What Do I Need to Know About Stamps

Like every profession, there are sub-sections of people who specialise in a particular area. I have decided to focus on Australian stamps for example, but there are as many specialties as there are stamps. When becoming a Stamp Dealer there are certain levels you can focus on when you begin, and then if you choose to, you can specialise in particular stamps and trade in higher value stamps.

At the higher level, you can trade in stamp albums, filled with a myriad of stamps, or someone else’s collection, and sell those as is. You can break up collections and put them up for auction on sites like ebay or delcampe. If there is something valuable within a collection, the collectors will spot it and the auction will take off by itself, you don’t actually need to know too much about it to begin with. As you auction off lots, you will begin to spot trends and what is selling for higher values than others.

Once you begin at this level, you will come across most of the stamps of the world. From there, you can break them down into themes – which is a simple way to begin. For example, put them in groups of birds, transport, trains, countries, dead countries (countries that produced stamps but don’t exist anymore or have changed their name – Holland for example).

As you become familiar with stamps, you can begin to break those lots down even further to auction or sell individual stamps. How much do you need to know about individual stamps?

How Do I Learn To Specialise

Specialising can depend on a few things:-

• the value of the stamps
• the demand for the stamps
• the demand for the stamps
• the demand for the stamps
• the collectability of the stamps
• your own enjoyment of the stamp
• how variable the stamp is
• the availability of the stamp
• information available to learn about the stamp

Determining these elements depends on your time and passion for learning and what you actually want to achieve by becoming a stamp dealer. Do you want to build a reputation in a certain area, or do you want to just stay at high level selling?

There’s so much to stamps and the more you investigate it, the more you find and this is what deters many people from entering the world of stamps but which is also a huge opportunity to build a business and make a very good living. Will you become a millionaire? Absolutely it’s possible but you need to do the work. This is not a get rich quick area at all, but that does not mean you cannot make a five or six figure annual business. It’s up to you.

Where Can I Get Stock to Begin?

Getting stock is both easy and difficult at the same time and you will make many, many mistakes when you begin and that is OK – if you can afford to. It is also the way to learn and any purchasing mistakes I have made so far, I put down to the cost of entry into the business. What I have also found is even though something looks like a mistake, you can re-package it to make it sellable. For example, I bought some decimal (more modern) Australian stamps from the 70’s and 80’s. These don’t have any catalogue value in terms of reselling them individually. But, there are many uses for them. People use them for art projects or as additions to their themed collections (birds are huge). So I ended up packaging them into smaller lots of themes, colours, years etc and they sold – not for a huge amount – but over time with many small sales it got me my money back and more and I learned how to sell stamps in a completely different way. This is where the opportunity is. There are as many ways to sell and deal in stamps as there are stamps and very many opportunities to corner a market.

The thing is – to begin. Buy a stamp album in an auction and look through it. Some go very cheaply and some are more expensive – the market will tell you what is in the album. If an album or a group of albums has reached $100 or more – it has something valuable – or resellable – in it and you will be competing with another dealer for it. You should not get these at the start of learning. Where are these albums? Ebay is a great place for cheap albums and collections to start with. Join a local stamp club and go to their auctions. There you get to actually look at the albums before purchase and you can really see what, if any, value there is for reselling and dealing purposes.

Is The Stamp Community Hard to Get Into

In my experience, I have been welcomed at every club, society and website out there. Stamp collectors are very generous with their knowledge and could talk all day about their chosen field or point you in the direction of someone who knows about the area you wish to learn about. It is a rich tapestry of people from all over the world who are more than willing to share knowledge if you are interested.

The difficult thing is determining what it is you want to know. Once you know or have decided that, you will be greeted with a fire hose of information from all sources.

What I have found though, is that dealers themselves, play their cards pretty close to their chest. Why would that be? Because they are making a LOT of money and don’t want competition. I have completely the oppositve view. I feel there is enormous potential for more dealers to enter the market and revive the industry and carry the torch, capturing and sharing the information about stamps, before some of it is lost.

If you come up against a dealer in an auction – forget about it – unless you have very deep pockets. They know – for sure – what they will be able to make from a piece at auction and they have the cashflow to beat a collector any day of the week.

How Can You Start

First, find out if you like stamps – at all. You don’t have to love love them to be able to sell them, but an appreciation of what makes them special to your customers is highly recommended. It will also help you make more money in the long run.

If you find you like them, and you particularly like one over all or a section over all, then specialise in that interest. Learn everything you can. The more you know, the higher you can value a stamp. An example being, I love the King George V Australian stamps – all of them – but I’m trying to specialise in the 1d and 2d so I can plate them. Why? Because the stamp can be valued at either $5.00 or $100.00 if you can identify the flaws, or the plate position. This is what I mean when I say the more you know in stamps, as with anything really, the more you can potentially earn.

Decide if you want to be a specialist or a generalist – just like a doctor – and then go from there. Pick up some albums and start to resell them, repackage them or learn about them.

Like any career, it will take time to develop and learn the industry but I believe that the stamp collecting and philately industry, has huge potential for small operators to make large impacts and make real money. The only thing stopping you from pursuing it is your ability and motivation to do so.

If you want to learn some more about becoming a stamp dealer or a stamp reseller I have written a more indepth guide about how to start learning about and selling stamps. You can get it here.

I’ve been in the reselling community for many years and getting into stamps has been a topic I’ve heard discussed for many years.

It’s a very large area and those who are familiar with it generally know so much about it, that it’s difficult to know where to start to try to explain the category to others.

