I should have done this a while ago because the market changed. I didn’t keep up with the times.I’m dropping the price of my discount postage to 80% of face value. This is more in line with prices other dealers are charging. Some dealers have a minimum order of $100 in face value.

I have no minimum purchase. If you’re looking for certain combinations of stamps (say, that equal the first class rate), or if you have a preference for, say, low denomination stamps below 10¢, I can sometimes accommodate those kinds of requests. Not always, but I try. Remember, discount postage is usually unusable items for my stock. They could have been hinged before. Maybe they have a small thin. They may have light creases or some gum skips. No junk, but you’re probably not going to get clean, top of the line material. You’ll receive perfectly usable stamps that are fine for paying postage.

There has been a glut of mint postage coming on the market over the last several years. Many people have been digging out childhood collections or collections they inherited, dusting them off, and selling them for cash. There has definitely been a surge in especially gummed postage. Over the last 10-15 years, the USPS has moved to mostly self-adhesive stamps. The average citizen today just doesn’t want to use gummed stamps at any price. Collectors don’t mind using gum stamps for a colorful mailing envelope.

Some dealers have so much mint postage, they stopped buying it. Or they’ll buy it at a very low price. One seller told me that he was offered 30% of face for some mint sheets.

I don’t see the market changing any time soon for discount postage. Even if people stopped selling mint stamps today, it will still be a few years before the market unloads what is already out there before dealers are interested in buying mint postage again at higher prices.

If you’re selling mint postage right now, sorry, but this is not the best time to do it. Buy prices are down. If I’m selling at 80% of face, I’m buying at a price less than that. I need to make a fair profit for the time involved.

Should you hold on to your mint postage and get a better price later on? In my opinion, no. Buy prices may increase someday. I think that is years into the future. Do you want to hang onto mint stamps, hoping that they don’t get damaged in the meantime, in order to maybe get a few extra dollars in the end? And if market conditions don’t improve in the years to come, you held on to that postage and got the same price that you would have received a few years ago. There is also the chance that there is another spike in people looking to unload mint postage and prices decline even further. It’s like investing in the stock market. There is no guarantee that the market will go up tomorrow. It could go down.

The chances of the market drastically improving in the near future are very slim in my opinion. The offer you get today is likely to be a very similar offer in the future. In my opinion, take the money today and put it to good use.