Software

what I real need is someone in new york to look at what I have. I went to one guy. with 4 books and a box full of folders all with unused and used stamps. the guy flip in 2 mins and said sorry you have nothing. there is no way out of the 10's of thousands of stamps that there was nothing. not in no 2 mins. he never even opened the folders. so is there any software I can use to try and look up what I have. I have stamps from all over the world from the 1850's to 1970's

You should go to your local Library and see if they have copies of the Scott Catalogues. These catalogues have pictures and descriptions of stamps from the United States and Worldwide. If your Library has a set of Scott Catalogues you can very possibly check a few of them out, for a few weeks at a time. You'll be able to find your stamps in these catalogues and determine what they might be worth. Be aware that a lot of things determine the value of your stamp, such as centering, condition, whether it is in mint condition or has been used, if it has ever been hinged. It's a lot of hard work so be prepared to spend a lot of time with your collection. Doing it yourself is something you might just enjoy and find you are interested in collecting stamps.

Box - to our family.

Dealers are used to people walking in with large, disorganized collections. They seldom find anything of great value in them so they don't want to waste their time. You could have $100 worth of stamps, or you could have an individual gem worth a fortune. The only way you are going to find out is to find out for yourself, or find a local stamp club that you can join. There is usually one or two members who will be willing to help you get off in the right direction.

sfgoda is right about using the Scott's catalogs to get an idea of what you have. He is equally right about small differences in the stamp and the quality of the stamp making a big difference in the value. It will be a long and difficult task for you to go through a large lot if you don't have any experience with stamps.

One thing to remember is that when you try to sell your collection you will probably only get 20% to 30% of the total Scott Catalog value. You can buy at 50% or so at most places.

Good Luck!

BoxofStamps,
If you went to a commercial dealer, such a response can be very common. If they glance through US and spot no "indicator stamps" such as early stamps, columbians or trans-miss above 3 cents, airmails C1-C6 ( first six ) or C18,
( baby zepp ) they usually feel that their time to organize, advertise and sell would not be worth it to them. Time is Money for the businessperson. He should have said that he was interested in other material. Careful organization and Identification of similar issues will help get the buyer's interest. Often one can not tell whether a stamp is valuable without a magnifier or a perf gauge. But if there are no "indicator type" stamps in a group, a dealer knows it is unlikely anything of great value will be there unless it is noted by type. A Canadian collection would have different indicator stamps.

Once a person brought me a bag of probably 10,000 modern US stamps, probably 1970s-1990s and was surprised when I wasn't interested. he said " But they are worth 20 cents each in Scotts Catalog. I said Scotts is a retail guide, what a dealer will sell you one at, and compared it to the Car Blue Book, and he finally understood. Of course he is my nephew...

If you don't have a magnifier and a perforation gauge, you will need them. Unfortunately such sorting and identifying takes a lot of time. That is why a dealers are such as the one you mention, and why I have files cards and envelopes of stamps that I haven't yet identified and put in the albums...
Keep up hope!

Jim

does scotts have a software to make it early to look up

Dealers want stamps they can "turn over" they already have hundreds of the common stamps that everyone else has..probably the last thing they want is a worldwide collection...on the other hand I have purchased two minkus supreme global albums full of stamps from a flea market seller for $80 dollars because I thought they were worth it...on a worldwide collection someone probably spent a few hundred dollars and had a lot of fun doing it..if he gets 10 cents on the dollar back..its better than nothing and if you got the collection for free and sell it ..its found money !!

When my son was starting soaking foreign stamps I had him first divide into 4 categories,
1. those with names he could read in english,
2. ones he could tell the printing ) letters, but not english
3. those in unknown alphabet ( arabian, chinese,etc.), and
4. those with only a number ( usually postage due,etc.)

1. Like the word "BERMUDA" he could easily find
2. Like "EIRE" , he could google the word and get Ireland.
3. Harder, usually needed experienced help, like us, or going through the catalog.
4. same as 3, experience.

But it is surprising how quickly one can start to recognize the countries.

There is a software program that "grades" stamps as F,VF,XF,GEM, etc, but no AI type of program yet.

Jim

This is a lot of good advice for the novice, and the not so novice!

My English ain't real good!

Greg I used to be novice when I was young..now I am old and dont care !!

I can think of a dozen things I don't have the energy to worry about anymore!

If you need help with scott #'s this website has a pretty good listing. It is a mans private collection and he has the scott #'s with the albums. I found it very helpful especially with the more modern stuff.

http://album.dweeb.org/

The one sentence that no one likes to hear is that their collection has nothing in it. Unfortunately for many those are true words in terms of a dollar value.

That can be hard to believe when you are staring at hundreds if not thousands of stamps neatly placed in beautiful album's or stored properly in separate packets.

But the truth is that if your not collecting for investment then unless you have that one rare stamp the truth is you have nothing more than common run of the mill stamps. New people who get inherit a collection just see old stamps and figure they are worth a lot of money.

While I will not say one of these collection might have that one stamp the odds are that if your collection is not in that direction then the chances are poor that it will.

While the true worth of any stamp is only as good as the amount of money a collector will pay for it there are ways to build an investment quality collection.

It is a learning process that evolves around other issues beside rarity. Grading really comes into play where even a common stamp can be worth far more.

Then does the collection hold just individual stamps or is it a full collection of plates or sheets.

I will give you an example. I have the Over Run Countries Series from the 1940's. I have the complete set in both used and MNH. The price range is price range is anywhere form 25 cents to over a dollar for each stamp. To most people they would see the age of the stamp and think the series is valuable. However they are just common run of the mill. On the other hand the same stamps at their best grading can be valued at prices between $200 and $300 dollars.

The most important thing anyone can do is to take the time to learn about the valuation of stamps. The starting point is a good catalog such as Scott's but then you must take the extra time to understand the stamp market. You have to mix this knowledge with the type and different ways stamps are collected. This means learning about rare stamps, plate blocks, mint sheet and a few others that I know people will add.

Just remember age is a small factor that is combined with type of collection, condition of stamps, grading and a few others that I have missed.

I don't collect for investment though each time I work with my stamps they look like a million bucks to me. I just don't have the money to build a collection this way. Though with my limited understanding of the stamp market I still know what to look for in the rare case I find that one stamp that will change things.

So Box don't get upset if they said you have nothing, but you can take the time to learn just maybe you have that one stamp mixed in there somewhere.

I know I have nothing and to tell you the truth I can live with that because I did spend anything to build my great collection either.