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Oh man, stamps, for the past 10 years I’ve bought “discount” stamps off eBay. Basically buying 45cent or whatever stamps for 25 cents or less and plastering my

Oh man, stamps, for the past 10 years I’ve bought “discount” stamps off eBay. Basically buying 45cent or whatever stamps for 25 cents or less and plastering my packages like the… never mind. Obviously this is the lossy side of stamp collecting, but man, to take a haircut like that after preserving something for 20 or 30 years.

bruce511 4y ago
With very rare exceptions, even giant stamp collections are worthless. Stamp collecting is all about collecting, not disposing. Sure there are catalogs that detail the "listed price" of a stamp, but that's the dealer price to you, not the price they'll buy it at (which is likely < 10%). Buying stamps is really easy, selling them (for their actual value) is hard. (I guess this is true for collections in general.) Apart from the selling issue, is the searching issue. You might inherit a collection of a few thousand stamps, but it's unlikely to be sorted by value. Which means it has to be examined. By a professional. Which takes time. So there goes any value in it. Which is why a dealer will only pay pennies for a whole collection - it'll chew their time separating the wheat from the chaff. Best thing you can get any collector to do is dispose of all the value in their collection, or clearly separate the value from the rest, before they pass. Now me, I have books. Lots and lots of books. The kids will love inheriting those... :)
- paulhart 4y ago
  Yeah, my dad is into stamps... These days he only collects items that are no longer produced (i.e. from Newfoundland), and keeps them highly organized. No idea if they're actually worth anything, but it gives him pleasure.
calvinmorrison 4y ago
My father does this... incessantly. He has stacks of stamps he uses to send out for work and he gets them all at major discount on ebay. It turns out the post office, mostly doesn't actually care to count up the 1 and 2 cent stamps. There's a group of hobbyists committing felonies out there making their own stamps and sending them out. The post office doesn't notice. One sillier trick was, forget a stamp, it'll get returned to sender. Simply put your destination as the return and you get a free mailer.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  At least I hear USPS really cares about weight. In Canada... not so much.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  I have definitely gotten mail with a postage due ink stamp so they count at least the absence of them
- _vdpp 4y ago
  “Mail hacking” was a thing. I forget the name they gave it but read an article in 2600 or Phrack some time ago that talked about some of the tricks like the one you mentioned. The only other one I remember was to put a smear of Vaseline in the corner where stamps normally go. It was enough to trick the sorting machine.

bruce511 4y ago

With very rare exceptions, even giant stamp collections are worthless. Stamp collecting is all about collecting, not disposing. Sure there are catalogs that detail the "listed price" of a stamp, but that's the dealer price to you, not the price they'll buy it at (which is likely < 10%). Buying stamps is really easy, selling them (for their actual value) is hard. (I guess this is true for collections in general.) Apart from the selling issue, is the searching issue. You might inherit a collection of a few thousand stamps, but it's unlikely to be sorted by value. Which means it has to be examined. By a professional. Which takes time. So there goes any value in it. Which is why a dealer will only pay pennies for a whole collection - it'll chew their time separating the wheat from the chaff. Best thing you can get any collector to do is dispose of all the value in their collection, or clearly separate the value from the rest, before they pass. Now me, I have books. Lots and lots of books. The kids will love inheriting those... :)

paulhart 4y ago
Yeah, my dad is into stamps... These days he only collects items that are no longer produced (i.e. from Newfoundland), and keeps them highly organized. No idea if they're actually worth anything, but it gives him pleasure.

calvinmorrison 4y ago

My father does this... incessantly. He has stacks of stamps he uses to send out for work and he gets them all at major discount on ebay. It turns out the post office, mostly doesn't actually care to count up the 1 and 2 cent stamps. There's a group of hobbyists committing felonies out there making their own stamps and sending them out. The post office doesn't notice. One sillier trick was, forget a stamp, it'll get returned to sender. Simply put your destination as the return and you get a free mailer.

Scoundreller 4y ago
At least I hear USPS really cares about weight. In Canada... not so much.
selimthegrim 4y ago
I have definitely gotten mail with a postage due ink stamp so they count at least the absence of them
_vdpp 4y ago
“Mail hacking” was a thing. I forget the name they gave it but read an article in 2600 or Phrack some time ago that talked about some of the tricks like the one you mentioned. The only other one I remember was to put a smear of Vaseline in the corner where stamps normally go. It was enough to trick the sorting machine.