Plastic Warp

Hi,
I'm thinking about selling some stamps that I collected when I was younger, but I'm completely foreign to stamp collecting.
I have several sheets of stamps that are still in their original packaging (these are from about 10 years ago), but the plastic wrap has appeared to have shrunk, so the cardboard backings are being slightly warped. Should I leave the plastic on when I sell them, or just take it off so the stamps can lay flat? Do people even care if stamps still have the cardboard with them at all? Also some of the sheets have price stickers on the plastic, but I don't know if it matters if I get rid of them, because of course the actual stamps have the prices as well. I'd really appreciate any help I can get, I'm pretty clueless! Thanks, Emily

If your intent is to sell the material, I'd leave it in the shrink-wrap packaging as it will provide some protection to the merchandise, assuming you are mailing it onto a new owner.

If your intent is to collect the stamps for the overall enjoyment of the hobby, most people recommend removing the items from the plastic wrap, as the shrink wrap is not intended for long-term storage and thus the material is best placed into page protectors or mounts or stockbook pages that are clearly identified as being acid-free.

It is unclear if your collection is from the US or from other countries. If you are referring to US material, there is an over-abundance of stamps on the open market. As a result, most issues released since the 1940's have been printed in the hundred of millions (or even billions) of stamps that there are few stamps from that period that have any significant value. Modern US stamps found on the secondary market are often sold at a discount below even the "face value" of the stamps. It's just that there is so much material out there that was printed in sufficient quantities to meet demand that there is little chance for those items issued in the past 10-20-30 years to have appreciated in value in any significant way.

Thanks wt1, that definitely helps. I have several varieties of stamps in this collection, and I'm assuming they're not worth much, but I plan to just sell everything I have, including an album and pages, as a lot on ebay. Sort of as an instant collection or like a starter kit for someone else who is looking to get into stamps. That way, I can just easily sell the newer ones along with the older ones that I have from around the 1920's to the 1950's.