I have been visiting the forum for a few months now, but recently decided it was time to join. I have really enjoyed reading the conversations and learning from the expertise of the members here.
I
inherited an accumulation of stamps that I have been organizing for a month or so. The stamps were in a box that hadn't been opened in the past 30 years, and otherwise hadn't been added to since 1967. Most of the stamps are from Europe, many from DDR where my family is from. 99+% of the DDR and Bundes Deutsch Post stamps I have have been postally used rather than CTO, as far as I can tell.
I have hundreds of early DDR stamps and I have a ton of questions, but I think the most pressing ones are: is there a way to reliably tell whether a stamp is a Scott's 10N38 OS2 from 1948 or a 129 OS2 without being able to see a watermark? Many, many of these "portrait stamps" are still on partial and full covers. I am pretty sure that the stamps cancelled 1951 or earlier are from the 1948 issue. However, I have dozens of 15pf, 25pf, 50pf, and 84pf that are cancelled in the fall of 1952 and later, which means they could be either. I do have very many 122-136 as well as 113-117 that I have been able to verify via their watermarks, so I feel like it reasonable that I have more. I am just worried about trying to take them off of their covers to identify the watermarks.
I have many early stamps from Russia including some A1 - A15, China, Great Britain, France, Deutsches Reich and China. What is the least expensive way to have them verified? At what value does it make sense to get them expertized?
I am looking forward to learning more about my grandfather's hobby!
Posted 12/09/2015 4:36 pm
To Our Community.
