Strategies For Managing Feeder Album Remainders

Currently I am primarily collecting Big Blue (aka Scott International) volume 1 (1840-1940) and to some extent volumes 2-5 (1940-1965). In order to fill spaces, I acquire country collections (in the form of albums, pages, lots), but the problem with this is that one accumulates excess (1) duplicate stamps, (2) stamps which fall outside the date range; and especially in the case of BB volume 1, some stamps which fall in the date range but don't have a space since it is not comprehensive, (3) assortments of albums, pages, binders.

One problem which I struggle with is for example, if I buy a nice country collection (an album, maybe a decently filled Scott Specialized), and then remove what I need (which may be half the stamps) what do with the album? And how would answer change if I removed 10% of the stamps or 80%? On the other side of the spectrum, I may just buy loose album pages which may not even be worth saving after the good stamps are picked. The lack of consistency bothers me.

For duplicates, it seems there's so many options. They can be put in stock books, sorted in glassines, put in stock cards & red boxes, just left in the album, just stored loose. Ideally, I'd like my 'remainder output' to be consistent and just one of the above (or maybe 2). Really what I'd like to do is put in some form where every few years I can drop it at an auction house as a 5-10 carton bulk lot. I probably need to convince myself to discard more also.

I would be really interested in hearing how other people have dealt with this issue.

You answered your own question. In Cartons until enough to be handled as a bulk, low value, auction lot.

Or you can box up the album and send them periodically to Stamps For The Wounded for distribution to US Veterans. It is a non-profit which started during WWII.

If you have a local retail dealer who deals in you countries, you can move the material to that place and take what he offers.

In general, albums with remaining material will sell on ebay, and usually better than stock-books with multiple copies of common stamps. A lot of a few albums may excite hopes of burued treasure.

I buy collections and break them up to sell on ebay and I always have leftovers.

Specialty album even empty or with some stamps removed have value depending on condition of course . Albums with a lot of empty black mounts don't sell too well. Just try and keep the pages intact and complete as you take stamps out.

I usually sell stamps on pages up to about 1970 and set the later years aside and I also set aside countries with stamps but not enough to sell as a stand alone item on ebay. I sort these as best I can and then put them into binders I've emptied. These also sell quite well on ebay.

I used to be able to sell empty binders I've accumulated in groups of 5 and ship them in the Large Game Console Priority Mail Boxes, but these boxes have been discontinued.

The stuff that's left I pile into Priority Boxes and these sell well too.

When I was collecting my goal was to use feeder collections and ebay resales to built my collection for free. It worked pretty well.

Ken

After many years of dreaming of it I finally acquired a set of 13 Scotts Internationals and have transferred everything I wanted to my Minkus. Here is my problem. I would like to resell the Scotts which still contain thousands of duplicates I didn't need. How should I put these up for sale and be upfront about these being remainder albums? I started counting what's left but looking for hints as to what is best.

Once every two or three years I drive a truck load of collections ,supplies and boxes of glassines to Rasdale Stamp Auctions or Dutch Country and consign them as two or three lots . They already know this is return material and no need to examine ,they use my printed up inventory to make their own description . Since they know I buy much more than what I bring in ,they cut me some slack as a happy bidder .

As a side note , I clean up this duplicate material so it is better organized than when I got it .