General information about stamps

As an heir or a layperson, it is often difficult to assess the value of a stamp collection or stock. One clear advantage is that, as an auction house, we are compensated solely as a percentage of your sales success. Our goal is not to acquire your treasures as cheaply as possible, but rather to auction them at the highest possible price. A solid foundation, in other words!

That said, one must honestly admit that not every stamp collection is suitable for auction.
In recent decades, the number of stamp collectors has declined drastically.
This has also led to a significant drop in prices. Many parts of collections are no longer marketable today. For this reason, here is a brief, summarized overview of what is suitable for an auction house — and what is not:

We are looking for:

Advanced collections in which a collector has purchased expensive stamps and issues individually in specialised shops or at auctions, starting at a net price of 250,- Euro/500,- DM. For example, collections of the Federal Republic of Germany, Berlin and the GDR in the first years 1949 to 1952 must be complete, or the Federal Republic of Germany must be extensively collected mint from 2000 onwards. We are also looking for well-developed collections before 1945, e.g. from Old Germany, the German Reich or the German colonies. Also of interest are letter lots before 1950, from classicism onwards, complete correspondence before 1950, local history or exhibition collections.
Also suitable are complete collections of countries from all over the world over decades, whether mint or cancelled. This is the case, for example, if the collector has subscribed to the stamps of the respective country for decades.

A good sign is when certificates of authenticity, so-called ‘attestations’ are available, or records of the collector, which show a catalogue value of at least five figures. It is also very likely that the collection is auctionable if it contains a large number of albums, from approx. 15/20 albums, but not FDC or ETB albums. Unfortunately, this also brings us to the negative part:

Not suitable for an auction are...

e.g. modern covers, FDCs and ETBs from 1955 onwards. These products are ‘beautifully colourful’ (so that the collector becomes fond of them) and often take up more space, but are not in demand on the real market. Equally unsuitable are incomplete partial collections of German territories from 1953 to 1999, German yearbooks from 1974-2000, postal calendars, etc. A good indication of value is often the existence of expensive pre-printed albums; two or four simple stockbooks with so-called ‘children's’ or ‘youth collections’, often accompanied by the advert ‘with Hitler’, are practically always worthless.

As this is only a rough overview, please do not hesitate to contact us by telephone if in doubt or send us a list/illustrations by email (harald.rauhut@rauhut-auktion.de). We will be happy to inform you about the sales opportunities.

(We also ask for your understanding that personal visits to our premises can only take place by telephone appointment. Thank you very much).