East Germany / DDR / Deutsche Demokratische Republik / German Democratic Republic

I mentioned in another thread that my friend is retiring his collection of coins and stamps. I'm an avid coin collector so I purchased his coins last month. Now I'm helpig him liquidate his stamp collection. He's hoping to list the collection with an auction house and I solicited information about auction houses in the other thread. Meanwhile, I want to post some photos of the collection in this forum, for posterity.

All of these stamps are Mint from DDR 1950s to 1990s. They are displayed in a set of 3 beautiful custom binders. PS: not sure what hinged/unginged mean so hoping you'll see them and tell me.

Anyway, here they are. I hope you enjoy them!

That's the DDR set. Hope it helps other collectors!

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_hinge
"In philately, stamp hinges are small, folded, transparent, rectangular pieces of paper coated with a mild gum. They are used by stamp collectors to affix postage stamps onto the pages of a stamp album."


Your albums are called "hingeless albums" because they have clear plastic mounts to hold the stamps, eliminating the need to use hinges to hold the stamps to the page. Removing a hinge from a stamp will leave a mark and sometimes damage the stamp. Many collectors prefer "unhinged" or "never hinged" or "MNH" (same thing).

Your albums are beautiful, and being "hingeless" albums, that is a good sign that the stamps are never hinged, but that is no guarantee. For, the collector could have purchased a stamp that was previously hinged from another collector. Mounting a hinged stamp in a hingeless album does not make the stamp unhinged. :-)

If you don't have any stamp tongs and know how to use them, best to keep the stamps how they are in the mounts. Don't take the stamps out of the mounts to look at the backs because you could leave a fingerprint on the gum, and that's almost as bad as a hinge. Yeah, we're picky that way. You can't buff off a fingerprint from a stamp like you can on a coin.

Thanks for posting the photos. I don't collect this area so I can't comment on the value, but they are sure nice to look at.

Several are postally used (hence the cancels), so those at least are not mint.

Just an opinion, and I am not an expert on DDR, but this collection may find more interest on ebay vs. an auction house. But it certainly doesn't hurt to shop the collection with 1 or 2 firms to see if they have interest.

Thanks everyone, all opinions and hints and tips are warmly welcomed.

The main auction discussion is over here: https://goscf.com/t/84615

A lot of good conversation in both my threads. I think this will help my friend and other collectors decide how to evaluate and move their collections!

No German auction house will consider accepting such a DDR collection. There are several problems here: The mint stamps are common, the used stamps look like many are CTOs (canceled to order, as they are suspicious neat-quarter-corner-cancels). DDR stamps were collected by many folks in the DDR, as long as it existed. Afterwards the market has been swamped with those collections and that hasn't changed. The few active DDR collectors are mainly looking for plate varieties and plate flaws, but even there we're often talking pennies a pound in buy offers.

For the "Real Germany" stamps, there are two problems:
1. The market is also flooded with stamps, so generic collections sell at minimal fractions of Michel catalogue value for mint stamps.
2. For used stamps, there are the early issues which still sell well. But the problem is the cancels which are often faked. In general, cancels must be "recognizable" (whatever that means), stamps with generic wavy cancels as it often happens with US stamps, for example, simply don't sell.

So your friend might have spent a lot of time and energy on his collection, but unfortunately it seems it runs under "generic" and such material is usually unsellable (in Germany).

An example of a current auction.

\https://www.catawiki.com/en/l/72081...print-albums

Here is an ad from a retail dealer who sells such collections on a high volume, flip and profit basis.
https://drbobstamps.com/download/16...and-sons.pdf
Note offer 455 on page 5. It is selling at retail for less than 20% of catalog value, which means the dealer bought it for 10% or less. In net dollars, the dealer could not have paid more than $200 to profitability sell for $450. So this is what you are up against.

Thanks again to all. I posted a question about auctions in my other thread and had intended this thread to be eye candy and a reference to other collectors. But looks like the auction / value conversation spilled over so I'll cross-post this here:

I found what appears to be a similar collection of DDR stamps in binders that recently sold on ebay. The lot sold for US$335 plus shipping from Netherlands. Is this about what value my friend should expect to achieve?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195838401576

If so, then it's certainly not worth contacting the major auction houses and he should stick to ebay.

Boston - IMHO ebay is the way to go. You will likely net the same if not more than dealing with an auction house without the time suck and potentially chasing your money. Just the seller and ebay instead of the seller, the auction house and the buyer.

PS: Don't forget that an auction house will take on the order of 20% in commission from the seller and the same from the buyer which cuts down the buyers bid number.

Those albums have got to be worth more than the stamps!