eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎11-23-2023

So the back story on this collection... is that it showed up at the shop in Feb 2023, and a local stamp dealer came and appraised it for us to make an offer to the owner. It was appraised at $5K (I wasn't party to the negotiation, just knew what the appraisal value was). It fit in five large boxes, two of which had lots of "loose" stamps (tiny little albums, glassine envelopes and ziplock bags of loose stamps... I weeded out all stamps on paper when I got this collection and gave them back to the shop, won't touch that with a 10 foot pole).

So around February when it was obtained by the shop, they sent it out to an auction house. The auction house did nothing with it for six months (and I could see why when I got my hands on it, it's a full time job for three months for one person to deal with all those stamps, I've been working on it part time for two months, and am only halfway through the collection). Basically we said "give us our stamps back" when it became evident they were going to sit on them, and my brainiac comment to our shop owner was "if you let them keep it, it's just going to lose value while it's not being sold". That seemed to create a sense of urgency to get the collection back for us to deal with ourselves.

Well when I got it, I went through everything, and I gave my appraisal value of it at $3500 (what we would pay the customer, I'm a little unsure how much we can sell it for since there were too many unknown items in this collection that needed careful research, I'm going through it in detail now).

Well there was stuff at the bottom of a shoebox that had a very high value and was at one point, six months ago, particularly scarce. But now there's 4 or 5 of these Dollar value jubilee stamps on eBay in every denomination they made. I have a full set, but to avoid the issue of signature on delivery I broke the set apart and have been listing them slowly to reduce the chances of a $750 sale which will be problematic for me to ship from Canada. (I will deal with it if it comes up, but I'm trying to avoid that by limiting the availability online, and they are selling, just not fast).

This is my fear though with this collection... it's dropped 30% in value from the time the shop got it until the time I got it, which was about 6 or 7 months later. And while I'm processing it, more of these rare stamps are appearing on eBay and the prices are being pushed down. I have stuff going up but in a few weeks or so, more are appearing that undercut my prices and I have to lower them.

I guess you could say I'm concerned on how much profit will be left by the time I'm unable to sell any of these stamps at all... I have set aside all coins, banknotes, tokens and anything that's low value or purchased by common collectors in favour of trying to get the rare valuable stamps dealt with first.

Basically the pool of collectors is decreasing as we move forward in time, and our shop is seeing all sorts of rare things turning up right, left, and centre as baby boomers downsize and estate sales come in. This stamp collection is no exception. It's the greatest thing I've ever seen, and since I got it, a few more collections have turned up (that I had to pass on selling for them), and I'm not even excited to see a bunch of Canadian Bluenose stamps because after the great big collection, nothing seems to be very rare anymore as it comes into the shop.

Well if you deal in stamps and collectibles and have feedback on the declining pool of customers and prices dropping, and rare stuff turning up everywhere... I definitely want to hear from you.

If you don't deal in collectibles, I hope you enjoyed my story of the day.

C.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎11-24-2023

There are people who know far more than I about Stamp collecting however, about 15 years back I knew a fella who had a shop. Generally speaking any collection come in appraised he was at 20% that value to purchase it outright, so, $5000 appraised collection, he'd pay no more than $1000 for it.

If a collection had anything truly rare, that he'd separate and consider it an investors stamp, serious collectors item. The rest, he lot out for the most part with a goal of making 150% on them, so $2500 total. Of course he knew his stuff so in making the lots he'd pair them out as small collections based on age, nation, sets, partial sets etc.

duncanvr · ‎11-24-2023

I promote all my BIN items at 4% I find it does not take a huge amount of money on the lower priced items. Do you ever do auctions 50% of my store are cheap autctions to clear the items and some give surprising results. Especially on QV scarcer plates.

sakic92710 · ‎11-24-2023

I used to be able to sell items for less than $10 & charge $4 for S/H. Then the UPU stepped in & made sure Canada Post was enforcing the cost of shipping 'goods' across the border. This inflated prices to a minimum of $9 Canadian just to mail a sport card, pin, patch, etc. If it is not lettermail or documents, you pay through the nose for postage! It makes the idea of selling just 1 inexpensive item to the US almost impossible, If the person buys 4-5-6 items then, it is fine. I would need to reply on buyers of multiple stamps, etc. at 1 time. My idea is to ship small, thin items in greeting cards. I can get away with charging $2-3.00 for postage that way. This does not work for presentation packs.

Glad you had all of those sales. I like to see people have luck and/or success. Hope it keeps up for you. My week has been dreadful! Not a sale anywhere for 6 days. Keep hearing from people on Marketplace but 95% of them are completely unreliable. It tells you the state of the human race! lol

12345jamesstamps · ‎11-24-2023

I see the words "You are bidding....." on description....is that an oops?

crestviewlane · ‎11-24-2023

Have you considered FB marketplace? There are several philatelic and stamp collecting groups.

isaiah53-57 · ‎11-24-2023

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@isaiah53-57 wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:

Well if you deal in stamps and collectibles and have feedback on the declining pool of customers and prices dropping, and rare stuff turning up everywhere... I definitely want to hear from you.

If you don't deal in collectibles, I hope you enjoyed my story of the day.

