Value Of Stamps In A Collection

I couple of years ago I was on a site where someone was giving away his stamp collection just for the shipping cost. I received 1,000 stamps that are very common stamps and they are used but in good condition.If at the least are they worth normally face value or could they be worth less than face value.

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Face value is a poor guide. Show us scans of what you guess might be the better stamps and we can weigh in.

I don't need the scans to tell you the sad truth. Common stamps that are cancelled are basically worth ... nothing.

1¢ to 2¢ a stamp for common used stamps.

An important exception might be some specialists. For example, I enjoy researching common (="worthless") Mexican stamps from the 1920s and 1930s, and I enjoy studying such things as patterns of usage dates and railroad "ambulante" cancels. I would love to obtain readable cancels for 2-3 cents apiece! Maybe 5 to 10% qualify in that regard.

Depend what era they are from. 1960s and 1970s, seen 'em all. 1950s and 1980s, meh. But I never get tired of going through hoards of older used stamps looking for unusual postmarks.

On the other hand, I also give packs of those "junk" stamps to kids and classrooms, and you can tell from the interest and curiosity that value is subjective. Was happy to give a few hundred stamps from Ecuador to a family from Ecuador a few years back, and they actually were in tears looking at all the iconography of the land where they grew up. I was a bit surprised, it was nothing special to me, but obviously meant something to them. There is more to it than dollars and cents.

Now, finding ANY stamps of the past decade postally used is not easy. I used to buy all kinds of kiloware as a kid, sometimes 20 pounds at a time, but that whole market seems to have gone down to a trickle ... must be hard to amass the poundage of something that's hardly used anymore.

I started with worthless stamps .....even was told they were worthless at a stamp club when I was 16 years old .......Things have since changed . My collection today is worth more than my house .I am happy that I started with worthless stamps and have dozens of stories how it all came about ,with some stories nobody will believe .

Capricorn: welcome to the Forum. I generally agree with comments already made; and would add..... In the world of collectibles; which includes stamps; there is a largely unwritten general rule. Your collectible is worth only as much as someone else is willing to pay for it. Condition is paramount. For example, I have a damaged, used, copy of Canada Scott #16. 2016 catalogue value is $6,500. The stamp is probably worth about $50-100 for someone who would want a space filler copy, since the stamp is relatively rare. Unless you aspire to be another Floortrader, who is a part time dealer and also highly respected around these parts, collect stamps as a hobby, not as an investment.

If I was to sell my specialty collections (Portugal & colonies, Poland, Mexico), I would plan on getting 5% to 10% of the then current Scott catalogue value. Some stamps would command higher prices if they were pulled out and sold separately. An example might be my 1934 Mexico National University sets, in nice condition, which together catalog over $6,100 (2016 catalogue). I'd expect a gross realization around $1,500 - 2,000 for those two sets.

Consider that some markets are hotter than others and that markets change. As an example, I sold almost all my extensive France and colonies collection; in two albums; in the past year. Gross sale price; before commission; was about 7% of Scott catalogue value. The collection did contain a number of sets and individual stamps cataloging in the $100 to $500 range. But the French market is fairly dead these days.

You might obtain more than 5%+ for some stamps if you find someone like Seigakul who is interested in postmarks. Another example: I have a lot of used stamps in my Portugal/colonies collection from St. Thomas & Prince Islands. But only three of them have good, readable, Prince Island cancels. Prince is the smaller of the two major islands, with far less population back around the turn of the 20th century when the stamps in question were issued & cancelled.