Page 190 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

stamps he had collected to philatelists in Portland, Oregon, where he lives.
Although he had a limited supply of stamps at the start, he rented a portion of
a store window, placed most of his stock on display, and waited for buyers to
come along.

“My time was worth practically nothing,” he explained, “so there was little to
be lost by displaying the stamps and talking to possible buyers. I had quite a
number of stamps which I had bought from the post office during the thirty
years I carried mail. Other stamps had been given to me by relatives and
friends who had heard that I was collecting stamps. Many of these were
duplicate commemoration stamps, such as the Century of Progress and
Harding; a number were foreign and air mail. All in all, they made a good
display.

“However, as I had little merchandising sense, I made only $15 the first
week, which was barely enough to cover expenses. After a few weeks, I got
acquainted with other dealers. We met once a week in a little restaurant and
talked business. From then on I began to get the right slant on the stamp
business. They explained that the prices I was charging for some issues were
too low; other prices were too high. They also pointed out that I needed some
new stock so I got in touch with several wholesalers. I learned values quickly
after that and shortly I saw the real possibilities of this business.

“I studied various stamp issues and found that I could buy from private
collectors at more advantageous prices than I could from the wholesalers.
One day a chap came in with a marvelous collection. ‘I’m broke,’ he said,
‘I’ll sell you this entire stock for $100.’ He told me that these stamps had
originally cost him almost $2,000. The other collectors, because of the
depression and because he insisted on selling them the whole lot intact, had
turned him down. When I glanced over the stamps, I discovered several that
were rare, and I saw that I could easily make a good profit. So I took the lot.
The next day, I called upon a customer who had been seeking some Danish
West Indies, and sold him three blocks of four each at a good profit. Before
that week was over, I had sold the entire collection to history professors,
school teachers, and stamp collectors for $796. For sometime I thought about
this sale and I came to the conclusion that if one person had a collection to