Adding to Inventory - Apfelbaum, Inc.

The question of how to add to inventory is the single toughest question that a new stamp dealer has to answer. The only steady way that most dealers have of buying stamps for inventory is either buying at auction or buying from wholesalers. And there are two main difficulties in doing this-accurately grading the quality of what you are buying and knowing the maximum price that you can pay. Knowing the maximum price we at Apfelbaum can pay is something we have determined over the years through selling. To be specific for a moment, we know we can sell most VF US for about 35% of current Scott catalog. We know our selling costs and working backward we can figure out what we can pay for these stamps when we buy them. There are differing percentages for F-VF and for small faults and similar calculations for different countries and even for remainder material. But all buying needs to be tested and retested constantly by selling into the market. Stamps are a very competitive and active market. If sales decline or are not good the reason is simple. It is because your prices and the popularity of the material you are offering is not right. The market is very unforgiving of mistakes but can be very rewarding when you get things right. Start slowly, buying only a few things for resale and let your sales not your ego tell you when you have made a good buy.

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