Seeking Advice On A Worldwide Classics Collection

There are some fun lots here that would do quite well on ebay IMO.

"I'm surprised at the lukewarm reception...I feel more explanation is needed what is wrong with this collection and why it would not command a very healthy sum at auction."

It will bring decent money. What's "wrong" is just that the market treats France, Germany, classic GB (except the penny black, and if one of the green 1sh has 4 clear margins and no faults - perhaps the 5th one) & Italy poorly. Also, it appears to be more of an accumulation than a collection (with some faults visible), and having 5 of something is not 5 times better than having one unless you break it up.

But still way better than the usual "I inhereted".

Are you not all entertained that greendragons asked for more pictures. This is a serious stamp collection with real value. The strength here is in South America. Some forgeries yes, but many also look genuine. Since you are not a stamp expert, the best is to dispose of at auction. David Kheller or Dutch Country is your target audience here. Good luck!

Your grandfather appeared to buy middling classics. What I mean is, these are not great rarities but solid stamps collectors need to fill their albums. Better than 97% percent or more of collections that people usually inherit.

Agree with a lot of the previous comments in that multiples of an item do not really increase the value of the whole. Perhaps, with time, you could do well by selling individuals on ebay, but that would take a LOT of time. Living in Southern California, if this came up at a dealer's table, you would get an offer for the whole thing, or just for country pages quite easily. Good luck.

Thank you very much to everyone who responded. Your insights are much appreciated, and I'm getting a better understanding of what we have and what to do with it. Will probably reach out to a couple of the auction houses mentioned here in the thread.

For whatever it's worth I did one more short photo session to take a look at "colonial" parts of his collection. Didn't really know what I was looking for, except I tried to grab places where the country/territory stamps started at or near #1 and where those early stamps were well back in the 1800s. Attached are the first page from these 9 places: Angola, Ceylon, Cuba, Hong Kong, India, Indochina, Macao, Singapore, and the British Straits Settlements.

This is a nice varied collection. Should sell at auction. Good luck! Better than most inherited collections that we see.

What albums did your Dad use? ie In addition, to pocket sleeves, did you see Scott specialty or lighthouse brand albums with pre-printed pictures.

I wouldn't say I am a newbie but intermediate colelctor. From my limited experience and knowledge I would say the British colonies collection has some beautiful stand outs - a few sharp overprints, some wonderful cancels and the stamps overall seem in better shape than some of the other stamps shown. However, what you have shown depicts a stamp collection of someone with a limited but sufficient budget to collect some wonderful cancelled stamps and had a good eye.

The main challenge and the reason why many suggest an auction house is the size and variety of stamps. A local dealer would low ball you because they would likely not have the resources to go thoroughly through this collection. A very high end auction house may not think it worth the time unless you vet the stamps of potentially highest value. SO those suggesting auction houses are hopefully providing ones that handle large collections of intermediate worth and have a customer base specializing in particular cancels AND the resources to spend time on the collection. Just expect remuneration to occur slowly - say anywhere from 6 months to 2 years as this is a collection attractive to collectors but due to its size will take time to sell.

Do yourself a favor for your family member's legacy and at least keep a handful of stamps as a memory of them. Get a binder archival from Best Buy or Staples, a few Vario stocksheets, and store the stamps in them. The stocksheets are also excellent to store some family documents of interest. The combination of a page or two of stamps you like and then the rest family documents or old pics would make a wonderful legacy and momento. When getting the stocksheet get a 6S or 7s for the stamps and two packets of 1S for documents and photos. A 1 1/2 inch binder should suffice.

No way it should take 2 years to auction off.

What is shown has some beefy catalog value, but there are some stamps with missing pieces, which leads me to suspect others will have creases, tears, thins etc that can't be seen in the pics, so it will lower the net value.

There are some good stamps amongst what has been shown and together with the sheer quantity means there is quite a bit of value there.

The problem, as I see it, is the very mixed condition and the duplication.

You see stuff like this in most of the stamp auctions mentioned here.

"Large world wide collection/accumulation on stock sheets etc. Looks to run from earlies to about 1940s. Very high catalogue value but much duplication and the condition is VERY mixed. Needs to be viewed by potential buyers. Estimate $xxxx - $yyyy."

I do not think this collection got a lukewarm reception. As many members have written, it is better than most 'I inherited' collections posted here.

At the same time, we will not be helping OP by giving a wrong impression of the collection. How much a collector likes to look at these images is not relevant. The question is what a collector who is not just looking at someone else's collection or dealer with the required budget will want to spend on this collection.

As a collector of British stamps, I like the images showing the British stamps. Would I like them in my collection? - And do not take my interest as indicative for what others want. - I would not. Liking is not the same as wanting. And wanting is not the same as willing to buy.

The collection has considerable value. But it, unlikely, will bring anything near what was paid for it.
As some posted, an auction house, probably, will be the best option. They will charge a percentage of the hammer price, so they would be interested to optimise the amount it can make. But splitting the collection into lots, describing them, and auctioning them takes time. The people who do that will be paid for it.

Wide scope, quality issues, and duplication all affect how much money you will receive for it. That does not constitute a lukewarm reception of the collection itself.

As OP wrote:




Yes, 'it would not command a very healthy sum at auction.' But 'tens of thousands of dollars' may be stretching it.

I'm not ready to draw that conclusion yet. We've only seen a couple dozen pages out of the 50-60 binders. I'm just making up numbers here, but if the original investment adds up to $80K in 1980s dollars, it is not unreasonable for it to reach $20K today if lotted properly. I see lots of country collections being picked up for $500-$750 per album and this collection has multiples of some of the good stuff. That said, condition is everything, and this is not your typical collection because it has big duplication of "good" stamps and maybe not as many "great" stamps that you might find in a well-filled Scott Specialty collection.
It is hard to give any meaningful estimate without knowing what else is in the 95% of the collection that we haven't seen yet. If similar to what has been posted, that's a good sign. If it is filled with 1920s+ used or mint hinged, then less so...

I, certainly, do not rule that out. When I hear someone say 'tens of thousands' I do not usually think of the lowest multiple of ten thousand.

Thank you all again for engaging in this spirited discussion. I know so much of it is speculative, and the real test is when a dealer or auction house actually assesses the entire collection and decides what they think it's worth to them or their customers.

But I'm learning from every post and hopefully it's somewhat entertaining for you all to discuss this. And to add detail to the discussion I was able to find my dad's auction purchase history and I did the math.

Between 1998 and 2020 he bought 136 lots at auction. The average final purchase price of a lot he won was USD $2,000.00 and over those 23 years of buying he spent a total of $273K.

Some other details about his buying habits: He never bought individual premium stamps. It was always medium sized lots - often a heavy carton would arrive packed with multiple old albums and folders. He was a bargain hunter, he did detailed calculations before bidding, and I know he tried to restrain himself from chasing contested items. He would tell me that typically he'd win the items he wanted at 1 or 2 increments over the reserve/minimum bid, or else he'd let them go. And he always did a post analysis of his success. If I remember correctly I think he'd say he did poorly if he ended up spending 30%+ of catalog value, and well if it worked out in the 10-20% range. Does that sound right?

Anyway I can now see how his buying habits resulted in the collection the way several of you have described it - an accumulation lacking top quality standouts, but expansive and deep with medium-quality duplicates.

And I get why duplication waters down the price of a collection for the individual collector. Hopefully I can find the right auction company who will want to spend the effort to part out the collection and maximize what we get for it.