Recipients Of Complete Albums In Toronto, Canada, And Loving Them!

Dear all,

I was surprised at how much enjoyment I am deriving from my Father in Law's albums! He only collected UN Stamps because his nature lead him to strive to have only complete sets, and he felt they gave him the best chance to keep looking until finding the last evasive stamp while on a budget.

We have all his albums starting at 1951, and all the way to the 21 century...I calculated that if he had invested this money any other way (putting it in the bank simply! We would have 25000$...as is.. he may have given us perhaps $1500?... But I am loving the animals, the landscapes, the cultural references from all places in the world. I find them beautiful! And all these sets are such an interesting slice of History!

I do not particularly care for the flags or the envelopes, though.

However, our economic situation not being the best (due to a sickness of my husband), we will try to sell the earliest ones, and would appreciate so much if you guys can help. They are complete albums in their collector pages, etc. NOTE: I AM NOT LOOKING TO SELL THEM HERE! (And I have hundreds of photos, I just posted a few here so you get some idea...For instance, ebay asks a lot of questions, that I do not know how to answer)

Thank you in advance for your kindness...I read a little of this forum, and what I truly appreciated was that you do not talk so much about values and money, but you talk about beauty and enjoyment!

With gratitude,
Maria and Tarver

The stamps appear to be on Minkus pages. Too bad he hinged all the mint stamps. That takes a lot of the value away. I am surprise that he does not have a Minkus US album somewhere also. Minkus included those UN pages with their US Comprehensive album. In fact, that looks like the original red binder in the upper right of the picture.

Welcome from Toronto, CANADA, being from the Maritimes !
I do not think, with SC rules, that you can sell your United Nation stamps at this point.....please read the rules of membership

Enjoy what you have - !

A moderator will probably intervene soon !

Renden

For UN, it's actually the more modern material that's worth more. UN was very popular at the start and generally speaking there's far more of it on the market than can be absorbed (other than a couple specific items, like the first souvenir sheet). If the early material is hinged it will unfortunately be difficult to sell at any price.

What bad news for you, mariap, if this is true

Thank you all for your kind welcome, supportive comments, and commiseration.

I was telling my husband today that it is so sad that his dad spent so much time and money with this collection and it has practically no value.. He also had all the flags, more modern sets for Vienna, New York, and Geneva, and the sets are all complete...(I am posting a few pics so you get an idea)

How didn´t he know that he did not have to hinge the stamps? He apparently also did not choose the best collecting pages, he should have used Scott, not Minkus... It makes me happy to be working with them, but I am planning on keeping just a few with beautiful imagery.

Thanks again!
Maria

Back in the day Minkus albums were very popular. I started off with Minkus albums and then as I gained a little insight and a few dollars more I purchased Scott albums. Hinging was the way to go. My father a big collector hinged his stamps. At the time I started mounts were becoming more available. After seeing my fathers' hinged stamps and being a rich kid I mounted my mint Greece and Switzerland stamps. Of course years later we learned that the plastic mounts were also damaging the stamps.

The point here is what is the value of the pure enjoyment derived? I would say a lot. This is a hobby not an investment. I have my investments and I also have my money losing stamp collections. I would do it all over again.

You are right, Randy....but this member wants to depart from the UN collection ! (wants to sell it), so how to for her advantage ?

I just thought an explanation of why the collector did what he did was in order. She was asking questions that I tried to put in perspective.

I did not address specifically how to dispose of the collection as U.N. material is at an all time low and hinged is even more difficult. I agree with the comment "it will be difficult to sell at any price"

Hi all,
I'm new to this blog (?) , and blogs in general, so please forgive any breaches of protocol until I get up to speed. Redwoodrandy suggested this "forum"(?) and I thank him/her for it. I'm in a similar situation to Mariap, having inherited a massive UN collection. I too enjoy the beauty of it - having been an avid collector myself in my youth - but need to liquidate some of it for estate distribution purposes. I suppose I'll have to spend the time, over time, to really catalog what I have, since there are boxes and boxes. No hinging problems. Dozens, hundreds of sheets of virtually everything from day one until he died in 2001. First day covers. UNICEF albums. More. (We didn't retrieve the collection until my mother passed away recently). We could possibly have as many as three or four sheets of some of the relatively valuable (less value-less.) singles from what I'm reading here. All suggestions welcomed.