I Inherited My Uncle's Huge Collection Of Stamps, Thought You Might Enjoy Seeing Some Of It

I looked at your items on ebay and I think you listed the Canal Zone plate block twice, maybe you have 2 but it looks like the same item to me. Selling an item twice is a problem since you will have to cancel a sale and disappoint a buyer and probably earn an ebay defect. You can end an item early as long as there is more than 12 hours left in the auction.

I think Harmers will be able to quickly tell you if they are interested in your material and give you a ball park estimate of value. In my experience there will be no charge for this. If they accept your material they will break it down into logical lots for an appropriate auction. They should notify you of the auction and lot #s for your items so you can watch the sale. It is not unusual for it to take 6 months between accepting the material, selling the items and finally issuing you a check.

Good luck

PS You should definitely make an appointment before you go.

If you want to leave your material there and get a detailed appraisal for tax purposes for example then they will have to charge you.

I will tell you right now, Hamers will not get it. Qualitiy and value are not there. The US stamps will sell on ebay . The world I can see is very low value. Sorry for the bad news but we have to be realistic

There definitely is a disconnect going on here. What is shown is of minimal value. Mention of stamps worth hundreds of dollars but none pictured yet. In all fairness there is much we have not seen but what has been seen tells a lot.

Please show a stamp worth hundreds of dollars.

Definitely please let us know what Harmers of Tustin says so we can all learn.

Harmers will know very quickly if the material is of adequate value for their auction at no charge to you. Good decision to show them the hoard.

Please review my previous two posts on page 1 and page 4 of this thread.

Well, somebody finally said it. There are no indicators of anything worthy of inclusion in an auction by Harmer or similar. I would add that as a frequent consigner to Harmer I could not imagine Bill or Charles even feigning interest in this material. Not trying to be cruel. It just seems as if the train is leaving the tracks here as I follow the thread. Hopefully I am wrong and we are not seeing everthing but it seems unlikely.

I thank you for your opinions. You have seen nothing, I will stop posting and wait to see what the auction houses say. Appreciate the replies and advice, I really do.

I have shown you nearly nothing and most of what I have shown is a bunch of extra's I am putting up on ebay just to get my sellers account going again. They cancelled my previous one when I shut down the business, as I didn't use ebay for 3 years and that's what they do. I have to start all over, and I had thousands of sales and a 100% seller rating. Really made me mad, but that is their policy. I plan to sell a lot of things besides stamps on ebay, I am sitting in an antique store here of everything you can imagine. If I can liquidate the stamps, then I can concentrate on items that will actually make me some money.

You don't realize there are over 15 albums here (Still unboxing items), boxes and boxes of mint stamps, a lot going back beyond 1900. I haven't been able to show you anything except a few pages I took from one album. ONE ALBUM.

Sorry I seem to be bothering people, Can't tell what the "you don't have anything worth anything is about", but it isn't very positive.

Not even sure I will contact Harmer now, seems like some people here know them very well and may have already told them about this collection and not to bother with it. Not sure why some want to see me fail, jealous that I have all this? I am not happy I have all this, my Uncle died and I want to do the best by his lifetime collection. I don't get some of the almost angry answers I have gotten, especially the person who keeps telling me, "I told you this was Ragsdale material", or something like that.

About ready to put it all away again and concentrate on the jewelry, chinese art,and crystal.

Take care and have FUN with your stamps.

Hi Barbara,

We have both been through a similar experience here, I just went though finding out that the stamps I have are pretty inexpensive stamps - I had a similar reaction as you seem to be having, thinking the people in this forum didn't like me for some reason and that they came down on me with a hammer.

You said:




I don't believe anyone in this forum would do anything like you suggest above, I don't believe anyone here would intentionally sabotage you, in fact, I believe they are trying to help you - please just consider the possibility that the stamp collection you inherited may not be worth what you are thinking it is worth. On the other hand, you may just have not shown the hidden gems to this forum.

I don't believe anyone here is jealous either nor does anyone want to see you fail. I believe they are all rooting for you and have tried to help you.

I hope after some rest tonight you will give this some thought, and you may feel differently tomorrow. At any rate, good luck selling your crystal and jewelry and other collectibles - the jewelry especially should do well, not so sure about the crystal - it may be more difficult to sell, certainly more difficult to ship.

Anyway, I hope things go well for you whatever you do with all those stamps. Best of luck, Julie

Well that has to be one of the more incredible comments I've seen posted in a while. So much for trying to help people...

You've gotten very fair, expert opinions here. If you think the folks here are bad, just wait until you start dealing with the various auction houses.

But have no fear - the auction houses are very astute, and would never listen to comments - they will make up their own minds.

2,459 views have been made of this thread. That is a lot of eyeballs and a whole lot of education being passed on. This is not about or for just one person.

It's so very sad to see yet another thread where an inherited collection is automatically assumed to be worth a huge sum of money. We, as true collectors must do a better job of conveying the estimated value, resale value, to our potential heirs. Early on, I offered to come by and give her some comments, with no answer. Then , somewhere in this thread is the comment that everyone just wants to rip her off. I'm now considering this a troll and moving on. Maybe we'll have better luck with the next person.

