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(I wrote this while revising the Analysis of various Internet selling options essay (click here to view). It didn't seem to belong in the analysis there, so I've added it as a separate essay.
There are a couple of things that may have seemed obvious to me while I was writing the Comparison essay that might not be obvious to people who have not been in the cover business. If they are obvious to you, my apologies for flogging them here.
First, due to the relative uniquity of the items sold, selling [postal history vs. mass-produced] covers is a fairly labor-intensive business. This is especially true in an Internet situation where, in addition to the usual labors of research (if any), pricing and getting the material sorted and placed into inventory there is added work in verbally describing and scanning each cover.
Second, also due to the relative uniquity of the items sold, Internet selling is cost-intensive when it comes to insertion fees. Someone selling Acme #2 widgets can list one, and sell any number of these off that one listing, because each one is the same. Someone selling [non-mass-produced] covers will not only have to work up each one individually, but will have to pay a separate listing fee for each one.
Third, covers tend not to sell at anything approaching a 100% rate, even over long periods of time. My experience, and that of many other dealers, is that new material will sell at a fairly good clip -- in my experience, 20% to 40% of the items offered, depending on how well the new offerings are tailored to the market. But even after years there will still be a substantial number of covers that have never sold. [The exact percentage will depend on a number of factors, not least of which are what the material is relative to what's hot at the time, and how it's priced. It can, in my experience of different owners' material, range from a fairly minor to a fairly major fraction.]
The traditional solution for disposing of unsold material is to blow it out in a bulk sale at a low price -- typically about 20% of marked retail (assuming the marked retail was not pie in the sky in the first place), either in a direct dealer-to-dealer transaction or through auction (which often turns out to be an indirect dealer-to-dealer transaction). But that is tough medicine to swallow. And besides, some of those old covers will sell, eventually, at retail. To sell a cover takes the right buyer, and he/she may take time to show up. I have had the occasional absolutely ecstatic buyer for an item that I lugged around to shows for 5 to 10 years before the right person found it. And each year I continue to sell, to new customers and to the occasional old customer with new interests, material on my site that was added in every year going back to 1998.
The bottom line on all of this is that selling covers individually is somewhat expensive in terms of both time and money, and if the sale rate for a broad range of material ever approaches 100% someone has probably made a serious mistake. There is no perfect solution; only a series of calculations based on what your time is worth, what you hope to achieve financially, and the available options. Dying without facing the problem is an option, but I would advise anyone contemplating that to think carefully about it. Heirs who resent their spouse/parent's time spent on his/her collecting have been known to dispose of material at fire sale prices, just to be quit of it as quickly as possible. Granted, you won't be there to see this travesty, so maybe "What, me worry?" is okay.