New To The Hobby

I have two books of old stamps. One is my grandfathers that has mostly early to mid 20th century stamps mostly from the us. The other is a Hodge podge of stamps with a lot of WW2 era stamps, many interesting triangular stamps of varying color, amounts, years with Nazi marking and Hitler himself in most.

I don't want to sell, but rather want to try and determine if there are any rare or valuable stamps, then if so, how to best protect them, insure them if necessary, etc.

Is there a definitive book or books with pictures, values, etc. that new to the hobby users would find useful, somewhat accurate and easy to use? A website, or place to download scans and send... any deas?

Welcome to this great place. I am sure LA Swabbie will be along and can probably answer every question you have regarding German stamps.

Enjoy yourself.
LeAnn

The stamps of the world are listed with pictures in the Scott Catalogs. There are six volumes in the set and they are available at most public libraries. You can find used sets of catalogs for sale on ebay for much less than new sets. Since you have older stamps, you don't need the most recent set. A five year old set should cost $50 or less (plus postage). There is also a separate volume for United States Stamps, called the "US Specialized" Catalog, which provides more detail for US stamps than the worldwide set.

Before handling your stamps with your fingers, get yourself a good pair of tongs. The long ones are better than the short ones.

The traditional way of mounting stamps in a stamp album is with hinges. These are OK for used stamps, but you do not want to use them on mint stamps. I prefer to use stamp mounts for all my stamps, but this is an extra cost. One of the best and most flexible ways to store your stamps is to buy black Vario stock sheets, which fit into any three ring binder. These sheets cost about 50c each.

If you have trouble identifying any stamp, please post a picture of it here. There is a good team of experienced collectors here ready to help you.

Welcome Barty88

Welcome to the site. I'm certain you'll find all the help you need here, I sure have.

Dianne

Welcome to the Stamp Community, Barty.

Great to have you here.

Steve

Welcome to our little land of escapism.

It sound like you might have some interesting material to look at. t360 mentioned most everything you need to know to get started. You can also get a good feel for the real value of stamps by hanging out in ebay a bit. The Scott's prices are usually much higher than what you can sell or buy for. Search in ebay for "Used German" or "Triangular" or such in the Stamps area. You might see your exact stamps or similar material. Eiher way you'll start to get a feel for what you have.

I agree that you need a pair of tongs, a perf guage, and an inexpenive way to display your stamps until you figure out where you are headed.

Welcome Barty88. It must be nice to have older stamps like that. I'm really new to the hobby so the only stamps I have so far are the ones I recently purchased at my post office.