How to Sell Stamp Collections

There are various ways to sell stamp collections. It really depends on the type of collection, the age of the collection, if there are many of the same stamps, the condition of the collection and whether you have any or no knowledge of stamps. So lets examine a few of these issues.

Selling Your Own Collection

This is the easy one. If you have curated a collection you know where you got your stamps, the age, and why you collected those particular stamps. Once you know what you have it’s much easier to sell it.

If you have higher value stamps in your collection you can sell them individually through ebay, hipstamp or send them to online auctions such as Auction Zip.

It may be a better option for you, depending on the collection, to offer it as intact collection through a specialised stamp auction house.

Selling Someone Else’s Collection

This can be bit trickier but still possible. If you know who curated the collection, try to get as much information from them as possible with regards to how they obtained the stamps, any significant stamps in the collection etc.

If there are many of the same type of stamp in the collection, try to lot these together and put up for auction. If there is a stamp that is sought after by collectors, they will usually bid up the price. The best place for this type of auction is with a specialist auction house.

If the collection has no information with it and you can’t locate the original owner then some more study needs to be done. You can checked on Stamp World to try to identify and get a rough value of the stamps. Don’t set these values in concrete as many stamps have nuances that increase value significantly.

Wait to Add More Stamps

Sometimes a collection may be incomplete or not large enough in itself to really make enough money for the effort to sell it.

Consider adding this collection to another and then creating a larger, more specialised collection which you can parse out into smaller lots and make more money on combined collections, rather than just the first collection.

It can be daunting trying to identify and value items that you have no idea on but there is lots of information available on the internet to help you at least get a sense of what you have and then what is the best way forward.