Disposing Of Stamp Collection

Dear Forum,

I'm in the USA and getting ready to relocate out of the country. I have a very large world wide used collection. What are the market conditions for such a collection? It seems that there may not be much of a market from what little information I have gotten. If any can point me to a dealer in the lower Michigan/ upper Indiana/Illinois area that might be interested I would be happy for the information.

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

Consign it to Rasdale Stamps in Westmont Il. ,give them a call and if it is big enough Kevin will come out to view it . If the value is not that great then ship it to them .

Yes. Rasdale.

I don't agree that there is a poor market for large WW collections. If you watch auctions the bidding is usually very robust for the bigger better collections.

Hello Blue-M, and everyone that has posted. I have not been collecting very long, but I have been to a couple of shows in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area and have managed to pick up some books and a box load of stamps. I am in the process of separating the US and WW stamps, so my question for you all is; would I benefit from send my extras to Rasdale as well? I would like to keep about 5 of each stamp and be able to get something else for the surplus, but I am not sure if it would be worth it since most of the stamps I have are "common".
Thoughts and advise please.

Good luck and safe travels Blue!

Rasdale (and most auction houses) only take material that has some "juice" to it because they are:

1) Selling to a lot of dealers for stock that do not want common stamps
2) Need a certain bid amount in order to justify the cost of handling and marketing the material
3) Do not want to be stuck with material that does not sell

They would be overwhelmed with "stuff" if they started taking everything. Common stamps are common because there is no shortage of them.

Thank you all. The stamps are going to Rasdale.

Good choice Blue.

For a large WW general collection, selling by country will likely yield the most, in my opinion.

The 'Bay can work well with the right dealer as evidenced by this report while selling a 32,000+ 94% filled Scott International 1840-1940 (Big Blue)....



http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co...-report.html

That is a really interesting and informative report.

I wonder how much a dealer would have offered for it outright. $10,000?

Great decision - hope it provides.....content ! ($)

Based on past realizations, I would think that would be likely within the ballpark.

The statement made above that collections will sell better than a mixture assortment is correct. From my experience over many years. The auction firms don't want your common stamps. The firms already pick up a ton of the common stuff included when they make large purchases of dealer shops or vast inventories in their normal business .
As mention above many firms have minimum value of lots before they take a consignment . If a general lot has something interesting most firm sometimes offer a out right purchase, I have consigned a few lots that went under the firms minimum but that was specialized material and to them it added extra stuff to their catalog as separate items for bidding . Remember a auction house needs to build a interesting auction having 10 pages of "Bulk common worldwide "listing will actually reduce bidding interest .