Best Place To Auction Off A Large Collection Of Chinese Stamps?

RAY ----ok your in California , drive up to San Francisco and hire the firm of Harmer-Schau to look your material over and take their advice ,they may not be the best firm to sell your material but their advice would be worth it, even for you to make a decision .

Ray - Competition is a good thing. Whether or not the Houses are aware of your dealings with others is hard to gauge but letting any one House know that you are speaking to others really has no downside. Heck, I have offered material to Houses in the past and ended up with a commission break offered in order to entice me to use one particular House.

I look at familiarity with the material, quality of sale presentation, responsiveness, payment terms, reputation, location and past results for similar material when choosing the route to go.

The auction houses suggested by above specialize in China materials. They hold the auctions on China materials in Hong Kong. In general, they charge 15-20% buyer's premium and 10-15% seller's fee. You will net about 70-75% of the realized price.

Christie's and Soothbys closed their stamp business some time ago. In comparison to the antiques, arts, jewelry and watches, the stamp business is fairly small. But the large dragon full sheet should be able to grab some good money for you.

For most of the materials, the catalog is a good reference. You can check the realizations of the stamps in their website.

I am a collector and dealer in California. Please let me know if you need help to evaluate your collection.

John Bull Hong Kong/U.S.(H.R.Harmer) affiliated.

https://jbull.com/en/aboutus/

The red revenue stamps you posted are very nice, especially the stamps in the 2nd row.

Tang - How do you figure that "you will realize 70-75% of the realized price"? If you have a 15% sellers fee you will realize 85% of the realized price.

Harmer-Schau is about 40 miles north of San Francisco in Petaluma. However, they haven't held an auction since Jan 2020.

http://www.harmerschau.com/php/index.php?lang=1

Thanks littleriverphil for the link , good they look like they have experience with China material ,even if they are not the place that I would sell China , I'd go with someone with a auction in Hong Kong
,especially if I was selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of China and also get a 10% sellers rate on commissions .

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and info. I've reached out to John Bull, and just got a response from Kelleher.

We have 1 more question, and it might sound amateurish or even stupid, but it's really a concern for us auction-newbies. Is there a possibility that some pieces in our stamp collection, while in possession of the auction house for valuation and inspection, could be criminally "swapped out" for counterfeits? There is no way to identify the owner on the stamps themselves (definitely not going to write my name on the back). Some of the pieces could be worth tens or hundreds of thousands, and counterfeits of high-value Chinese stamps, we were told, were common.

I know that going to a reputable auction house would be the safe thing to do, but is there always that inevitable risk? Sorry if it sounds stupid but it's a risk that my family is worried about. Thank you.

Great question. Also ask about what happens when an auction house sells your collection and then goes bankrupt before you receive payment. What to do? Cash on the spot offers only?

Not sure if the same can be said of expertizers. Do rare stamps that are sent to expertizers get damaged through mishandling? Yet to hear someone coming forward with a story.

That is why you get a expert to look at everything first,get certificates and photograph everything before you release those items to the auction firm .

At this point ;why don't you show us some pics of single stamps ?

Agree with Floortrader. Certificates are a must. They document the stamp and vastly increase buyer confidence. Also necessary IMO for a hassle free insurance experience.

Thanks for all the comments, looks like getting certificates for them would be the best thing to do first. Hope I can find someone reputable in the Los Angeles area for that.

perf12: I have a photo of some of my single stamps on my first post.