Stamp dealers get the product that they sell from buying and consigning the stamp collections of their clients and of people who have tired of the hobby. There is great periodicity about when people contact us with stamps to sell. As you would expect, things are a bit slow for us in this area around Christmas time- when people are preoccupied with the holidays and their family- and during the summer, when vacations and extra daylight mean less time for philately. But in recent years we have seen a spike in seller interest in August and it seems that many collectors often consider selling to help pay college tuition bills. I went to a large private university, graduating in 1975. The last year in school my tuition was a shade under $3000. Today that same university is over $40,000, more than three times as much money adjusted for inflation and relative to incomes as it was thirty-five years ago. So what was affordable out of savings and income years ago now requires loans and sale of other assets to accomplish.
Grandparents too are increasingly playing a role in helping with their grandchildren's education. The feeling that the money is going to be passed down anyway is a motivator as is the feeling of helping your children and grandchildren with something worthwhile. One of the schools here in Philadelphia says that over half of its students receive some form of grandparent tuition assistance. So if you decide that you want to get into paying it forward a bit and helping your heirs today and you have any parts of your collection that you are not actively pursuing, give us a call.