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you will probably not get many responses to your note about stamps for sale.
i had this all written to send by mail when i realized it might be
more useful here. this is not to bash the seller. what you need to
know to sell a collection is not obvious to most collectors, let alone
most of the rest of the world.
more information would help. describe the albums by name, copyright date
if available, and condition. that tells us something. a math book might
be a 3d grade primer or more advanced than tensor calculus. stamp albums
cover almost as broad a range. they are old enough that they might be of
more interest to some collectors than the stamps.
mention the countries involved. if it is a worldwide collection
it will not be of interest to someone that collects only U.S. or only a
few countries.
mention the number of stamps. "many" and "just a few" are too vague.
i collect world wide, and my 30,000+ is just a few to an advanced
world wide collector. some people have narrow interests, such as
the first stamp from each country or covers with their birthday.
100 of either would be a large collection.
try to provide some other clues about value. what fraction are larger than
normal size. what fraction are unused. are the stamps mounted with hinges,
or are they pasted down. what fraction of the sets are complete?
almost complete?
stamp catalogs are available in most public libraries. you can easily
identify most of the stamps and add up the catalog value. you will not
get anything near the total catalog value. the actual discount varies
with the country, age, topic, and many other factors. 50% is rare.
i'd guess 20-25% is typical for decent collections. if most of the
stamps have the minimum value, you might get 1%.
if you have access to the internet, check up on stamp collecting.
i don't have a pointer handy, but there is an excellent writeup on
selling a collection, written for non-collectors. it probably has
about ten times as many factors and tips.
your offer sounds like it might be the most common way old collections
get on the market. someone dies. the albums are found in the belongings.
they are usually juvenile collections set aside, and perhaps resumed
for a few months one or twice later. they are almost always of no
significant value. if they were valuable, it would have been mentioned.
but don't just trash it. once in a while someone gets lucky.
if it turns out not to be valuable, it might be given to a kid;
perhaps it will turn into a larger and nicer collection.
tell people how they can see the collections.
a dealer might be willing to look at it and make you an offer.
if it is lower than you hoped, it is probably because of some of the
other factors mentioned here.
take them to a stamp club meeting. someone will probably be willing to
give you some ideas. i posted the meeting schedules here some time ago.
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