Selling An Entire Large Collection

Looking for expert advice on selling an entire collection. It is partly mine (from years ago) and partly inherited and it includes several thousand mint plate blocks, mint sheets, early US covers, and albums. I have gone through it and made an inventory and I'd like to avoid the cost of an appraisal.

Thanks!

Eston

Are you able to upload a few images of what you think are your "star" pieces? It would give us more idea of what you mean by "early U.S. covers" and that might give something more to go on when throwing out some recommendations. Also, pictures of the first page or two of an album might be useful.

I'm not convinced the first album pages are helpful as they just have a few stamps from Abyssinia, but I'll post a couple of other pages from one album for what it's worth. I have not gone through the individual stamps, of which there are several hundred thousand, but I have catalogued the US plate blocks, mint sheets and first day covers (below).

I was hoping to get advice on potential buyers -- Mystic, Kelleher Auctions, etc. Anyone have experience in the trade in large collections? Or are there individual dealers who buy collections like this?


PB Mint sheet FDC
1970s 175 50 16
1960s 1741 23 39
1950s 556 8 27
1940s 96
1930s 86

I am sorry to say that page of British stamps has very little value. The stamps are only the common values from the series and the quality is not very good. The Edward VII stamps do look to have at least one of each value. Those stamps might best sell ebay. On a very good day, you might get $ 5 - $ 10 for that whole page. I doubt a dealer or auction house will show much interest in them.

My understanding is you'd be lucky to get face value for what you have as far as PBs and sheets, especially if they are all common stamps. I also have thousands of plate blocks from the same timeframe. They will just sit in a box waiting to be given to whomever takes over my collection in the future. As far as what might be most valuable, it would normally be the 1st couple of pages from each of the countries... stuff between 1840 and 1900.

I'm a little more optimistic than NSK. The pages of early GB and France are more filled-out than many collections we see here including a couple slightly better items. Sure, as individual pages those may only sell for $10 on ebay, but those are just two pages out of hundreds of countries. Are those Scott International albums (aka Big Blue). I think an auction is your best bet. Many dealers will avoid collections that big because of the space that they take. But there are dealers that do well breaking them down by country and selling them on ebay or at stamp shows.

Yes, I would expect Kelleher would be interested, as well as probably Dutch Country Auctions in Delaware. I have not dealt with Mystic but my understanding is that they like to Buy Low, Sell High.

Shipping can be expensive so hopefully you can find a local stamp club or monthly stamp show to give you nearby options and recommendations.

You don't mention your location so it is hard to recommend a local dealer that may be interested. Check the internet for "stamp shows near <my city>" or "stamp dealers near <my city>". The APS web site can also help you locate local dealers,
https://stamps.org/dealer-search
and also local stamp clubs,
https://stamps.org/club-search

Stamp shows are a good option because you can find a lot of dealers at the same place all under one roof. At a busy show however they may not have much time to look at a large collection.

Aim to get around 50% face on the plate blocks and sheets. Some may be better, but generally every collector already has everything they need between the 1950s and 1970s so they are best used for postage. And it takes a lot of 6 cent stamps to mail a letter at today's postage rates.

Not going to happen unless they're selling to another collector. MAYBE an outfit like Mystic or Gitner might be willing to pay that for complete sheets if they have a ready roster of customers for them. Most dealers I know do not place any premiums on plate blocks or sheets until you get back into the 1930s (high denominations notwithstanding).

For rank and file postage below 20 cents face value, I'd be surprised if dealers would offer more than 30% of face. I buy self-adhesive postage 32 cents and up (including forever stamps) from my local dealer for 50% of face, so you can imagine what he's paying.

I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, just realistic. I don't think that giving the OP unrealistically optimistic estimates is helpful.

P.S. I echo NSK's assessment of the album page images shown. Nothing there is of more than nominal value IMO. Even the few items that catalog for $10-50 shown can readily be purchased as singles for 5-10% of Scott online without much difficulty.

I'd like to see a picture of the entire collection, whether it's a couple boxes, a closet full or a room full. If there is enough some auction houses will send someone to look at it.

Are you sure they are not fake? Gitner advertises that he buys Forever panes at 70% face. I frequently see groups of Forever stamps at auction going for 90% of face.

Gitner says he buys Sheets 3¢-22¢ at 50% face, blocks at 45%. I said aim for 50% face, to set expectations, not a guarantee. I also hear that Gitner has strict quality metrics to get those prices.

Some sellers on ebay appear to have good luck selling multiple lots of 3 cent to 6 cent plate blocks in groups of 50 or 100 at a time for close to face (or more). It may take a long time, but there seem to be buyers out there.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/235229234442

So shop around. One dealer may be willing to pay only 30%, others perhaps more. If Kelleher doesn't want them, Modern Stamps may be a good outlet as well. They have a public auction tomorrow (Saturday Jan 20) with a bunch of postage (lots 211-238) to keep an eye on for the current market (minus commissions).
https://www.modernstamps.com
https://stampauctionnetwork.com/d/d51611.cfm#30

Thanks for all the input!

Seems to be a bad news / good news situation. I knew the plate blocks had not held much value but I hoped they were worth more than half face value. My grandfather thought they would be a good investment back when philately was a huge business and bought them up left and right -- then I followed his lead for years. (If he'd put that money into 1950s baseball rookie cards I'd be driving a Rolls right now!)

But two people think the individual pages could being $5-10 -- really? That's much more than I assumed. That would make it worth my while to photograph all the promising album and post them and take bids. (The France and Britain pages were just 2 I picked randomly; aside from the US collection, there are 3 jumbo albums here bursting with stamps.)

Another question: my grand father approached collecting like a pack rat, saving every stamp regardless of its scarcity, and he taught me to do the same thing, so we have thousands of nicely sorted out canceled duplicates of common stamps. Obviously these have little value but do they have any at all?? Or should I just throw them away?

I would never recommend throwing anything away unless it was damaged/soiled. At the very least, see if there's a local stamp collecting club or group (local schools, churches, etc.) that would accept bulk material as a donation.

Not recommending nor am I certain Kelleher would accept this material but stating that they offer free shipping and insurance.

If I may, at first view, the French page is unfortunately worth even less than the GB, unless there are faults, varieties, of course. Do you have earlier stamps (Céres, Napoléon III, Sage, early airmails)?