Maximizing Your Return - Apfelbaum, Inc.

If you wish to collect stamps and get the maximum amount back for the money that you spend, there are a few tips you should know. First, buy only more expensive stamps-those costing above a hundred or more dollars per set and avoid buying the lower priced stamps that fill in the spaces around sets like these in your album. This is because many dealer expenses are fixed and are pro-rated over each unit in a collection. This means that when you are buying and selling better items, you are paying less overhead and getting more of the dealer cost for what you buy. Second, buy only used stamps. The reason for this is that the quality evaluations of gum have changed markedly over time and are likely to do so further in the future. A light hinge mark, entirely acceptable to the majority of collectors today, might well be unacceptable in the future and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of this changing quality curve. Quality used valuable stamps are always in demand and many serious collectors prefer used as it shows the purpose for which the stamps were issued, and you can worry less with used stamps about how you store your stamps. Humidity is not a problem and any light toning that would ruin the value of mint stamps can be easily soaked away. In the late 1930’s many Europeans saw that they might well have to leave Europe to avoid Nazi persecution and as they knew they would not be allowed to take cash and gold when they left, many converted assets to stamps. Used stamps invariably fared better through this turmoil than did the mint.

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