The hardest part of selling a stamp collection is not finding a buyer. Buyers are easy. The hard part is working out, before you talk to anybody, which kind of buyer is the right one for what you actually have, because the gap between the best and worst route for the same collection is routinely a factor of three or four.

A shoebox of common used commemoratives and a folder holding six certified rarities are not the same transaction and should not go to the same place. This covers all six routes, what each one costs, how long each one takes, and which kind of collection each one suits.

Decide what kind of sale this is before choosing a route

Three attributes determine the appropriate route, and the three attributes are assessed before any buyer is contacted.

Total estimated value is the first attribute. A collection with an estimated value under a few hundred dollars does not justify the handling cost of a consignment process, and a collection containing individual stamps worth four figures each should not be sold as an undifferentiated lot.

Concentration of value is the second attribute and is more important than total value. A collection in which 90 percent of the value sits in five stamps is sold differently from a collection of equivalent total value spread evenly across four thousand stamps. Concentrated value justifies individual treatment, including certification, and distributed value does not.

Time available is the third attribute. An outright sale to a dealer concludes in days. A consignment to an auction house concludes in months, because the material must be lotted, cataloged, scheduled into a sale and then settled after the sale closes. An estate under a deadline and a collector with no deadline should not choose the same route.

An inventory and a realistic valuation are produced before any of the three attributes can be assessed. Guidance on establishing what material is worth is set out under stamp values, and a formal opinion of value is covered under stamp collection appraisals.

Route one: outright sale to a dealer

An outright sale to a dealer transfers the entire collection for a single agreed price, paid immediately.

A dealer purchase price reflects the dealer’s own resale risk, holding cost and time, which means a dealer offer is below the retail value of the same material. The discount is the price paid for speed and certainty, and the discount is not evidence of a bad offer. A dealer who buys a collection takes on the work of identifying, lotting, pricing and selling several thousand items, and that work has a real cost.

An outright sale suits a collection with distributed rather than concentrated value, an estate with a deadline, and a seller who does not want to manage a sale process. An outright sale does not suit a collection whose value is concentrated in a small number of significant items, because those items subsidize the rest of the lot at a single blended price.

More than one offer should be obtained. Offers on the same collection vary because dealers differ in what they specialize in and in what they currently hold, and a dealer who specializes in the material being sold will usually offer more than a generalist.

Route two: consignment to an auction house

Consignment transfers the material to an auction house, which lots, catalogs and sells the material on the seller’s behalf and remits the proceeds after deducting a seller’s commission.

A seller’s commission is a percentage of the hammer price and is negotiable on significant consignments. Additional charges may apply for photography, lotting, insurance while in the auction house’s custody, and unsold lot handling. Every charge should be identified in writing before material is shipped, because the quoted commission rate is frequently not the whole cost.

Consignment suits concentrated value. A collection containing individually significant stamps realizes more at auction than in a blended dealer offer, because an auction exposes each lot to competing specialist buyers rather than to one buyer’s assessment.

Consignment is slow. A typical cycle from delivery to settlement runs several months, and the sale date is set by the auction house’s calendar rather than by the seller.

Route three: public auction as a buyer sees it

Buyer’s premium is the charge added to the hammer price and paid by the buyer, and buyer’s premium matters to a seller because buyer’s premium suppresses hammer prices. A bidder calculating a total cost bids less on the hammer when the premium is higher, which means the premium is partly borne by the seller in the form of lower realizations even though the premium is invoiced to the buyer.

A seller comparing two auction houses therefore compares the seller’s commission and the buyer’s premium together rather than the seller’s commission alone.

Route four: online marketplaces

Online marketplaces allow a seller to list material directly and sell to collectors without an intermediary taking possession.

General marketplaces carry the largest audience and the largest proportion of non-collectors. A general marketplace works for common material sold in bulk lots and works poorly for material requiring an informed buyer, because an informed description is wasted on an audience that cannot evaluate the description.

Specialist stamp marketplaces carry a smaller audience composed almost entirely of collectors. A specialist marketplace produces better prices for identified, correctly described material, because the buyers understand what a catalog number and a condition description mean.

Marketplace costs are assessed as a total rather than as a headline rate. The components are the listing fee, the final value or commission fee, the payment processing fee, any store or subscription fee, and shipping if shipping is not separately recovered. Published rates change, and the current rates should be read from each platform’s own fee schedule at the time of sale rather than taken from any article, including this one.

Direct selling also transfers work to the seller. Identification, photography, description, packing, shipping, and handling returns and disputes all become the seller’s responsibility, and the time involved is the real cost of the higher headline price.

Route five: stamp shows and bourses

A stamp show brings a concentration of dealers into one room on one day, which makes a show the most efficient way to obtain multiple competing offers on the same material.

A show also allows material to be examined in person, which matters for condition and which removes the shipping risk inherent in sending material to a distant buyer for assessment. Expertizing services frequently attend larger shows, which allows a significant stamp to be submitted for certification at the same event.

Upcoming dates are listed on the stamp shows calendar.

Route six: club and society sales circuits

Collector societies operate sales circuits in which member material circulates among other members, who purchase directly from the circuit book. A commission is retained by the society and the balance is remitted to the member.

A sales circuit suits mid-value material that is too good for a bulk lot and not significant enough for an auction catalog. A sales circuit is slow, because the circuit must physically travel between members, and a sales circuit requires society membership.

What to do before selling anything

An inventory is prepared first and lists each item or lot with its catalog number, condition and any certification. An inventory is what allows offers to be compared against each other, and without an inventory a seller cannot tell whether one offer is better than another.

Identification is completed before valuation, because a stamp that has not been identified cannot be valued. Two stamps differing only in perforation measurement or watermark may differ in value by a large multiple.

Certification is obtained only for individual stamps whose value justifies the fee, which in practice means stamps whose value is significantly above the cost of the certificate. A certificate converts a disputed description into an established fact and frequently pays for itself at sale. The process is set out on the stamp certification page.

An inherited collection carries additional considerations, including the question of whether an appraisal is required for estate purposes before anything is sold. Those considerations are covered separately in the guide on what to do with an inherited stamp collection.

What destroys value before the sale

Soaking stamps off covers destroys the cover, and on early material the cover frequently carries more value than the stamp attached to the cover. Covers are not soaked until a specialist has confirmed the cover carries no postal history value.

Trimming perforations, reperforating, regumming and repairing are alterations. An altered stamp is worth a fraction of an unaltered stamp of the same catalog number, and an alteration that is not disclosed at sale is a misrepresentation.

Selling by weight or by the album disposes of concentrated value at bulk prices. The documented cases of significant rarities leaving collections this way are numerous, and examples of what individual stamps have realized are set out in the article on the most valuable US stamps.

Cleaning stamps with any solvent, bleach or eraser causes damage that is visible to an expert and that reduces value. Material is sold in the condition in which the material is found.

Where we fit

We built the Stamp Collectors marketplace because the specialist platforms that collectors actually use have spent years raising what they take out of each sale, and nobody was particularly happy about it. Our fees are published, they are lower, and we are not going to quietly change them when you are not looking.

If you are not ready to sell yet, that is fine too. Post photographs in the collectors community and ask what you have before you ask what it is worth. People there will tell you honestly, including when the answer is that your album is worth less than the album cost. That answer is worth having before a dealer gives it to you.