Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I'm curious to know how others view their collections. As an investment? A pastime? Both? Neither?
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Hi!
I value my collection as a pastime, a hobby, and indeed an obsession! I've already warned my kids that when I die, they need to remember how much enjoyment I got from the collection, not what it is worth in dollars (not a lot!).
Most collectors I have met view their stamps as a hobby (or obsession), rather than seeing them as an investment. Like you, most cannot bear the thought of selling them, and realize we only hold them in trust for another collector down the line.
Happy stamping!
Marilyn 
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Like you, Neena, I have no interest in stamps as an investment, neither have I ever sold a stamp. That said, the numbers of stamps I have that I don't really want must be several times the number that form my collections. They lie about in stockbooks, or occasionally loose in envelopes.
My hobby lies in researching, writing up and mounting my main collections into albums of which I can be proud. There's a fair way to go yet, and of course I am still collecting those stamps I am missing, and those new issues that bear on my topic. (For me a stamp is worth little until it is properly displayed; certain carelessly-arranged album pages induce an unwelcome cringe hereabouts!) I wouldn't want those albums to go to the charity shop, yet I doubt they will be worth very much to a dealer. I hope they can stay in the family down the years.
For the rest, I am too lazy and not sufficiently eager to make profits to scan, upload, maintain, price and sell my duplicates and unwanted stamps on an internet sales website (or even, I fear, in Stamporama). They await the eager little hands of my grandchildren - or maybe the charity shop.
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I plan on retiring in luxury with the proceeds of my collection. I will just need to fine someplace where you can do that on 87 cents a day.
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i give it a B minus...but its not the collections fault..i could buy matching binders and do other things to spruce it up ! Like Marilyn i find pleasure in spending time daily with the stamps and covers. The guns gathering dust in my gun cabinet upstairs will most likely bring the kids more than the stamps..but they have to take the good with the bad. I do not part with much so the guns and stamps will pay for the 7 yard dumpsters to clear the house !
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I'm with what has been already said. I know that there's a monetary value to my collection, but am I going to sell it? I don't have any intentions to do so. I know if I did, Ted and I could get a place together, and then we can live on just under $2.00USD per day. It is a lifetime hobby for me. I do sell my duplicates and unwanted items that come in large lots, but most of that goes to buy more stamps or more model trains! (I sell my unwanted model trains too.)
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I look at my collections as a hobby and a reflection of my own (sometimes odd) interests.
My godchildren and nephews look at my collections as potential retirement income and a reflection of my own (frequently odd) interests.
Tedski, I'll be sure to include instructions in my will for them to seek you out to find out where to retire on the proceeds!
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Hi Everyone;
I could never part with my life-long hobby, and will have it given to a local stamp club....
Go with the Force young Jedi....
TuskenRaider
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I do track my collection in an Excel workbook, but that's because I'm an accountant, and well, that's what I do. 
I collect, though, for the love of it, and for me that is a hobby FIRST and really a labor of love for me to keep me sane, especially as I work a CRAZY schedule plus endure torture sessions with my personal trainer.
(Got to keep working on my self-control re eating, though. 
)
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I don't care! The best attempt I've made at selling stamps is my three approval books at a dollar a cover. And that wasn't a great get rich quick scheme!
I love to buy stuff! My favorite days are when I get home and there's an eBay purchase to open. I spend the evening looking at it over and over and ultimately putting it into my album. Then that's over and I'm back to the hunt!
Selling my hoard of all kinds of interesting stuff isn't my concern. In the model car hobby it's a running joke, "Bought another model for my estate sale!" Yea, it's the next generation's worry! And maybe someday an heir may enjoy my collections or it will keep some wayward grandchild drunk for a week...
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02:14:30am
Some time ago I saw some clean almost identical 8x11 picture frames
in the flea market and since I then had 12 grandchildren,
I bought fifteen.
