Postal Letter

Best advice for what to do with stamps and coins from the Postal Commemorative Society?

A family member recently passed away. While we were cleaning out her house we discovered boxes and boxes full of stamps and coins from the Postal Commemorative Society. I've read other people's posts about how the secondary value for these are almost nothing, but now I don't know what to do with all these boxes. I don't have the space to just store them all, but I'm not sure what the best way to get rid of them is...any suggestions?

Public Comments

1. See if there is a coin club or stamp club in your area, they may help in reducing inventory. It is a shame that people get taken by groups like the Postal Comm. Soc. as well as private mints like Franklin. None of their items do well on the secondary market for many reasons. You can see if someone would list them on ebay for you. There is someone out there that many want some of the items but will use them more as an addition to a collection they have. I have Civil War era money's and bought some first day covers with the gold replica stamps of the civil war generals and battles as back grounds for the coins and paper money. They made a great display. You can try a yard sale, since I do not know just what you have, I will leave it at that.
2. They may or may not be of value. You need to know what you have first if you want to sell them. If money isn't an issue you can give them away to someone who might enjoy having them. Put an ad on a site like craigslist and tell them what you have. Then meet the person in a public place like a mall, and bring a man with you.
3. The stamp issues are usually worth 10 to 20 cents on the dollar of original cost, but some of the coin issues do decently enough. I was looking at some recent auction results for PCS State Quarter issues with stamps, and some of them were bringing $10 each plus the cost of postage to the buyer. They probably cost more than that each, but it's less of a loss than the average PCS item. A friend at work, whose father-in-law had left a large stamp collection, asked me to appraise the collection. The stamp portion had a catalog value of $8 to $10K and I advised him that a local person who offered him $2500 for the whole thing was making a fair offer, and he took it. Piecing it out to get maybe an extra $1500 at best was NOT worth his time and trouble. However, the PCS portion of it, which I priced separately (and went along for the ride with the rest of the collection), I figured out through sales records I had access to, was worth very little. It's a shame, because some of the things, like the duck stamp issues (not the real, vintage, extremely desirable duck stamps sold to hunters), were beautiful to look at, and this man paid around $15 each for them. They were bringing at sale less than $2 each in bulk. Trying to sell them one at a time is a waste of valuable time. You might find someone willing to pay $5 or more for a particular single to fill a hole in their collection, but it isn't worth the headache. And the stamped envelope 'covers', he had several albums full of them, I saw similar going for 50 cents to a dollar each, in bulk. A 100 piece album that probably cost $500+ to assemble went for $50 to $75. eBay isn't really the best place to unload an entire collection, because of the high cost of shipping. You could always try a listing, with a local pickup only, but you'd have to decide whether to set a reserve to protect yourself, or just take a chance. Craigslist is probably a better option, but there are the security risks involved. You have to be careful who you deal with. My best suggestion is to contact several local estate auctioneers, who might (or might not) take the collection on consignment. They should have a better idea than the average person on how to separate items into groups to maximize return. I also know of some large sports auction houses who handle this sort of thing under the Americana heading. If you want to email me with more specifics - put together a list of what you've got - I can get a better idea if that might be the way to go. curtisports2@yahoo.com