C.
@sin-n-dex
I have a question for you pertaining to value of stamps - I recently sourced several manila envelopes full of late 1960's to mid 1980's full sheets of USPS Christmas stamps - They are in excellent condition - The face value of all the stamps is very close to $2K - I would have to think there is some collectible value to full sheets of USPS Christmas stamps from the 60's to 80's, but likely not a lot - Is there a rule of thumb for the asking price of full sheets of 50 Xmas stamps from those eras? such as 1.5x or 2x or 3x face value? Thank you for your time and good will in response!
On US stamps, I actually don't know... I think if they came to our shop, we'd pay 25% FV and sell them as postage, even if they are from the 1960s. I've seen quite a few collections of mint stuff that's obviously old (like 40+ years) and they're only paying 25% FV for those. So that would be my best answer.

I have lots of issues with US stamps because there's a lot of varieties that are very valuable, but I don't have the knowledge to sort those out. I might be leaving money on the table with my current collection that I'm working on because I've undervalued something as the common issue when it isn't. I also know some of my US stamps are probably out to lunch on prices because I lack knowledge in what they realistically sell for.

C.

Thank you for the information - Likely valued at less than I originally thought then - I bought them for a song , so If I got $500 for the lot, I definitely wouldn't be unhappy. I would probably research them a bit to see if there are any that are more rare - There are many beautiful Madonna and Child styles - Thank you again.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-24-2023

@sin-n-dex

@bennotbill Unless they are the new bar coded stamps they stopped being postage in July.

The Presentation Packs contain commemorative stamps usually.

The demonetized ones were the Machins/ definitives.

https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps

So most of those packs still have value as postage.

But they can't be turned in for barcoded stamps, since they are still valid.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-24-2023

@isaiah53-57 The face value of all the stamps is very close to $2K

They are postage.

If you don't already know which ones are likely to have varieties, you will spend more time looking for what you think might be valuablet han you can make on them.

And then you have to find a buyer. More time.

Time is money.

27c a minute at BC minimum wage.

The dotCOM site has postage lots priced from 30% to 75% of face value, depending on how much they are organized.

sin-n-dex · ‎11-24-2023

@sakic92710 wrote:
I used to be able to sell items for less than $10 & charge $4 for S/H. Then the UPU stepped in & made sure Canada Post was enforcing the cost of shipping 'goods' across the border. This inflated prices to a minimum of $9 Canadian just to mail a sport card, pin, patch, etc. If it is not lettermail or documents, you pay through the nose for postage! It makes the idea of selling just 1 inexpensive item to the US almost impossible, If the person buys 4-5-6 items then, it is fine. I would need to reply on buyers of multiple stamps, etc. at 1 time. My idea is to ship small, thin items in greeting cards. I can get away with charging $2-3.00 for postage that way. This does not work for presentation packs.

Glad you had all of those sales. I like to see people have luck and/or success. Hope it keeps up for you. My week has been dreadful! Not a sale anywhere for 6 days. Keep hearing from people on Marketplace but 95% of them are completely unreliable. It tells you the state of the human race! lol

Presentation packs go in a 6x9 sized envelope with a piece of cardboard. Covers do too sometimes. I shipped one to New Zealand a few days ago for 3.88 (plus HST). My post office just confirms it's "printed matter" and that's good enough. If you have your presentation pack sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard (as thick as a cereal box), the texture will not be felt through the paper envelope. You won't be able to get away with using a bubble mailer for these.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎11-24-2023

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
I see the words "You are bidding....." on description....is that an oops?

No, English isn't my first language, it sounded more correct on a site that does auctions than saying "you are buying".

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎11-24-2023

@crestviewlane wrote:
Have you considered FB marketplace? There are several philatelic and stamp collecting groups.

I had to deal with FBM on some larger "pick up" items and things like renting my partner's apartments, and it's a real pain to use. We used it to sell a car, and my partner tried to buy a car on there. I don't know how anyone succeeds there, I guess it depends what you sell.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎11-24-2023

@isaiah53-57 wrote:
Thank you for the information - Likely valued at less than I originally thought then - I bought them for a song , so If I got $500 for the lot, I definitely wouldn't be unhappy. I would probably research them a bit to see if there are any that are more rare - There are many beautiful Madonna and Child styles - Thank you again.

If it's $2K FV - you should be able to get at least $500 from someone who is willing to use it as postage. If it has collectible value, well that I don't know.

C.

sakic92710 · ‎11-24-2023

I do okay there but far from successful. Enough to help me get by. 95% of the people are useless, though. Asking if something is available but do nothing or tell you they are buying & never hear from them again. Funny enough, most of the time, if they are having it mailed, they pay. The ones who say they will pick up or contact me to do so are very unreliable. A woman was coming today. Never contacted me.

sakic92710 · ‎11-24-2023

Actually had a Marketplace sale tonight & as I stated before, it is going by mail so it was paid for. 🙂 Maybe it is the start of a decent weekend. Hope you enjoy the extended long weekend. I'm sure, like me, you will working most of the time. lol Online doesn't stop. Sales do but trying to generate more does not.

fern*wood · ‎11-25-2023

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@12345jamesstamps wrote:
I see the words "You are bidding....." on description....is that an oops?

No, English isn't my first language, it sounded more correct on a site that does auctions than saying "you are buying".

C.

I remember you stating that before, but you write so well, I forget it immediately. I enjoy reading your stories and your writing is far better than most that claim English as their first language (me included for sure).