Need Help Valuing Donated Covers For Silent Auction

Hello!

I am working on a silent auction to raise funds for a family who lost their son to cancer in February of this year. A neighbor donated several albums of covers, and I was hoping someone could help me determine the value of them.

The first album says The United States Constitution Bicentennial Covers Collection and Postal Commemorative Society on the cover. Inside there is a cover sheet and 12 covers showing various events surrounding the Constitution. Each has a postmark from 1987 from the city in which the event occurred.

The second album says Golden Replicas of United States Stamps proof replicas on a gleaming surface of 22kt gold. Inside there are 22 stamps and their gold replicas on cards with cancellation dates in 1988 and 1989.

The last album says The Hummel Christmas Commemorative Cover Collection and Postal Commemorative Society on the cover. Inside it says "The treasured Christmas paintings of Sister M.I. Hummel combined with every U.S. Christmas Stamp ever issued." There are 8 covers with cancellations from 1988 and 1989.

In addition, there is a cover that shows The Wright Brothers' First Flight with a 6 cent stamp in the corner. It has a cancellation date of 1988. There is also a gold replica of the 1918 Air Mail Issue with the image upside down and a 3 cent Thomas Edison stamp with a gold replica.

I would appreciate any help I could get with this. I'm afraid I'm lost.

Perhaps as a group you might get $50 or so. An opening bid of $30 might get some attention.

This material consists for the most part as a philatelic curiosity, and not highly sought after.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s these things were heavily advertised in magazines as "collectibles". The sad thing is that one had to subscribe to their products, which were often overpriced, and the end result was that people were taken in by thinking they had purchased something with a future value when in reality they bought the items at many times what the true value of the product really was. Many novice collectors got taken in by these promotions having later discovered they paid a few dollars for a cover that was only worth a few cents at best.

For further reading, checkout these previous links:

https://goscf.com/t/15611&SearchTer...tive,Society

https://goscf.com/t/25788&SearchTer...tive,Society

https://goscf.com/t/8712

Thank you for your help. That is just what I needed to know.