Need Stamp Help!

Hi everyone. I was recently given my grandfathers stamps from his childhood. There is at least over 1000 stamps, 1 book of United States, 2 books of worldwide and numerous loose stamps I know nothing about stamps. What should be the first thing to do, have them appraised? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hello lenabobby....

It really depends on what you'd like to do with it.....are you planning on selling it or would you like to continue with it to preserve for another generation ?

I would like to keep it for my children.

professional appraisors charge like 50 dollars an hour or more..i would spend a little effort looking for a knowledgable stamp collector who could give you the same advice...many of us here if we saw it could tell you if you have a 20 dollar collection or a 500 dollar collection..but we cant see the books !!

Thank you so much for your help. Here are a few scans and we will be working on adding more to our photo bucket and leaving a link.
If a better scan is needed please let us know.

Germany

US

I will agree with London with what you have shared as far as the US stamps so far.

Here is another scan not sure if this is 518 or 518b. Thanks for the help. Also is there any countries that have very valuable stamps I have so many other country stamps I am not even sure where to start scanning. Thank you again.

Here are some stamps from Russia.










I thought these stamps were cool looking.

It looks like a 518 - violet black the 518b is deep brown. The 518 used is worth a buck or so. On the other hand the 518b can go in to the high hundreds depending of course of grade and condition.

The holes are called perforated initials, or "perfins". The purpose of perfins was to help curb pilfering of company postage stamps by its employees.General collectors stay away from perfined stamps, considering them to be damaged goods. But there is a small subset of philately that specifically collect perfins:

While generally I would say the true value with perfins would be 10%-20% less a perfin collector may pay more.

For general collections, US, Canada, France, Great Britain, Switzlerland.

Upcoming fast, China, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil

My opinion

Jim

I know the last one is a surcharge of 40r on a 15k stamp. However I'm not into foreign stamps so I know someone will give you a hand.

Desertgem then I guess the chatter is accurate..they say Latin America is becoming popular...you wonder where the good stuff is..most of us with worldwide collections have basicly all the same common stamps..perhaps the Argentine dealers have the good stuff !!

Here are some scans of France.









I like the oneswith the hand writing on them.
Thanks again.