Inherited thousands of stamps

Azurescens

I've come into possession of over a dozen stamp books, a load of stacks in wax paper, and all sorts of other related items. Where on earth do I begin? They're US and foreign presumably 1800s to 1950, with some "key" 1950-1980 pieces. Both of my grandfathers and my father collected them. Looking at them makes my OCD turn to volume 10. Where and how do I even begin pricing these or finding a place to sell them..?

Azurescens

Freeze dry them, cover in pepper, and bury them in the yard? =P

Looks like there isn't even a market anymore.

291fifth

You need to quickly and efficiently sort out any stamps that are individually valuable. (Most US stamps issued from the late 1930s to the present will bring less than face when sold.) Start with a Scott catalog ... your library probably has one. (They are very expensive to purchase new these days.) Prepare to be disappointed with what you get vs. catalog value. Stamp collecting is on the decline and shows no sign of recovering. Don't keep them for a long term hold. Find a stamp auction house to sell them. Take the money and don't look back.

Azurescens

Okay great will do. Thank you very much for your guidance.

elliott_garrick

There are people that are willing to pay quite a lot of money for some that are missing from their collection. Try connecting with stamp collectors. Post on E-bay and join philatelic communities. You never know where you'll find someone passionate about stamps with too much money to spend.
Hope you get rich soon!

Michael1

You can try to find your stamps in Scott or in Michel stamp catalog. Usually, the real price on your stamps will be several times cheaper than is mention in the catalog value.
As well, you can use eBay (or other auction) to find the market price for your stamps.
Good luck

Kuznec

@elliott_garrick said:
There are people that are willing to pay quite a lot of money for some that are missing from their collection. Try connecting with stamp collectors. Post on E-bay and join philatelic communities. You never know where you'll find someone passionate about stamps with too much money to spend.
Hope you get rich soon!

Very much I doubt the existence of rich collectors of stamps. As a rule, the rich collect something more cool.

oz_in_ohio

Michael1 said you can try ebay...That is true but dont take notice what the items are put up for.
The place you have to look is what they sold for...That is closer to the more exact price.......

Robert_Knobel

I would sell them on E-Bay. You can sell each stamp album separately. Sell the sheets, or whatever is in the wax paper, in a separate lot. Sight unseen, stamps only get a few cents a stamp for large lots of the date range you mention. But some can be worth a lot more while others are pretty worthless. If you are not a collector, it makes no sense trying to go through them all to find individual stamps of value.

RoqueGalleryBH

I will buy all your asia.

thank you

or just the thailand

YQQ

I am in a similar situation as the OP. so far I have photographed 526 pages and am barely half way.
world from about 1900 to 1955 and tons of USA and Canada.
My route probably will be to sell them by the page or by country on the Bay.
auctions are ok if you have a few very high end rare stamps. otherwise the commissions will take all your possible profit.

bronco2078

I inherited a stamp collection recently too. I'm baffled by it frankly. Why would a collector want a coil of brand new 3 cent stamps for instance? There are a bunch of things like that that have me scratching my head.

Actually , the part of the collection I find most interesting is a series of World stamp albums , all cancelled for the most part. The last pages of that group are dated 1973 . That was probably when he still didn't have a lot of money and just collected things he enjoyed and pasted them into albums. The recent stuff all looks like postage to me.

Paradisefound

My father left me several books of stamps; went way back to where the countries are not even exist anymore.
I am "listening" to all advise. Thank you.

JBK

@bronco2078 said:

The recent stuff all looks like postage to me.

With a few exceptions, it all is just postage, bought and sold at a discount. If you are selling, pls consider listing here (on the BST forum).

JBK

@Paradisefound said:
My father left me several books of stamps; went way back to where the countries are not even exist anymore.
I am "listening" to all advise. Thank you.

Without knowing anything about them there is little advice anyone can give, other than "lower your expectations"

Are they pasted into the albums, are they attached with hinges, are they mint or cancelled? After that, it is just a matter of looking them up to see if any of them might ne a rarity. Might be easier to check if there are any rarities for a particular country and date range, and then see if you have any of those.

Harlequin

If ya ever get a chance post some quick pictures ..... would love to see the hoard!

DBSTrader2

I also used to dabble in stamps when I first started collecting coins, but never got into the albums, etc. Just primarily cancelled U.S. & world stamps, a few "annual" collectors folders sold by the USPS, etc. I also have a few mint U.S. stamps from maybe the 30's thru the 70's (after which I stopped collecting entirely) in those wax-paper envelopes. Not to mention a bunch of hand-written FDC's from the 50's thru 70's. None of which appear to have even managed to keep their value, let alone appreciate.

One set of cancelled stamps I kept (and my kids used several times for school) was of German over-marked inflationary stamps issued between the 2 World Wars. I just found them interesting, & mounted them on a card.

Last year, when I started trying to clean up my collecting process and "holdings", I tossed a lot of the cancelled ones that I had stuck improperly on pages anyway (cool to see how scotch tape eats thru stamps!! ) , and put aside a container of ones that young kids might have fun looking through in a giveaway box (if I ever make it to another coin/stamp show).

