Worldwide Collection

I'm looking at a worldwide collection. 20 volumes. Doesn't look like much rare material. but it is notable for having stamps from lots of different countries. many are CTO. all are on nice homemade pages. thousands of stamps.

In central NY

What can I tell this guy to do with them?

He spent years putting this together, and would hate to part with it for a pittance.

You can tell this guy to do many things with it.

From what you describe, that collector should not expect much more than a pittance. Some more detail and pictures might help people understand what he or she best could do with it.

Lots of different countries issue bogus stamps and wallpapers. Many countries where most people cannot read or write issue thematic stuff CTO by the hundreds. Those would be wallpapers. So, which countries? Which CTO?

Alub ---- Tell your friend you respect his work and time spend . But in today's market the 20 volumes have very little value for the pages . His time and mounting was entertainment . Now my guess is he paid a pittance for the stamps .

So paid a pittance ,he will get a pittance , understood ?

At $5 per volume he'd be looking at $100.
At $10 per volume he would have some great stuff.

Question, how far to an auction firm to offer it as as a bulk lot? Calculate gas costs to and from. Subtract the answer from $100. Shipping 20 volumes should not cost more the $150-$200 by ground. Subtract that from $100.

Take to a local stamp show and ask dealers to make an offer, any offer. When you get a no thank you response ask,what about just $50? You may get a bite.

I just moved a 35 volume collection, all hand made pages. Many countries 1950-2015 or so period. Got a few bucks over $600. Complete 1950 to 2016 Israel, all tabs, all mint, all hinged $50, same for UN, but for a lot less; same for Portugal, GB, Canada, India, Singapore. But the bulk came for the mint and used US from the 1800s to 2016 or so with $1100 face mint sheets of forever stamps at 30% of face, all used tossed in and the Bhutan nearly complete because it had the most of the Bhutan record set and a number of commercial and private registered correspondence of postally used Bhutan covers.

There was a 10% bite on the sales price for the club's efforts on her behalf. Gas was free to her for the 200+ mile round trip as I was going anyway, had some other errands and wanted (needed) to talk to a dealer about a non-philatelic topic. I bought no stamps at the show nor even looked for anything to buy, struck out for the 40 lb bag of in the shell almonds errand stop, but hit the full list of bulk goods at Winn Co, the second errand stop.

Your job alub is to define and describe "pittance" such that he looks forward to receiving it. Or explain how donating it to an organization such as The Stamps For The Wounded would help spread the collection's love.

Edited to add: Moved an 8 volume Russia collection in real binders on real pages donated to the club. Cat was well into 4 figures but used was mostly CTO. Deal refused to make an offer. I said in all seriousness, I would run it at the club auction for $50 and leave it behind if it did not sell. Dealer, $50? Me, Yeah. Dealer broke out a $50 bill and I said thanks.

All factual stories occurred in November for the first and August for Russia.

A friend bought an auction lot of UK FDCs from Chiswick Auctions in London. Paid around 350 GBP for it. He passed it on to me to sell. Face value of the CTO stamps on the covers (which were addressed to the same recipient) was in excess of 10,000 USD. After a week trying to figure out a way of selling them I got sick of looking at the stuff, put half into another auction and half sold to an antique dealer. In total my friend got back around 450 GBP. This was about five years ago- the dealer's still got his half.

Thanks for the ideas.

The big issue, as many people have pointed out, is that shipping will eat up most of the value.

Is there a show in Central NY?

Or is there anyone in Central NY who might be interested?

One thing I forgot to mention: he has a pretty good Canadian collection. No big-ticket items, but a solid selection.

I'd break it into manageable chunks and put each lot on ebay with a low start. But "pittance" is probably right. "You gotta take the bitter with the sour", as Mr Goldwyn told Billy Wilder.

"$1100 face mint sheets of forever stamps at 30% of face" Is that really the going rate for bulk forever stamps these days? Seems pretty low to me. I may have a buyer or two at that rate.

The main message here is if one wants to maximize your value, there has to be sweat equity involved. A quick sale will yield lower returns.

I would separate the US from the rest first. Sell that separate from the rest. Sell Mint separate from used. How far do the Columbians go? At least to the 50 cent deserves a closer look, because the collector would have paid at least $50 for that stamp if its sound.

If the collection is separated by countries. I would then check out some key stamps. Look for PRC China 1980 Monkey Stamp Scott 1586. Easy to overlook and forty years ago, this was not an expensive stamp. Even a lot of dealers miss it. If that is in there. Look harder.

