No matter from what continent or country, people are known for their love for collecting various items. And one of these items, some of the most valuable are stamps, rare stamps to be more exact. Rare stamps can be purchased from a number of sources, like collectors, stamp dealers, and stamp auctions.



Some collect stamps for their personal pleasure and some for profit. This article is intended to act as a guide for those collectors and stamp dealers that wish to make a profit from purchasing and collecting stamps.

Stamp dealers are known for making a terrible mistake at least once in the course of their enterprise. And that mistake is not knowing when to sell their most prized stamps. As a reaction to this, all the time spent with trying to find and acquire valuable stamps, is wasted because collectors and stamp dealers, in the beginning, do not realize the importance of knowing when to actually place a stamp on the market.

The profit that can be returned to an investment, usually constitutes 10-15% per year, but it is not a rule. In the case of stamp collectors, taking the correct steps in order to ensure maximum profit, constitutes a vital action. Numerous collectors decide to sell their stamp collections or rare stamps, to stamp dealers instead of taking them to stamp auctions, thus losing considerable amounts of money.

Also, when faced with a great wide offer, some stamp dealers tend to offer wholesale prices and try to get discounts over discounts on account of some bogus claims. The only advantage that a stamp collector might have, when selling their individual stamps or stamp collections, to stamp dealers, is that the sale timeframe is very short and that also, stamp dealers work with cash.

When deciding to sell an extensive stamp collection, it is best that a collector correctly grades and classifies his stamps, so that he can sell them individually or in small groups at stamp auctions instead of taking the easy way out and sell them to the first stamp dealer that shows interest.

Determining the value of a collection is equally as important, so if a particular collector is not able to determine the correct value of a collection or a stamp, then he must take his collection to be professionally evaluated at a licensed evaluator or at stamp auction houses. The best advice would be to not take a collection to the same person that purchases it, because that stamp dealer might not have the best intentions, as you may suspect.

One last advice would be to take special care of your collection, and oversee every step of a sale, from the evaluation to the payment type through which you receive the funds due for the transaction.