But I also saved one or more nicer/unusual examples I had from each country, and paired them up in open slots in my plastic 2x2 pages with their corresponding countries in my 1-per-country binders. I thought they gave a nice added perspective to the coins & managed to still "marry" my 2 earliest hobbies. Just a fresh perspective to re-invigorate things..............

Hydrant

Where to begin?!

Namvet69

I would still look at a family collection inherited as a gift worthy of study and further examination by phileticists. They are out there and I bet someone can assess what you have. Patience and gratitude can be your reward. A large stamp collection is a history lesson and I bet children would be fascinated. I loved studying the engraving involved, the events that precluded a particular stamp issue. Peace Roy

AUandAG

Probably twenty years ago I too inherited a very large collection with books and full sheets and blocks (corner and other). Collector collected them from early 30's till her death in 1991. Bought them all at the PO (except used of course). Unfortunately, after hundreds of hours of research, we split them up among the family with instructions to lick and use.
This collector did not buy the large value stamps (50¢ and up) which is where the value really is. She just bought all the stamps that were normally used on letters. What a waste of time. I remember one Boy Scout first day of issue (envelope with cancelled stamp) was the most valuable and I just donated it to the stamp shop that was helping with my research. Learned a lot. Like coins the best are the scarcest or rarest.
bob
PS: did put the volumes up on ebay (used stamp books)

hatchet

Reading these posts, although it confirms what I had suspected, is not good news. It leaves me pretty much paralyzed as to making a decision what to do with 3 or 4 banker boxes of my uncle's stamp collection put together from the 1930's to the 1970's. Although he had a dabbling from everywhere, some of what he cared most about (USPS & Hawaiian postal cards, Canal Zone, early US, and a couple individual European countries stamps) may have a few things with some value, but I doubt anything of big value (he was diligent and knowledgeable about stamps, but he was not rich). Some of the later stamps I've learned from here can be sold at discount for postage. I hadn't thought of that, and it makes sense. It might (or might not) be worth the expenditure of time going through the best albums to see if individual items have value on their own (including the time to learn enough to make some judgements). But where I throw my hands up is with the many, many, many glassine envelopes with 3 or 5 or 10 or 50 stamps. I'm pretty sure they are largely not of sufficient value to bother with or even keep, but I hate the idea of chucking something of value hidden in there. So it all sits in those boxes, getting older, and losing what value they might still have, and that's how it's been for the 20 years they've lived in my closet.

JBK

Could be a few scarce ones in there, otherwise add up the face value and put it on eBay with lots of good pics. Discount postage. If any rarities maybe bidders will notice and drive the price up.

bronco2078

@hatchet said:
Reading these posts, although it confirms what I had suspected, is not good news. It leaves me pretty much paralyzed as to making a decision what to do with 3 or 4 banker boxes of my uncle's stamp collection put together from the 1930's to the 1970's. Although he had a dabbling from everywhere, some of what he cared most about (USPS & Hawaiian postal cards, Canal Zone, early US, and a couple individual European countries stamps) may have a few things with some value, but I doubt anything of big value (he was diligent and knowledgeable about stamps, but he was not rich). Some of the later stamps I've learned from here can be sold at discount for postage. I hadn't thought of that, and it makes sense. It might (or might not) be worth the expenditure of time going through the best albums to see if individual items have value on their own (including the time to learn enough to make some judgements). But where I throw my hands up is with the many, many, many glassine envelopes with 3 or 5 or 10 or 50 stamps. I'm pretty sure they are largely not of sufficient value to bother with or even keep, but I hate the idea of chucking something of value hidden in there. So it all sits in those boxes, getting older, and losing what value they might still have, and that's how it's been for the 20 years they've lived in my closet.

I inherited a collection also and I have just decided to work my way through a bit at a time. If you have had these for 20 years you could have been doing something like that all this time

I tend to procrastinate with stuff like this but I've been selling off booklets of Canadian stamps on ebay and I'm getting about 40% of face I think. Which doesn't sound great but they were free to me

hatchet

@bronco2078 said:
I inherited a collection also and I have just decided to work my way through a bit at a time. If you have had these for 20 years you could have been doing something like that all this time

I tend to procrastinate with stuff like this but I've been selling off booklets of Canadian stamps on ebay and I'm getting about 40% of face I think. Which doesn't sound great but they were free to me

That's close to what I decided to do. I'm biting the bullet and finally dealing with it. I made an initial pass and decided to keep two portions: the canal zone stamps and postal cards, and the Channel Island stamps. My family has a strong connection to the Canal Zone from construction thru operation, so it goes with all the other Zone memorabilia I have. The Channel islands stamps start with a nice set of WWII occupation stamps and a cover. The history of those intrigued me, so keeping those. I'm moving that all out of albums and into Vario pages, so they take up a lot less space.
I sorted out all the newer US mint stamps (about $50-$100 worth) and am using that myself for postage/shipping going forward.
The rest I've started sorting. Will sell those with value, and give rest away at local stamp club. Probably won't net much. The only stuff with value I've found so far is among the Canal Zone collection.