Over time I began to pick out a page of stamps for each one,
usually just a long definitive set. The grands are now at 13,
six or seven frames are done two or three almost done and one or two
are started but not done to my satisfaction. On the back is a short note
to which ever grand son or grand daughter is named for that album page.
Behind the page with the stamps is a letter to that grand wishing them
health and good fortune along with some personal thoughts. My hope is
that they will hang the frame in a bed room or living room and some day
one of them will open the frame, perhaps by accident, read the letter
( Each is different.) and then, I have no idea when,
will tell their cousins to check their picture frame.
Just thinking about it at times cheers me up.
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Charlie/cdj1....oh, you know who you are!
I am pilfering that idea and you should feel (justifiably) proud of that;
a wonderful idea - thank you!
Randy
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Hey Charlie...just read your post re: the hidden letters. That's awesome. I can't wait to have grandkids.
Ernie
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Hiding letters behind the stamps ... where is Agatha Christie, now that we need her?
As to my collection, I just hope the kids can find a crematoria willing to take us both.
Seriously, as a bottom feeder, the only value that was ever in my collection is/was the pleasure I got out of it, and that's mine to keep ... and, maybe, even take with me.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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Charlie, I'd make sure that there is someone in your family who will know about the letters. Otherwise some of the grand babies will lose / pawn / sell the framed stamps and never know!
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07:28:49am
I've been collecting stamps since I was a young child - maybe 7 or 8 years old. I neglected my collection for some years until I inherited my father's collection and was right back in it. I keep a basic list of stamps in my collection: Country, Scott#, used or mint and, at first, catalog value. But, then I started questioning the very concept of "value". Other than the cool factor of owning a rare stamp, the value in my collection is personal, not monetary. I've never sold a stamp (duplicates just sit in stock books, thinking I might meet a newbie who'd actually be excited to have them), and the thought of selling my collection is inconceivable. I look at stamps as mini works of art and, well, I just like to look at them; how valuable they might be is irrelevant. There's also the sentimental component: seeing a particular stamp can take me back to that little kid, sitting at the kitchen table with my father as we worked on our collections. How can you put a dollar value on that?
I'm curious to know how others view their collections. As an investment? A pastime? Both? Neither?
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08:36:00am
re: How do you value your collection?
Hi!
I value my collection as a pastime, a hobby, and indeed an obsession! I've already warned my kids that when I die, they need to remember how much enjoyment I got from the collection, not what it is worth in dollars (not a lot!).
Most collectors I have met view their stamps as a hobby (or obsession), rather than seeing them as an investment. Like you, most cannot bear the thought of selling them, and realize we only hold them in trust for another collector down the line.
Happy stamping!
Marilyn
Login to Like
this post
re: How do you value your collection?
Like you, Neena, I have no interest in stamps as an investment, neither have I ever sold a stamp. That said, the numbers of stamps I have that I don't really want must be several times the number that form my collections. They lie about in stockbooks, or occasionally loose in envelopes.
My hobby lies in researching, writing up and mounting my main collections into albums of which I can be proud. There's a fair way to go yet, and of course I am still collecting those stamps I am missing, and those new issues that bear on my topic. (For me a stamp is worth little until it is properly displayed; certain carelessly-arranged album pages induce an unwelcome cringe hereabouts!) I wouldn't want those albums to go to the charity shop, yet I doubt they will be worth very much to a dealer. I hope they can stay in the family down the years.
For the rest, I am too lazy and not sufficiently eager to make profits to scan, upload, maintain, price and sell my duplicates and unwanted stamps on an internet sales website (or even, I fear, in Stamporama). They await the eager little hands of my grandchildren - or maybe the charity shop.
Login to Like
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re: How do you value your collection?
I plan on retiring in luxury with the proceeds of my collection. I will just need to fine someplace where you can do that on 87 cents a day.
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Auctions
re: How do you value your collection?
i give it a B minus...but its not the collections fault..i could buy matching binders and do other things to spruce it up ! Like Marilyn i find pleasure in spending time daily with the stamps and covers. The guns gathering dust in my gun cabinet upstairs will most likely bring the kids more than the stamps..but they have to take the good with the bad. I do not part with much so the guns and stamps will pay for the 7 yard dumpsters to clear the house !