Is there a Penny Black? Again if there is one, look harder.

Check Canada. How far to the 1897 Jubilee stamps go?

Too often people become jaded when looking at too many collections and deeming them of little value. I've seen dealers do that numerous times. That is how collectors find the PRC 1586. Even Harris albums have a spot for that stamp.

Good luck and keep us posted on what you find out. Oh and we love photos! take some and that might help.

Dealer wholesale buy with no fakes. Others may be willing to pay more, but rarely on a regular basis. You need high volume mailers who will use stamps, not the discount meter rate and who is willing to pay the extra labor costs. No choice on stamp subject matter.




Sweat equity is not free and it is not alub job to provide "free work." Here in California burger flippers get at least $20/ hr and some benefits. What is the time of a knowledgeable philatelist worth? That sweat equity eats up the (perhaps) higher selling price in big bites. Of course there are always stamp collectors who do not value there own or others' time.

Ask him if he really collected stamps to make some money off them? Or did he collect for the pleasure of it? Someone who goes to his local bar for a couple of beers all the time spends thousands of dollars over the years and expects nothing back. Nearly all cars, no matter how well kept, depreciate in value. Even most collections of whatever you collect by most people end up being thrown away. To children and grand-children who have to clean out your house, they don't have the time or knowledge or even the interest in dealing with these things. It's just much easier to bin them -- and I've done a few houses that way. Lots of people's hobbies just get thrown away.

Talk to this guy about these things and try to get him to see that an enjoyable lifetime collection of common stamps, even as nice as they may be, is simply not something anyone wants. If he could pass it on to an interested relative, that might be nice, but more than likely no such person is going to want them, so he needs to considering donating the collection -- to the APS or a charitable group or whomever.

My grandfather carefully collected the front pages of newspaper for years and years from the late Depression through WWII and as a kid he had me put them into dozens of huge scrapbooks he had made up, thinking they would be useful for some college somewhere. When he passed away, according to his request, the entire massive collection he'd put together over all those years was shipped of at great expense to a college where he was a trustee only to have them simply throw it all out. They already had more than enough of that stuff -- on microfilm and in other formats. They had no use for the actual paper copies of these newspapers and no place to store them. That's what happens to most stamp collections! Tell your friend that. It will be thrown away -- so what would he like to do with it instead of that?

I've got a very impressive group of collections, myself, and I've told my wife to contact auction firms from a list I've given her to see if they are at all interested -- or maybe I'll be semi-conscious enough to do that myself before I pass away. But I've also made it 100% clear to her that if it's too difficult to deal with after I'm gone, she absolutely has my permission to throw it all away. Yes, my beautiful lifetime collections should not become anyone's burden to deal with. I certainly won't care!

These things are for the pleasure of the hobby over the years, and they should not become someone else's burden. As of now, that collection may be starting to turn into a burden. Ask him if he'd be happy to give it away to some volunteer organization and let them profit from it. They'll probably sell it all cheaply but he'll never know about it.

I'm curious. What does 20 volumes mean? Are these Scott blue binders? Or are they 1-inch binders? Are we talking 50,000 or 100,000 stamps? I agree some pics would be nice. I live in NY, but my wife probably wouldn't let me buy another large collection.

I should have taken photos when I was at his house.

I don't think he is trying to a]make a fortune off it. I think he is prepared to get a hundred or two. I don't think he wants to go to the trouble to box and ship it to get $10 after the shipping costs.

thanks

Reason # 3------ I don't collect stamps to make some money or collected for pleasure . I collect stamps for a third reason . # 3 is for a escape from what's going on in my life .

The next show in Syracuse is February 8, 2026, I went sometime last year and there was a decent group of dealers

I need to write a article /explaination of why stamp collections don't get what the owner wants or the price that is being offered is to low . Even collections that are nightmare's to stamp dealers are common .
There are collectors who spend a lifetime building collections , that when I view them , I know how many hours it is going to take to clean then up and sometimes the dealers thinks if I try to sell it ,it may take a year to find a buyer and it is not worth the hours to clean it up . It is something I will be making excuses to sell it ,

Sure it is your collection and you can do what you want with it and it could fun to do it different but don't cry to us if you can't sell it for your price . We look at it as a mess that needs attention to sell it .

how did we get from anything but a suggestion that the collection is a mess




to messy collections that need cleaning up?