Retired Veteran Needs Some Help Selling Stamp Collection.

My friend, Dan, is a retired Veteran and will turn 92 this coming year. His Grandmother collected stamps so he did also.

From his info the stamps are from Mid 1800's to early 1900's.

Thanks in advance,I know very little about stamps.

What state does he live in?

North Central Indiana.

Take them to a stamp dealer and get them valued. Post some group pics of the stamps on here for collectors to see.

Contact the American Philatelic Society and ask them to recommend an APS local dealer. Get more than one opinion or valuation for the collection. If its determined to be a valuable collection, ask the forum to recommend a good auction company to have the collection offered at a public auction. They do the leg work start to finish and take a percentage of the proceeds. If not very valuable, consider donating it to the APS. The owner can get a tax deductible write off.

Sounds like you might be near South Bend. Try these folks for tips on what to do locally:
Northern Indiana Stamp Club
121 West Colfax Avenue South Bend, IN 46601
(574) 287-5533

If you have access to a scanner and would like to post a few pages here for our comments, by all means do so. This forum is for early US prior to 1940, but we can give some suggestions on general foreign as well. However, if the collection is entirely foreign then you might try using the main forum for better coverage.

Since you are not familiar with stamps, I recommend that you not alter the present state of anything in the collection until a bona fide philatelist has a chance to advise you.

Thanks for all the great advice.

Stamps are not with me, so no pics possible.
I have contacted several Dealers.
WOW! many varied reactions.

Village Stamp and coin
Zionsville IN
46077

Is willing to work with me on this endeavor.
and I thought buying selling coins were tuff.

Since there is no way to tell what is in the collection I would reccomend getting at least 3 opinions.

YES I whole heartedly agree with Stallzer! There could be some stuff easily overlooked (varieties and such) especially in the Washington Franklin era stamps. Also if he has Civil war era stuff or earlier (and especially some "Blue Franklins") Have someone who "knows their stuff" have a sit down. I wouldn't just settle for the first offer if I were he or you.

This link might also be helpful:

http://indianastampclub.org/index.html

Note that if you click on their "Dealers '14" link there is a list of those dealers who participates in INDYPEX, including Village Stamp and Coin in Zionsville.

I am a member of the Northern Indiana Stamp Club (actually, Northern Indiana Philatelic Society, NIPS) mentioned by essayk in a previous message. The contact person at the address/phone given is the President of NIPS, Ken P. Ken is a reliable person to contact for an honest evaluation of the collection. He often purchases holdings on behalf of NIPS for our club auctions. If you decide to contact Ken, call first--he is only at there at certain times and days.