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
re: How do you value your collection?
I'm with what has been already said. I know that there's a monetary value to my collection, but am I going to sell it? I don't have any intentions to do so. I know if I did, Ted and I could get a place together, and then we can live on just under $2.00USD per day. It is a lifetime hobby for me. I do sell my duplicates and unwanted items that come in large lots, but most of that goes to buy more stamps or more model trains! (I sell my unwanted model trains too.)
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09:19:15am
re: How do you value your collection?
I look at my collections as a hobby and a reflection of my own (sometimes odd) interests.
My godchildren and nephews look at my collections as potential retirement income and a reflection of my own (frequently odd) interests.
Tedski, I'll be sure to include instructions in my will for them to seek you out to find out where to retire on the proceeds!
Login to Like
this post
re: How do you value your collection?
Hi Everyone;
I could never part with my life-long hobby, and will have it given to a local stamp club....
Go with the Force young Jedi....
TuskenRaider
Login to Like
this post
re: How do you value your collection?
I do track my collection in an Excel workbook, but that's because I'm an accountant, and well, that's what I do.
I collect, though, for the love of it, and for me that is a hobby FIRST and really a labor of love for me to keep me sane, especially as I work a CRAZY schedule plus endure torture sessions with my personal trainer.
(Got to keep working on my self-control re eating, though. )
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: How do you value your collection?
I don't care! The best attempt I've made at selling stamps is my three approval books at a dollar a cover. And that wasn't a great get rich quick scheme!
I love to buy stuff! My favorite days are when I get home and there's an eBay purchase to open. I spend the evening looking at it over and over and ultimately putting it into my album. Then that's over and I'm back to the hunt!
Selling my hoard of all kinds of interesting stuff isn't my concern. In the model car hobby it's a running joke, "Bought another model for my estate sale!" Yea, it's the next generation's worry! And maybe someday an heir may enjoy my collections or it will keep some wayward grandchild drunk for a week...
Login to Like
this post
Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
12 Feb 2016
02:14:30am
re: How do you value your collection?
Some time ago I saw some clean almost identical 8x11 picture frames
in the flea market and since I then had 12 grandchildren,
I bought fifteen.
Over time I began to pick out a page of stamps for each one,
usually just a long definitive set. The grands are now at 13,
six or seven frames are done two or three almost done and one or two
are started but not done to my satisfaction. On the back is a short note
to which ever grand son or grand daughter is named for that album page.
Behind the page with the stamps is a letter to that grand wishing them
health and good fortune along with some personal thoughts. My hope is
that they will hang the frame in a bed room or living room and some day
one of them will open the frame, perhaps by accident, read the letter
( Each is different.) and then, I have no idea when,
will tell their cousins to check their picture frame.
Just thinking about it at times cheers me up.
4 Members
like this post.
Login to Like.
re: How do you value your collection?
Charlie/cdj1....oh, you know who you are!
I am pilfering that idea and you should feel (justifiably) proud of that;
a wonderful idea - thank you!
Randy
Login to Like
this post
re: How do you value your collection?
Hey Charlie...just read your post re: the hidden letters. That's awesome. I can't wait to have grandkids.
Ernie
Login to Like
this post
re: How do you value your collection?
Hiding letters behind the stamps ... where is Agatha Christie, now that we need her?
As to my collection, I just hope the kids can find a crematoria willing to take us both.
Seriously, as a bottom feeder, the only value that was ever in my collection is/was the pleasure I got out of it, and that's mine to keep ... and, maybe, even take with me.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
Login to Like
this post
Approvals
re: How do you value your collection?
Charlie, I'd make sure that there is someone in your family who will know about the letters. Otherwise some of the grand babies will lose / pawn / sell the framed stamps and never know!
Login to Like
this post