So as someone who has ventured into this category as a newbie, I thought I would share what I have learned so far and put it into a quick guide to let you know what opportunities are available in this area, from not knowing anything – right through to becoming an expert and what that is going to take.

You can get the Guide here for a price of a coffee and cake

If you have some stamps that you are not going to use, or find some on your travels, you can sell these at face value i.e. what the postage cost is. These are usually bought at 75% of face value. This would also include Forever Stamps available in the United States. A forever stamp holds its value to present day postage cost, and therefore you could sell them at 75% of that value. So technically, over time, you can make some money on forever stamps. Depending on how you come across old postage stamps, there could be a significant profit in those as well.

What About Old Stamps?

Depending on the currency, old stamps can still be used for postage. However their value is more likely found in their collectability rather than the face value of the stamp.

Most Valuable Stamps

The most money is found in stamps from 1840 through to around 1930, though there are many exceptions to this. Stamp World is a great online resource where you can estimations of value for many stamps. Stamps that have been used around any of the wars can also be worth considerable money to collectors.

Do I Need a Licence to Sell Stamps?

Not for stamps that have already come to the market. To sell brand new stamps like a post office, you do although some outlets may buy their stamps from the post office and sell them in small lots as a convenience, but they have not bought these ‘wholesale’ direct from the distributor (government).

If you want to resell stamps from either collections, or buy stamps online and resell them, you can do that without any special knowledge, licence or degree. It takes some time to learn everything to make a living from doing this, but there are lots of ways you can sell stamps without knowing a huge amount of detail about the particular stamps you are holding.

There are many resources online now that will help you identify your stamps and provide an estimate of market value. Let’s break down how to approach the stamp collection itself.

Firstly, you need to try to identify if the collection is older or newer stamps. In Commonwealth countries it’s a bit easier to determine pre-decimal and decimal currencies but aside from this, the look and feel of the stamps will give you an idea of age.

Here is an example of an early stamp versus later stamp. Note the differences in colour and texture.

Next, try to identify any country names that are on the stamps. This will help you narrow down the search for the stamp itself. All stamps have country or regional names on them, except the United Kingdom. They created the first stamp and there was no need to identify itself as a country on them. This tradition lasts to today’s stamps. So if you can’t find any country name on your stamps, they are from the United Kingdom.

Are there multiples of the same stamp in your collection? If so you can approach a stamp club or expert in that particular stamp who will help you identify and value them.

Don’t get your hopes up too high. The likelihood of having one stamp worth a million dollars is low. But, there could be a few thousand dollars in the collection so don’t give up and think it’s worthless. There is always some value in any stamp collection.

Try to find your local stamp club and take your collection along to a meeting. They will help you identify the stamps and advise the best way to sell them. Don’t sell them there and then. Consider the advice they give and any identification and then seek further counsel from other sources.

Resources

This is my favourite site to identify stamps. They also provide an estimate of catalogue value stampworld.com

Here is a site that links to various auction houses that can also help you value your stamp collection findyourstampvalue.com

Below are some places that you can both buy and resell what you buy, or sell your existing collection or inventory.

Ebay

There are always huge lots of stamps for sale on ebay. At the beginning if you just plan to sell these in smaller lots or as art stamps, who you buy them from really doesn’t matter. Just know that if you’re buying them from another stamp seller they have most likely been picked through. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t find a more valuable stamp n the lot ($25.00 – $50.00) but the chances are significantly lower.

If you want to purchase a lot that may have some valuable stamps in it that you can sell individually ($5.00 – $50.00 and above) it’s important to note a few things when looking at albums.

An album may be relatively full with stamps but if you notice spaces (see below) it’s likely that either the dealer or original owner has removed a stamp of higher value. If you’re buying from a seller, even if they say the item is unchecked, proceed with caution and know that you may be buying an album of lower value stamps and bid accordingly.

If it’s an album of all the same stamps it’s a good reselling opportunity to break them into smaller lots.

Etsy

Some of the same rules apply here as well. In my experience there haven’t been great lots for higher value stamps but it can be a great source for stamps that you can break down into “art lots” or world lots.

Hipstamp

This is a great and popular site for stamp sales and is worth checking out. However it does attract a more devoted buyer so prices may be higher which actually works out better when you go to sell them.

Online Auction Sites

I have bought my best lots from online auctions at much lower prices than on ebay. Since 2020 I have noticed the competition and prices rise significantly but you also get the best lots as well.

The best finds for me are when stamp lots are in the middle of other auctions so always do a keyword search and check the auction to see what other items are also for sale within that auction. If it’s an entire stamp auction the prices will be much higher so be prepared and set your budget. There will be many more bidders who know way more than you and with deeper pockets.

You can also submit lots to auction houses to sell on your behalf. This is a great strategy if you have a stamp or collection with higher values as the auction houses have huge followings and can usually garner top prices for you.

I usually use auctionzip.com

Your Own Website

There are many stamp sellers who have set up their own websites and have built very strong reputations over time for providing quality stamps. From my experience they offer both low ($10 and up) to very high end stamps $5,000 and up). Each dealer seems to specialise in different areas.

Depending if you specialise, have your own collection to sell, or are a reseller, this could be a good option. It is possible to build a following through ebay at first and then send buyers to your own website. Using social media definitely helps to find your customers. There is a large stamp and collecting community on platforms like Instagram and groups on Facebook. Many groups on Facebook will allow links to your own site and to share specific items for sale.

I will be adding some content to this site down the track that will go a bit more deeply into creating your own website and social media strategies.

In the meantime check out the suggestions above and start selling stamps, one at a time, sale by sale.