Sell Your Used Stamps — 0% Fees

Used stamps typically sell for £3 to £120, and on WishThrift it costs you nothing to list — no fee, no commission, so you keep the whole amount you agree. Stamps are one of the few things where handling causes the damage — use tongs, never fingers, and never peel a stamp off its original envelope.

The short version

Typical range: £3 – £120 — see the full stamps value guide
What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
Category: Art & Collectibles

Before you photograph it

Ten minutes here is worth more than anything else you will do. Buyers are deciding between your listing and someone else’s, and preparation is what visibly separates the two.

Handle with stamp tongs only. Finger oils damage gum and paper and it shows under examination.
Do not soak or peel stamps off covers. A stamp on its original envelope is often worth more than the stamp alone.
Sort by country and period, and check perforations and centring, which is how stamps are graded.

The photographs that sell stamps

Four photographs do almost all the work. Shoot in daylight, near a window, with the item against something plain — and do not use the flash, which flattens texture and hides exactly what buyers are trying to see.

The album page or the group laid flat, countable
Individual scans of anything notable, front and back
The perforations and margins close up on key items
Any cover, postmark, or hinge remnant, plus tears or thins

Photograph the flaws too. It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover. Buyers who can see the damage stop imagining something worse.

Writing the title and description

Country, period and format: “GB Penny Red Collection, 1850s, 40 Stamps on Album Pages”. Country and reign or decade are the searches. Say mint or used, and hinged or never hinged, which are the standard condition terms collectors filter on.

Then state these in the description, because a buyer who has to ask is a buyer who might not bother:

Country, period and approximate count
Mint or used, and hinged, never hinged or no gum
Whether stamps are loose, on album pages, or on original covers
Condition of perforations, centring and any thins or tears

What buyers will actually ask

You will receive the same three messages about stamps. Answering them in the listing itself removes the back-and-forth, and answering them well when they do arrive is what turns an enquiry into a sale.

“Are they hinged?”

Check the reverse for hinge remnants and say. Never hinged mint stamps are worth substantially more and it is a standard collector distinction.

“Should I soak them off the paper?”

No. Ask before doing anything — a stamp on its original cover with a readable postmark can be worth far more than the stamp alone, and soaking destroys that permanently.

“Is anything valuable in the collection?”

Say honestly what you know and photograph the pages clearly. Most accumulations are modest and being straight about that earns more trust than implied rarity.

Pricing it so it actually sells

Start from the honest condition grade rather than the price you hope for. WishThrift listings use five grades — New with Tags, Like New, Good, Fair and For Parts — and what each grade means is worth reading before you choose, because grading up is the most expensive mistake sellers make. It does not raise the price; it produces a buyer who arrives expecting something else.

The stamps value guide prices all five grades for this item. Pick your grade, take the figure, and if you sit between two grades price toward the lower one. Items priced honestly sell faster than items priced hopefully, and on a free platform there is no fee eating the difference anyway.

What you keep, compared

On a £61 sale — roughly the middle of the range for stamps — here is what the commission-charging platforms would take, and what you would keep on each:

Where you sell it	Fee	You keep
WishThrift	£0	£61
Poshmark	−£12	£49
eBay	−£8	£53
Mercari	−£6	£55
Etsy	−£4	£57

Seller-side rates verified 26 Jul 2026 — Poshmark: 20% commission on sales of $15 and above; eBay: 13.6% final value fee, plus a per-order fee; Mercari: flat 10% selling fee; Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee and payment processing. Percentages are applied to the sterling figure above; the fixed per-order and processing charges those platforms add are quoted in their own currency and are not included here, so the real deductions are slightly larger. Full breakdown: marketplace selling fees compared.

Timing and getting it to the buyer

Steady to a specialist audience year round. Well-organised country collections sell faster than unsorted accumulations, which are priced as job lots.

Light and cheap to post but easily damaged. Send album pages flat between stiff boards in a rigid envelope, never folded, and use a tracked service.

WishThrift does not process payments or arrange delivery — you and the buyer agree both directly — so confirm payment has cleared before the item leaves your hands, and keep the conversation on the site so there is a record of what was agreed.

Ready to list it? It takes about two minutes, costs nothing, and there is no commission when it sells — create a free account or see how selling works.

Frequently asked questions

Are old stamps worth anything?

Most common twentieth century stamps are worth very little individually, and being honest about that is better than implying otherwise. Value concentrates in early issues, errors, unusual postmarks and covers. See the stamps value guide.

Should I take stamps off envelopes?

No. The cover, postmark and routing can be worth more than the stamp, and removal is irreversible. Sell covers intact and let the buyer decide.

How should I handle stamps?

With stamp tongs, never fingers. Skin oils mark gum and paper permanently, and handling damage is immediately obvious to anyone who collects.