed. On the drive in front of the shed she called my name and said, "I found the stamps. She was not standing near a table so I asked, "Where?" She pointed to the box on the drive in front of her. It was 4 foot by 4 foot by 4 foot wood crate. I asked her "How many?" and she said, "It's full." She wasn't joking. They were clipped envelope corners in Wal-Mart sacks inside of gunny sacks.

I asked for the person in charge and asked what she wanted for the stamps. She said, "Do you want all of them?" to which I replied, ""Not of you want a million dollars." She gave me a price, I haggled a little, after all, who would buy that many stamps.

We agreed on the price and then she said, "The other half are in the garage." Yes, there were that many more in the garage in bags. I sent the wife to the store to buy trash bags in which to put the gunny sacks before putting in my van. She bought scented kitchen bags. Bad mistake, and we filled the van.

The story doesn't end there. The lady in charge said, "Come back in three weeks and we will have another sale and have some better stuff then, we haven't emptied the large shed yet." My wife estimated we had 1/2 million stamps as we unloaded them. Three weeks later we went back. I stopped at the first table looking at the antiques, and my wife went to the back of the drive and stopped by the shipping crate. She called my name and said, "It is full again." I bought that crate too.

The stamps through which I have already processed, are sorted in groups of similar stamps. The 1960s and 1970s commemorative were sorted into rubber banded or plastic bags. The 1930s to 1950s are sorted by Wal-Mart Bag full as are the smaller 1960s-1970s.

I have soaked off approximately 1/2 Million stamps and re-bagged then in Ziplock seal snack bags. I have sorted out some cancellations and Perfins, as well as damaged stamps. Every once in a while I come across a foreign stamp. When done, I believe the count will be a Million PLUS US postage stamps.

I would like to make up some stamp starter kits using one each of the varieties and market them to kids to get more people into collecting. I attribute my love of History and better than average knowledge of the world to my childhood days studying stamps and learning from their subjects.

Long story, short question. How would the best way be to sell the bulk, or parts of the bulk stamps?

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

''

Welcome to the Stamp Community Family.

Usually bulk stamps sell for a bulk price. I have seen Gallon bags full of hundreds of stamps go for a $1 or 2. This is because it takes a lot of time to sort through them as you know.

If you do some of the sorting, you can probably ask for more.

Thank you ggreve. They were somewhat presorted when I got them. When I soak them, I sort them and bag them, coil vs sheet, by type. Now if there are several minute differences with in a design, I have not picked them out. I can fit around 3,000 small size stamps, sorted and stacked in a single snack size bag, that making two rows. That is how I keep a running count of the stamps I have completed. The larger, commemoratives of the 60s and 70s. can only be put in one row, so only 1,500 per bag.
Are the bulk bags you mentioned soaked or on paper?

Check out this auction, at this price you can make a few $;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-US-STAM...AOSw1-RUZlIp

Note they've sold over 350 sets.

AR8jason:

You can also sell the stamps "On paper". I had 60 lbs of on paper and if I remember correctly I could stuff 2 lbs into a priority envelope. I started these at 99c + shipping and sold them all as fast as I could list them.

Selling the stamps off paper is a lot more work but you'll get a better price. Good luck!

Remember, I am new here. I will try to post some pictures if I can find the how to post I saw earlier. Small size is an issue as my camera doesn't make them that small.

It's pretty easy, and there is an image optimizer to reduce the image size.

Trying to post pictures. Used optimizer, down loaded, but no photos show up in my saved photos.

I wasted a couple of hours trying to up load pictures. I will take a break and try again later. I started off by trying to up load several and then just tired one. No spaces and no special characters. I used the Image optimizer and hit the green arrow when sizes was right. Yet still says I have no files available.

Sent you an email.
Don

Don, try again. I didn't get it.

Here are the two images the original poster has sent.

Thank you Don. First photo is some of the stamps drying. The second is one of the WalMart sacks that is inside the gunny sacks. The bag reads, "Void, Presidents, Late."

Some more images from the original poster.
Don

Thank you again Don. I wished I had taken a picture of the pile of the "Before" but here is a pile of the "After." This one box holds 205,500 cleaned, sorted and bagged stamps. The large framed picture is one my daughter did as a college art major. The assignment was to take a photograph and reproduce it with a "common object." This was done with about 1800 of the bulk stamps.