Just Starting But My Gramps Collection Stamps Starting 1770-S

Hello,
My grandfather passed away when I was 7 years old(I'm almost 30 now) and now my aunt is gone so we got stuck going thru the house 4 years after my aunt because no one else would do it. As my husband and I was going thru the basement we have found a lot of collections one of them being my grandfathers stamps. He has 10 books full of mint and used stamps. Ones starting from the 1770's. Most of these books are in collection books "world collection stamps" and has all the president, then he has shoe boxes full of other stamps. I was wondering where and who I could trust to help me go through these to find out the value if any. I am only looking to sell the dups of these and trying to pick up where he left off for my sons.Stamps from 1770's are good right? He had them stored in the books so they look great. I'm just not sure how good this collection is......I really want to know the value of it.

Well Trisha who to trust is a good question , I wouldn't sell the collections to just anybody and there is always somebody playing the middleman buying cheap and selling for a profit , that's the name of game , I don't know if you have something worth thousands but I can tell you that the fact it came from your Grandfather makes it priceless in my opinion.

Plenty of members here that can guide you and even help you identify stamps , I'm sure there are plenty here that would like to motivate and inspire you to keep them and learn about stamps and stamp collecting.

You can always take pictures or scan your stamps pages and post them here, I'm glad to see you here at the stamp community family forum.

on a side note : I'm new here on this forum but I always thought letters from before the 1850's were stampless .

Going to your local library might also be a good idea Scott catalogs are a great reference and some libraries sometimes let you check out older volumes which would be perfect for you since we know that your stamps are older than 30 years , a little homework will pay off as overwhelming as it may seem.

Good luck and hope to see you posting on the forum.

Thank you for your replies. I will take pictures and post them soon. Yes these are very priceless to me and I've already shed many tears looking over these and memories that I have had sitting at the kitchen table with him but I was to young to understand what we were doing. I want to continue his work with the stamps and coins we have found. That's why I can only sell the ones he has multiple of if I can even let go of those. Ill be posting soon again thank you I have lots to learn from all here!

Welcome Trisha

You'll get a lot of great advice here. Post some pictures when you can.

Dianne

Hello Trisha79....


.....and welcome to the club.

Ask anything...someone here will have an answer for you.

Trisha,
Welcome. Please do not hesitate to ask any questions. Also, you may want to see if there are any stamp clubs, dealers, etc. in your area to meet other collectors, especially since you want to continue his legacy for your sons. BTW I am also a "young" collector in my early 30's, yet I've been collecting for 25 years.

When you get a chance.


And welcome to the forum Trisha.
Hope we can help out with any question you may have.

Trisha, I hope your enjoying the collect left you! I hope you get great enjoyment from these stamps. One thing that came across my mind was when you mentioned selling you duplicates was that in stamp collecting some stamps are not always the same, on the surface they may look the same, but further inspection would show otherwise. Things like perforation, watermarks, paper color, color shading, gum/no gum are only a few things you need to be aware of especially in dealing in early US stamps.
May I suggest to contact the American Philatelic Society www.stamps.org, they may be able to fine someone for you talk to nearer your home and in person if needed.
Good Luck!