Washington Expert Required For Massive Project

Friends,
Yesteray I had the pleasure of purchasing over 100,000 Washington 1 & 2c's. The lot can best be described as "farm fresh" since it had been untouched since the 20's and was likely sitting in a barn.... The lot came in some rusty tins that were falling apart. Anyhow, there is a lot of damage and some mold to some stamps and I am in the process of sorting and throwing those that cannot be salvaged. I have gone through 1% of the stamps and already have 200 coils and a few line pairs which is exciting. There is every shade of stamp for this issue you can imagine... my issue is that this is is one of my weaker areas of issue and I need assistance to pull out some of the gems that I know are in here. I have done tons of research but still have a hard time determining type and color. Since this lot has not been touched since the 20's, there must be some wonderful stamps in here that I dont want to miss. Any idea on how to begin with somthing this large and complicated? If anyone wants pics of what this lot looks like now in its untouched state email me and I will happy to send (I have a hard time uploading to this site).

Shannon

This doesn't really answer your question, but I encourage you to save all the precancels and perfins (separately), regardless of condition.

If the accumulation has been where it's damp, or stored in a barn, the color shades will be very unreliable. Also, mold can be fixed, but foxing (brown spots) cannot.

Thanks Doug, there are a ton of perfins and once I have the 1c and 2c sorted the next step will be for the seperation of perfins (there are limited precancels). The damaged to some stamps is pretty extensive in some areas and very limited in others so I think color will be OK for most but I will need an expert. Really apprecaite your insight.

I'd love to see a picture of what this looks like. Feel free to email me some pics and I'll post them here

Here are a few coils I grabbed off the top to see if this works. Let me what you think.

Since it looks like I got this to work I will post a few pics to try and give an idea of what I have. I moved all of the stamps into boxes (10 of them) as the tins were falling apart. THe one box alonw weighs 20
lbs. This is just a small sample of the entire lot. Many of these are in great shape and since this was not a collection but rather an accumulation, I am excited to see what I find.
Let me know what you think!!

Hi Shannon, Its always fun to find a hoard of stamps...i doubt if anyone is going to travel to check out your stamps...but we have folks with a lot of knowledge in U.S. stamps and people here are reliable...perhaps you can find someone who would check your stamps 1 large envelope at a time or so..just a suggestion !(i am not a U.s. collector so it would not be me.)

WOW, that looks like fun

your welcome over anytime to help!

If you are within an hour of Rochester NY - lets do it!
On the perfins - if you scan the backs of some - we can evaluate here on SCF.

Man I wish was... I live in SC but will be moving to Chicago in the near future. If your ever in the area let me know. I have only gone through the first 1000 stamps and there will be 1000's of perfins as I go along but here are a few. I dont collect perfins so if anyone has an interest lt me know.

....with the perfins picture. Can someone help me to identify these 3 stamps?

Shannon, when I went through my box of 10,000 2c reds about 20 years ago, I separated the original type "TWO CENTS" from "2 CENTS 2" and started perfing first.

I moved the obvious offsets to a different pile, because they wouldn't need perfing. Separated coils to different pile.

Once perfed, started looking at watermarks. Some obvious things:
-- if "TWO CENTS" and perf 11, it could be 519
-- if "2 CENTS 2" and watermarked, it could be 461
-- once you've looked at thousands of them, you'll be able to pick out a Type Ia easily, if you see one.

On the offsets, separated by the different types: IV, V, Va, VI, VII. Hope you find a Type VII imperf-- I did.

Coils all need to be perfed, watermarked, and typed. You'll see mostly Type III, and on the Type II's, any watermark could be really, REALLY weak.

Good luck, and have fun. If you don't already have a copy of Martin A. Armstong's book: "The Washington Franklins, 1908-1921", I highly recommend you find one today.

Thanks, Ray

Another thing to watch closely for: the 5c error, on the "2 Cents 2" stamps. Someone here uses that error stamp as an avatar.

Shannon, If middle Tennessee happens to be on your way to Chicago, and you want some help, drop by. I collect Washington/Franklins and am fairly knowledgeable with them. Chicago is pretty much due north from where I live.