My Oldest Stamp Year - 1890 / 1893 I'm Rich

With the recent request for prices on old stamps I wanted to check out my oldest. Wow it is a perfect used light canceled #220 carmine no caps. I hit it rich for about 35 cents. next was the 1894 -1898 2 cent Washington. I hit the jackpot as it was a type III making the a #252 used for a grand total of something around $4.50. I though I was on a roll now. I know my oldest commemorative had to bring some bigger dollars.

Well the light canceled #231 Landing of Columbus brought me back down to around 25 cents. So I skipped to one of my favorite stamps the 1903 perforated 2 cent carmine Washington stamp. Another 20 cents for the used stamp. The #300 1 cents blue green Franklin did no better coming in at 20 cents used. Even my 1908-1009 #331 1 cent green Franklin could not go over the 20 cent used price.

It wasn't until I reached the years 1922-25 that I found what I would call a winner. I had the #589 8 cent Grant that was looking at a cool $8.50 for a used stamp. That was at the same price level as my MNH #565 14 cent American Indian which was slightly higher at $8.75.

Of course back then I didn't collect for investment so I didn't expect any winners since I didn't spend any money to get my stamps. Though I do have over 100 Grants so I guess I built some value into the early years.

taking into consideration book value is probably higher than what I can expect to get I'm still happy since the early year do contain some nice stamps that I skipped over and even if I got half price for the Grants that is still more money than I expected.