Information about Postage

Postage Questions

"I have a US stamp collection from the mid-1950's to date. What is it worth?"

Generally, almost everything from 1945 to date is bought & sold according to some discount from the face value. There are of course exceptions such as the $5.00 Hamilton, the Legends of the West error, the Bugs Bunny imperf, etc.

Here at Quality Stamps, we can sell you $1,000.00 worth of face value (stamps with full gum) for $800.00. Naturally we pay less than that when we buy it. What your lot is worth depends on the mix. Postage breaks down into a few catagories:

• Sheets generally wholesale for 50% - 60% of face value up to a slight premium over face for select itmes.
• Booklets generally wholesale for about 40-50% of face value & up.
• "Scrap" (singles, plate blocks, part sheets, etc) generally wholesales for about 40-50% of the face value.

Why the discrepancies in price? And why, for that matter, should postage sell for less than the face value?

In short: labor. There isn't any real rarity to modern stamps (again, with few exceptions). What the collector has  purchased at the Post Office when he or she buys stamps is the right to mail a letter. How much a dealer pays depends on how much labor is involved to process the lot; counting stamps in sheets is a lot easier than counting plate blocks or singles.

Your best bet will always be to use the stamps on your own mail, rather than buying more stamps from the Post Office! If you have too much (like the $35,000.00 in face value I bought from one estate - almost enough to mail 80,000 letters!), please feel free to contact Quality Stamps (see Contact Us).