A lot of people want to know if pawn shops will take in stamps or not and the answer is that yes, more often than not pawn shops will take stamps in.
It’s not completely uncommon for me to be asked if pawn shop will buy or make loans on stamps and stamp collections. The answer isn’t always so easy unfortunately.
You see, stamps are often pretty hard for someone to valuate and determine the exact value of.
While sites like eBay can help someone determine an estimated value of a stamp, they prices that they sell for are not always consistent, particularly compared with the other items that a pawn shop may take in on a regular basis.
Because of this fluctuation and instability in stamp prices, it can be really difficult for most pawn shops to figure out exactly how much they can loan you against your stamps, or how much they could offer to buy them from you for should you decide that you want to sell them.
You have to appreciate that pawn shops like dealing with collateral that they can easily determine how much they might be able to resell it for should the person pawning it forfeit the loan.
While I understand that most people come back to redeem their pawned items, unfortunately not everyone does and because of that, pawn shops have to be aware of what the really used value of the items are that they are taking in.
There are some pawn shops out there that will seriously consider your stamps for either a loan or to buy out right. That having been said, it is best for your stamps to be graded in order to make it as easy as possible for a pawn shop to determine its value and make you best offer possible.
Helping Pawn Shops With Stamp Evaluations
Now, keeping all of this in mind, there are some things that you can try to do to make things as easy as possible for a pawn shop to evaluate your stamps, determine a potential value for them, and make you a loan against them.
First of all, let me tell you that most pawn shops don’t know about the various stamp auction sites out there. They are going to be use to dealing pretty much only on eBay and probably won’t trust the other auction sites that they could potentially use.
Keeping this in mind, it will be hard for a pawn broker to know exactly what your stamps are. They don’t see stamps regularly in most cases and it will be a really long, drawn out process for them to identify your stamps, let alone determine their value.
So, what you want to do before you go to the pawn shop is document what exactly each stamp is. That way, when the pawnbroker is looking it up, they will have a good idea of what they are looking for to begin with.
Stamp Grading & Pawn Shop Loans
Another thing that will really help your cause with a pawn shop is having your stamps graded, preferably by PSE.
PSE stamp grading is often considered the standard that pawn shops can trust when determining the condition, and therefore largely the potential value of your stamps.
If you just show up with a book full of ungraded stamps, the loan will be much less sure for the pawnbroker and therefore they will be far less likely to actually make you a decent loan against your stamps.
Keep in mind what we said above. Pawn shops like to work with items that they can easily determine the resale value of. Ungraded stamps are a real risk for the pawn shop.
Grading is almost like a stamp of authenticity. It tells the pawn shop exactly what the stamp is and makes it much easier for them to look up what a similar stamp sold for in the past.
How To Find Pawn Shops That Will Take Stamps
The easiest way to do this is simply to go to Google.com and search the phrase “Local pawn shops” or “Pawn shops in my area.”
Google will return a list of local pawn shops as well as their phone numbers. Give them a call, one by one and let them know what you have.
If your stamps are graded, make sure that you let them know that as it could sway their decision to work with you on your stamp collection. The last thing that a pawnbroker really wants to do on a busy day is try to lookup and evaluate 100’s of ungraded, unknown stamps.
However, if everything is laid out in terms of what it is, it’s condition, etc – it becomes a much easier job for the pawnbroker and they may be willing to help you out with them, even if they normally turn stamp collections down.
