Serious Advise Wanted On Covers.

There are numerous covers and post cards with stamps in my dad's collection.They are from various places and also US.Just wondering if I should just remove the stamps and discard the covers and cards as they seem to occupy quite a space in the stamp boxes.These stamp look good like the images below with Washington 1894/95 to Germany. imperf on the right and another imperf on the right and bottom.But at the same time notice that the covers are nice too.One of it is with a nice cancel of New York with a K, without date and year and the third one is with address redirected to another street.Do stamps on a cover have better value than just the stamp itself?Opinions and advice will be much appreciated.Thanks.


Washington 1894/95 imperf on right with postmark New York with a K.


Washington 1894/95 imperf at the right and bottom.


Address redirected to 80,Federal St.Postmark Rumford,Maine 1937

NOOOOOOOOOO! Don't remove them. Not only do they add value to the cover but they are complete in terms of their postal history. Especially nice since they are overseas covers.
The stamps themselves, while nice examples, are pretty common. So if you're looking for stamps for your albums, there are plenty of others out there to fill the spaces.
Very nice covers, by the way.

There is almost NO case where a stamp is worth more off cover!
You are VERY lucky he had the foresight to keep them on cover.

I agree.

Do not remove the stamps.

The stamps on cover, together with the different cancellations make the difference, plus, they are tiny pieces of history.

They are usually worth more on cover anyway.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Its true they are worth more,you can find tens of thousands of those type of covers at any stamp show.They sell for a BUCK-A-COVER on dealer tables. Second 99% of all covers are not postal history,sorry but seen to many covers being sold that never make it to a exhibit or collection ,they just float from one collectors shoebox to the next.If you were to come to Chicago we have a stamp auction firm that sells box lots of covers and I do mean SELLS ,if you come add extra springs on your car because those box lots are heavy and they'll cost you about 10 cents a cover and you can get all you want.

As singles, these stamps wouldn't get a second look from a collector. They would likely end up in a kiloware box or in an envelope with hundreds of other common definitives to be sold for pennies.

The stamped envelopes make these even more interesting and collectible, even if they're not valuable.





Nonsense. If it has a cancellation with a date & location, and has been mailed through a postal system, it's postal history ... no matter how common the cover might be. Every cover tells a story. Whether that story is interesting or not isn't important. Once a stamp is removed from cover, and the cover discarded, the story is gone forever. Do you advocate the removal of Penny Blacks from cover just because there were tens of millions of them used? Didn't think so ...

Brian

I agree to keep the stamps on cover, if at all possible. One has to look at all covers as postal history and not just look at value.

I can personally attest to the fact that I have some very common material that at first glance would have wound up in the trash, but later on, when I looked at the covers a second or third time, I found interesting postal markings, or some biographical history of the addressee or sender that made the cover a very interesting piece of postal history that would otherwise have been lost if only the stamp were soaked off the cover.

I like covers so I would encourage you to leave them as is.

As with most of the things we collect, the value is in the heart of the collector. Some see common stamps that take up space if left on cover and others see postal history.

The examples you showed us are very nice. If you don't have room for them or you don't have interest in collecting covers, why not sell or trade them on SCF? I'm sure several people here would love them.

Karen

Thanks to all for the advuse and opinions.Think I will stick to the advise of keeping them intact.If no more room then next option will be to trade.After reading your comments,the idea of removing stamps from cover, is not an option.Thanks to all.

Absolutely the right decision, Selva! Ignorant collectors destroying covers have caused the hobby, and themselves, countless damage. This sad piece



has an Indian Queen Victoria ½ Anna, which sell for a dollar or so a hundred, and a Bhopal 1891 ½ Anna, worth maybe $5. If that original vandal had left the stamps on their cover, it would be worth over $500 now. Yes, it saved some space, but at what price!

Could anyone comment on the cancellation (large K)!?

I would love to know too about the K.

Could be the post office annex?
It has a NYC cancel, and surely NYC had more than one PO.
It's possible that the 'K' denotes which NYC post office.
I could be wrong, but that sounds reasonable.