How To Sell A Large Stamp Collection

Typically, the sale price of a large stamp collection is based almost strictly on the quality and value of only the better stamps. A stamp dealer will not be willing to pay more than a fair percentage of the retail sale value of those better stamps, and probably less unless he or she has an opportunity to carefully inspect the collection in person. This is why it's always better to take or ship your stamp collection to a dealer before selling it - it may be inconvenient to do so, but the offer you then receive may in turn be much higher.

No one would pay much for the cheaper stamps in a collection (even if there are 10's of thousands of them) because they are just not economic for a dealer to process and resell. It can take just as long to process a stamp that's worth 10 cents as a stamp that's worth 100 dollars. A good auction house or stamp dealer will sell the best stamps as individual lots and then sell the balance of the collection (the inexpensive stamps) as one or more lots.

Selling directly on eBay is always a possibility, but because the bidders can only see a few pictures of the collection and not the actual stamps themselves, the price fetched for your stamp collection may be disappointing.

If using an auction assistant on eBay, avoid those who do not specifically specialize in stamps, especially if they may not have the necessary equipment (a scanner), experience and knowledge to properly identify or describe stamps and are not able to produce high quality (but fast loading) scans. Finally, eBay and PayPal fees make it difficult to profitably sell lower cost stamps.

You might also consider having a handful of your better stamps graded or expertized. The bidding may (or may not) go as high as you hoped just on the weight of a few really desirable "highlights". This would be a likely advantage whether you sell via ebay or through a "real life" auction house. This way the buyer can feel like they are buying some high quality, specific items, and essentially getting the rest as a bonus.

I know, some of these suggestions cost both time and money, but sometimes you have to spend a little to make more.