How to Tell if Your Stamp Collection is Worth Anything Part 2

Scott's Stamp Catalog amzn.to/32zWDGV
If you have a large collection it will probably cost you more to have it appraised than what it is worth. 99.9% of all stamps are worth less than $1. Your best bet is take your collection to three different dealers. Ask if they are interested in buying. Don't take any offers. Instead take a lot of close up photos of your collection and put them on eBay and list your collection with a starting bid of half the lowest offer and have a reserve of twice the highest offer. If none make you an offer your collection is worth probably less than 25 cents per stamp. In that case do the same, take a lot of close up photos and put it on eBay listing the starting bid equal to 5 cents per stamp and have a reserve of 25 cents per stamp. If the dealers start picking out stamps to make an offer on them, let them but don't accept the offer no matter what. Instead, set those stamps aside and take them to the library and look for a Scott catalog but beware, value is based on the condition and grade of the stamp and those two things are not the same. Don't assume that your stamp is worth $1000 if that is what the Scott catalog says. If your stamp has ever been hinged that brings down the value of mint stamps. If it is less than perfectly centered or has a crease or scuffing that brings down the value. Dealers will almost always offer less than what they think they can sell a stamp for. So your stamp is always worth at least double the dealer's offer. But stamps are almost always worth less than the Scott catalog says they are. Be leery of any valuation under fifty cents in the Scott catalog. I believe Scott now values all stamps at a minimum of 25 cents despite dealers often selling those stamps for far less sometimes with a couple of zeros taken off. I have bought stamps by the pound from dealers where they came out to less than 1/10 of a cent each. That brings me to another aspect. You will almost always get far less if you sell your stamps as one collection rather than in smaller lots or single stamps. There is no point selling stamps individually for 25 cents each but if you have 10,000 stamps you will do better if you sell the higher value stamps, say the ones over $1, as individual stamp lots and the ones under $1 in groups of say up to about 100 or so. The best way to sell lots is as sets of all different stamps from the same country. Most people do collect by the country. A bad idea is to sell a $40 stamp as part of a collection of otherwise 1000 25 cent stamps. A collector who would be willing to pay $40 for a single stamp won't want to pay another $25 for stamps he will consider worthless to him. So you will get more if you keep them separate in your listings.
If you have a collection with a total value under $100 it's almost not worth trying to sell unless you are desperate for cash. My advice would be to give it away to a young family member who expresses an interest.
Also, while highly collectible stamps do usually continuously go up in value, temporary slumps in the market not withstanding, low end stamps rarely increase in value much more than the inflation rate so if you are looking at them as an investment, that will be a waste of time. Also most modern commemoratives and souvenir sheets are mass produced at such a rate that they rarely become valuable. The ones to look out for are things like errors and the occasional rarity. Sometimes the post office uses an incorrect design and stops printing and even recalls a particular stamp and so a smaller number made it to the market. Those will become desirable collectibles.
If you are thinking about collecting as an investment I don't recommend it in general unless you train yourself to become an expert. Post offices around the world are producing more stamps now than ever and most are produced almost entirely to be marketed to collectors. There are less collectors today than there were ten years ago and all the fewer than there were 25 years ago. The peak for collectors was probably in the 1970's and 1980's. This is largely due to the fact that fewer kids become interested because they see less stamps on mail than they used to. When I was a kid 50 years ago the average household received 7 pieces of mail a day and 6 had stamps on them. Today the average household gets about 3 pieces of mail a day and only about one or two a week get stamps on them. 75% of first graders don't know what a postage stamp is. The average age a person developed an interest in stamp collecting 50 years ago was 9. Today the average age for a beginner stamp collector is around 13.
So the bottom line is that while I certainly recommend stamp collecting as a hobby, I don't recommend it as an investment strategy unless it is your intent to become a dealer.

[@IIoveasl10]

Good info. I collect since 49 years, but I am not a professional. I just love collecting stamps. I collect China and Hong-Kong. It has been givven to me by a friend of my mother.

[@toriebarks4835]

Hi! I have inherited 15 stamp sets from the US, and other countries. They are all from around 1973-1978. No one in the family is interested in collecting. What would a good price to offer if you were interested

[@roseharrington315]

Good info! Is being in an album a factor?

[@RockyMountainCuriosityShop]

it all depends on what kind of album they are in, acid free paper etc, and how they have been placed/attached in the album.

[@beaboerner2173]

I have an old book. 1930 with old stamps all hinged. All other countries. How do you take the hinges off. What to do??