I have several stamp albums to sell but I noticed some are selling pages from albums....is that bett

[pikabo-icu]

@ebajsa2012   I think I understand the question;

Is it better to sell single pages or the entire album? Yes?

It's entirely up to you and what you wish to do.

If you want to break them down to individual pages & list each or do a variation listing you can do that.

If you prefer to sell the entire thing as a whole, you can do that too.

Just in case you want to look into that: 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/creating-listings-variations?i... 

[sin-n-dex]

If you have good quality albums with good material, auctioning the album is probably the best (to minimize your work).

You can sell the stamps in lots, but I've noticed lots that have only a few stamps aren't getting much money unless the stamps are really rare.

I usually sell pages from albums, but that's because it makes more revenue than selling the album as is. I also find that selling a whole album is a lot of work if you want to show people what's in there. As a stamp buyer I get my best deals when people don't want to share all the details of what they are selling and limit themselves to 12 photos. Only a few times have I gotten an album and been disappointed.

C.

[pikabo-icu]

@sin-n-dex 

Thank YOU for weighing in..

I thought about tagging you but have done that in the past and didn't want you to get annoyed with my pings LOL

OP take sin's advice, she knows her stuff with these items..

CHEERS

[sin-n-dex]

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@pikabo-icu wrote:

@sin-n-dex 

Thank YOU for weighing in..

I thought about tagging you but have done that in the past and didn't want you to get annoyed with my pings LOL

OP take sin's advice, she knows her stuff with these items..

CHEERS

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Tagging me is cool. If I'm busy working on stuff I may not have time to read the forum. (Today I'm feeling overwhelmed with listing. Doing the token auctions is taking more effort than I remember previously).

As for the stamps... my partner says what I do is "value added", by which I try to put together some really good lots compiled from a few albums. And do things like separate mint and used (if there's enough stamps to warrant it).

I still say album pages are the best. I looked at the OP's listings and some of what's listed is pretty common stuff, so it would be hard to get significant money for it. One type of listing I avoid is a "pile of stamps". You want your buyer to see what's in the listing so they know exactly what they're getting.

I also pay a premium for good quality album pages for my listings and use my ability to do nice presentation. (But if the pages in the album are OK, I'll just photograph those).

You're making me want to look at my stamp cupboard again. I got a box of leaves of British Colony stamps shortly before I went on stamp hiatus and now I want to see what I have to be motivated. (I am selling quite a few stamps lately, so many so that the B&M store is trying to get into the "stamp business" so I can help them sell stamps).

C.

[duffy4444]

   I'm glad you posed this question... What started my selling career on Ebay was the liquidation of my own 45-year worldwide stamp collection I started as a kid, watching my dad with his collection on the kitchen table. I accumulated about 300,000 stamps, including back stock, and at one time had about 45 albums.

   Selling an album at a time is ok when a buyer goes into a stamp shop and is able to sit down and thumb thru albums one at a time. But not realistic for online selling.

  Here's basically what I did: After cataloging their value, I went thru and pulled out higher-value singles, complete MNH and used sets, souvenir sheets, and full panes and sold them individually in protective glassines - easy to ship in a letter-size or larger envelope size with minimal shipping postage... (but be careful if you choose this route, because they cannot be issued a tracking number, and these days it is dicey to do so because of the surge in scams!)

   I also broke mine down by country on pages. A lot of collectors want particular countries, and it is very enticing to a buyer to see a few nearly full pages of older stamps organized by country. 

   Then I went to grab-bag lots of loose stamps and back-stock on sleeved manila pages that I scanned on my printer, and they sold very well.

   After I emptied about 40 Scott International and Specialty Series albums and slipcases, I listed them separately and sold them quite well to buyers who were just looking for empty albums. A few were so used that I threw them away after they were emptied.

   I think it is important to take the time, if you have it, in order to break down a collection. You can get a lot more money out of it that way, instead of having to take much less overall income from an album full of stamps, where you may miss a few valuable gems that can demand big bucks. But it does  take a lot of time to catalog the value, organize, separate, photograph and list.  At one time I had upwards of nearly 1000 stamp listings on Ebay. Every one of them sold, taking from a few days to almost a year on occasion... fixed price, good till cancelled.

   So you have to determine which way you want to go with yours... I'm only telling you my experience back in the late 1990s, which took me about 3 years to liquidate in my spare time (and I still have some left in the closet to go thru). The good news is that I maximized my return by an estimated factor of 5x, when compared with just saving time by selling an accumulation one bulky filled album at a time.

   Sorry this is so long and involved, but it brings back a lot of good early-Ebay memories.

Cheers, Duffy

[dirk12955]

As a buyer and seller of stamps,   Mostly on eBay I buy both ways.     If the album is auctioned intact, I tend to bid a fair amount for what I want and need.    I also tend to bid next to nothing for the items I don't want.

If the pages are listed individually,   I tend to pay more because I'm bidding on an item I want,  or can use and can ignore the items that don't interest me.   

A bidder that wants stamps issued 1933 to 1945 won't (Usually)  pay anything for the stamps pre 1933 or post 1945.    He'll take them,    But not pay anything.   

AT least that's how I operate.

Taking the album apart is a huge task.     Time consuming and sometimes profitable,  and sometimes not.    Taking it page by page,   Or item by item,   can give you a better idea of what you have and the value.

Have fun and Good luck!

[duffy4444]

Thanks for chiming in, dirk!

    As the OP can see, there are many ways to divide up and sell stamps and accumulations. It all depends on what's in the albums and what the OP has in them monetarily and what he can get out of them. It also depends on how much time and detail one wants to use in organization and processing the lots for sale.

   I do think it's worth taking the time to glance thru the albums first to see if there are a few gems. I once bought a Scott National album at an online auction about 22 years ago, and when thumbing thru it I found a US Scott's #834 MNH with plate # tab single, superb centered, tucked in between pages in a glassine with some other MNH and used stamps that were overlooked. I bought the entire album then for only $15. Thrilled, to say the least!

   It's also important for the OP to know that it is very easy to overvalue an album with a lot of older 2cent penny reds and the like... nearly every country has similar definitive  stamps that look good, but were produced in the tens of millions or more. Look at the Germany inflationary issues between WWI and WWII.

   Cheers, Duffy