People searching for a stamp appraisal near them usually want one of two things. Either they want someone qualified to look at a collection and say what it is, or they want to sell and would rather do it face to face with a person than through a screen. Both are reasonable. Neither is well served by a local search, and this page explains why, then gives you the two routes that actually work.
What A Local Search Actually Returns
Search for a stamp appraisal near you and the results are mostly antique shops, coin dealers, pawn shops and general estate buyers. None of those employs a philatelist. They buy stamps the same way they buy costume jewelry and old tools, which means they price the box rather than the contents, and pricing the box is how a genuinely scarce stamp leaves a collection for twenty dollars.
The reason is simple arithmetic. There are only a few hundred full time stamp dealers left in the United States, and they cluster where the collectors are. If you are outside a major metro, the nearest philatelic specialist may be a two hour drive, and may specialize in something that has nothing to do with what is sitting in your closet. A search engine will not tell you that. It will happily hand you the nearest business that has the word “antiques” on the sign.
How To Find A Real Stamp Appraiser Near You
If you want someone local and qualified, skip the general search and go to the sources collectors use.
The American Philatelic Society dealer directory. The APS is the largest stamp collecting organization in the country and keeps a searchable directory of member dealers. Membership means there is an ethics code and a body to complain to, which is more than a local listing gives you. Start here.
Your nearest philatelic club. Most metro areas have one, most meet monthly, and most will look at a collection for free on club night. You will get several opinions in one evening from people with no financial interest in the answer. What you will not get is anything in writing.
A regional stamp show. Shows bring a dozen or more dealers into one room for a weekend. If you have a collection worth real money, walking it around a show and collecting several offers is the fastest way to find out what the market will actually pay, because the dealers there know they are being compared.
An independent certified appraiser. If you need a document for probate or insurance rather than an offer, this is the right answer. Expect to pay by the hour, commonly $150 to $400, and expect a formal report. Overkill if you are just trying to find out whether a box is worth anything.
When You Genuinely Need Someone In The Room
We are not going to pretend in person never matters. It does, in three situations.
If a single item might be worth thousands, it should be handled, and probably certified by an expertizing body, before anyone relies on a number. If the collection is large enough that photographing it is impractical, someone has to open the albums. And if you need a USPAP compliant appraisal for a contested estate, that is a certified appraiser’s job and it is done in person.
Outside those three, proximity buys you very little. A stamp is a flat object photographed easily. Catalog identity, condition and current demand are what set its value, and all three read from a decent photograph taken in daylight. The one thing a photo can miss is watermark and perforation detail, and that is usually settled by asking for one more shot.
The Photo Route
We appraise by photo for people in all fifty states. You buy the appraisal, upload your photos, and a written report comes back within three business days for a single stamp and five business days for a collection.
A single stamp appraisal is $4.99. We identify the stamp, grade it, and give you the catalog value alongside what it would realistically sell for. A collection appraisal is $49.99 and values the whole holding as one lot with a wholesale figure and a retail figure, from up to 20 photos. If we are in a position to buy, an offer comes with the report. We cannot make an offer on every collection, and buying an appraisal does not guarantee one.
Every report is written by an American Philatelic Society member dealer, member number 224675. West Coast Stamp Company has been appraising and buying stamps for more than 30 years.
Why We Charge When Others Appraise Free
A free appraisal is nearly always offered by someone who wants to buy your collection. That is not automatically sinister, but it does mean the person telling you what your stamps are worth is the same person deciding what to pay for them. The incentive runs one direction.
Charging fixes that. At $4.99 and $49.99 the fee is small enough not to matter and large enough that the appraisal is a product we sell rather than bait. You get the written valuation whether or not an offer follows, and whether or not you take it.
We will also tell you our margin, which most buyers will not. We aim for 20 to 30 percent, roughly half what a dealer with a storefront and staff needs to make. That number decides what you get paid, so it is published rather than hidden.
Before You Send Anything
Do not soak stamps off paper. Do not pull stamps out of albums or off covers. Do not clean anything. Do not sort by what looks valuable to you. A stamp still on its original envelope is often worth several times the same stamp on its own, and once separated that value is gone for good.
What helps: daylight rather than a lamp, straight down rather than at an angle, the whole album page rather than a single stamp when things are mounted, and a shot of the back of anything unusual. Include any paperwork you found with the collection, even if it looks like nothing. Provenance is worth money and it is the thing people throw away first.
Get Started
Buy a stamp appraisal and send your photos, or go straight to selling your stamp collection if you already know that is what you want. If you would rather read first, our guide to how to sell a stamp collection lays out every route and what each one costs you.