Advice Needed For Inherited Collection

Hello folks,
I have inherited a stamp collection and I am trying to figure out what to do with it. I am not a stamp collector. I have read on this and other sites that making an index of the collection is a good idea.

The bulk of the stamps are world stamps, but some are from the US. As a starting point I have indexed all of the US stamps by Scott number. Lucky for me ebay makes this pretty easy. My index comes to 538 different kinds of items. Mostly this is single stamps, but there are some blocks of various sorts. Of these 230 are MNH and an additional 62 are MH. Also there are lots of duplicates - maybe 200 or more including 100 of the 1 1/2 Martha Washington (#805) used.

Almost all them (except for about 26) are from 1940 onward which is why I am posting here. I looked almost all them up in the Scott's Catalog today (they kicked me out to close the library when I was in the home stretch). I came up with a value of $68.80 ($161.95 if I include all the 20 cent entries). I still have 20 or so to verify, and I had some blocks with plate numbers that I did not take into account so that should go up a little.

The stamps that price out for more than $1 are:
Coolidge 5$ #834 canceled: $3.00

all the rest are MNH
Chinese resistance #906: $1.25
The Hermitage #1059: $1.50
Colonial Craftsman 4 stamp block #1456-59: $1.65
Postal employees, 10 stamp block #1489-98: $1.75
Universal Postal Union 8 stamp block #1530-1537: $1.75
Chemistry block of 12 #1685: $3.25
Valley Forge full sheet #1689: $6.25
Christmas winter pastime, sheet of 10 #1702: $2.75
Butterflies, block of 4 #1712-15: $1.00
Skilled Hands block of 4 #1717-20 : $1.00
Christmas mailbox block of 10 #1730: $2.75 (but this block is not in great shape like the rest)
CAPEX full sheet #1757: $13.50
Indian Art full sheet #1834-37: $5.00

A large portion of the collection is from 1940-50s. I have all but 3 stamps in MNH in the from #894-998 not including the minor variants. The mid 50's to 60' is hit and miss, and then I have most stamps in the early to mid 1970's, many in MNH.

What should I do now? I don't intend to take up stamp collecting. Should I take all of this to a dealer? I could easily have missed some variant that is valuable and I certainly can't claim to be able to recognize all the color variants. Assuming that there is no great treasure here - what am I likely to get from a dealer? Is there more I should be doing before going to a dealer?

If I won't get very much anyway I would rather sell it to an active collector for whom these early moderns would be a great find rather than just more overstock, but how would I go about this?

Any advice as to what I should do next would really be appreciated!

It sounds like a good starter collection to build on yourself or turn over to children in the your family, that may show interest.

Take Care!
Mike

John Paul:

The reality of stamp collecting is that most folks do it for fun, learning, relaxation, etc. Very few collections are investment quality. I'll echo what Mike said -- you should consider becoming a collector or passing the collection to a family member. It would be a nice remembrance and tribute to your benefactor.

If you are committed to disposing of the collection, remember that catalog values are based on dealer prices and are for stamps of a certain grade -- meaning that any dealer is going to be paying you substantially less than catalog value. If noone in your family wants the collection, consider donating the collection to a recognized charity. Keep your notes and value calculations - you can take a tax deduction for your gift. And for a gift this size, I think that you can simply state the value without too much documentation (I'm not a tax person, so ask your accountant).

I don't mean to discourage you, but I am trying to give you an realistic view of what you can expect.

Good Luck,
KirkS

John Paul,

I think Kirk has summed it up quite completely. Good luck, whatever you decide.

Wow! You've done a lot of work to catalogue what you have --are you sure you don't want to take up collecting?

Seriously, though, good luck with whatever you decide to do. If you choose to sell to a dealer, you may want to get quotes from more than one before you sell.

I suppose ebay is also an option; lots of people selling collections there. You might want to look around and get a feel for what things are going for. (Of course, there's often no rhyme or reason for what things go for on ebay.)

P.S. Do you live in the DC area? Do I know you from GWAPA, and the Arizona Inverts forum? Or are you another John Paul who has no idea what I'm talking about? (I suppose that's most likely)

Thanks for the advice everyone. (Chicken - I am from the DC area, but I'm not the John Paul you are thinking of.) I am going to try to get in touch with a local stamp club and find someone there who would like the stamps for their collection.



Edited: deleted reference to buy/sell/trading stamps. Sorry for rule violation.