Hi Barbara - congrats on inheriting a fine collection! The same happened to me recently and after posting my first "hello" message on this site, I was greeted with the same "welcome and don't get your hopes up because you'll be lucky to have enough money to buy a Happy Meal after selling them all." I really just wanted to make a little extra cash to buy my boys more of our other passion, sports cards, that we collect together.

There are other resources out there that are very helpful and this forum is great for it's entertainment value alone. Keep digging around the site and you'll find a lot of valuable information as other new folks are informed that their longtime passion should be set afire in a pit by their gravesite when they enter the next life.

Good luck with the auction!
Scott

No need to be hyper-defensive here unless something is being hidden. People here are just trying to help, and a good chunk of stamps are truely virtually worthless. Stamp collecting is something most people do for a fun hobby, not something to run a business on or retire to the Hawaiian Islands with. Yes, there are stamps that are worth a heck of a lot, but it is never that basic. There's always a lot of fine between the lines details that are present that only stamp collectors can spot that makes the difference from a $0.001 stamp and a $1,000 stamp. My house is filled with antique furniture that I use in day-to-day life from WWI era and a bit more, but none of them are antiques that are worth anything, and because they are still used as permanent furniture in my home and suffer marks and abrasions they are worth even less, but I like them because modern furniture falls apart and looks tacky.

With how much stamps you have there and the date range they go back to, the odds increase at the chances there might be stamps of value in there. Nobody knows. Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you try unloading all those stamps off at once, you can flood the market with them and devalue them as a whole, which would be bad.

Let us know what the auction houses say! I'd start with local places first that have good ratings and aren't five and dime stores, that way you can haul a few books down there and get an in-person viewing, maybe an after-hours store appointment - as looking through books that thick would certainly take a lot of time.

I apologize for any remarks I wrote that seemed offensive. It was not my intent. I am not a troll, BTW, real person :)

Partime. I received no email from you or had any way to contact you. I don't have enough posts to have email. I would have certainly replied to you if I had anyway to do so. My apologies. I also really don't want to have strangers in my house going through my uncle's stamps. I am brand new here and I am sure you are a wonderful person, but trust me when I say, the sheer volume here is out of anyone's hands. Plus, I feel extremely vulnerable right now as I just nearly died and am recovering, said at a year I will still only be 80% healed. My energy in limited, and I feel rotten everyday. I am alive and so thankful that I am still here when I should not be. Doctor calls me his lucky lady because I should have died. Told me I must have a flock of guardian angels, my abdomen was full of gangrene! Anyway....

I thank you all for you advice and thoughts. I know it is impossible to know what is in all of this. Some of my stamps have sold on ebay and as I go through some of the boxes to find some freebies to send to the buyers to give them a nice surprise, I keep coming across better and better stamps. I do know that a lot of his stamps are of little value, there are thousands still in the envelopes he bought from the post office. Hundreds of packets, some with receipts in the hundreds of dollars. He had the money, no idea why he just bought them and left them. Going back to the 60's on most of them, some older. I haven't got through 80% of this 'collection' yet.

It may be awhile before I get them in front of a couple of auction houses or appraisers. My health is so shaky right now it may be best to get a couple more months of healing under me. From what I have come across, they will be delighted to get some of the older stamps, I had a look at some values (not Scott, what people are selling them for on ebay), and there are many stamps here in the $100+ category. Way too many. Maybe they take those, I don't know. I have decided to sell this entire thing off when I am ready, it's too much and honestly, belongs in the hands of true and current collectors who will enjoy them. The rest, I will see what they suggest. I promise to let you all know the final outcome, and what it was sold for. I am as interested to know too, is it trash or treasure.

Again, my apologies, it is hard when you are ill. I know many here understand as I know a lot of you also face struggles and hobbies like stamps (I love gardening, animals, cooking, the outdoors, artistic pursuits, etc.,) help us distract ourselves from the problems in our lives, if just for a little while. A wonderful thing.

Thank you again and sorry I upset you all. I had a tantrum, I already put myself in the corner. BTW, if anyone here has bought some of my stamps on ebay, I would love some feedback to get my seller profile back up and going. I have 0 feedback, since I had to start all over :)

I agree on the comment that this thread, although started out by me, is still of value to others like myself who have inherited a collection. Everything you have told me will help the next person, and that's great. Even if they don't post, they may read and learn. Thank you.

Barbara "ifyouloveit" on ebay.

Barb, being in the Health field since 1976, I would recommend not responding to every posts here but take your time to see where you are heading and "heal". I do not think ebay is your remedy, giving away your prized possessions.
Just a thought.....cannot even find you on Eb ifyouloveit does not work
Rene

Rene - I found Barbara's ebay auctions with "ifyouloveit" - no problem. Are you using the advanced search box to do your search? That is where I searched from using "ifyouloveit" and it worked.

Barbara, so glad you have posted, I am glad to hear that you are still with us.

Best to both of you, Julie

Thanks Julie....tried the advanced search but am on ebay Canada - that might explain it

ifyouloveit does not work in USA in advanced search so send me a direct link to one of her listings please

Rene