Selling & Appraising

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The definition of a stamp dealer: a party who wishes to buy your collection at the lowest price possible. There is nothing else to be said except the appraisal of such whether free or with an appraisal fee will in most cases be way below cash value. In nearly all cases a dealer appraisal is the price he/she determines to be what they want to pay for your collection.

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Determining what category you have, hobby, hobby plus or serious. By calling The American Stamp and Coin Foundation, (310-275-3256), they will try and ascertain which category by asking you a series of questions. You should if possible be with the collection to respond to these questions. Question examples will be: who is the publisher of the album/albums. Examples of common publishers are Scott, Minkus, White Ace or Linder. These publishers make two kinds of publications, firstly for collectors who wish to have serious collections. A serious collector will have one album or series of albums for just one country.

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As an example Scott publishes an advanced album for US stamps. It is green in color and titled The National Album on the spine. The abbreviated publications are by Scott or Minkus and contain stamps of the World starting with A countries and going to Z countries. They come in sets of albums starting in 1840, the first postage stamp and depict series of stamps up till the time the collector stopped and can be one book or as many as fifty or more! No, by the way as to the more the better. The more valuable collections contain very complete sections as compared to sparse. These series by the way for the most part do not depict higher valued stamps. The higher valued stamps are in what we call the Specialty Series, again just one country in one book.

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These are questions ASCF's appraiser will ask when you call them.