Hi, I'm New! Collected Years Ago, Now Have Inherited Stamps.

Hi all!

I just wanted to post and introduce myself. I don't really know what I'm doing just yet...trying to organize some things and hoping to figure out what's what eventually. Here's what's going on...

I collected stamps when I was a kid. Really loved them because I lived out in the middle of nowhere and the only "store" I could walk to to spend my allowance was the Post Office Every other place that had stuff that I collected (comic books, baseball cards, coins, etc.) was a 20-30 minute drive and when you're 10yrs old, that isn't always possible to pull off. So stamps were great! Plus, they came to your house daily in the mail! Eventually, I was able to drive and stamps fell to the side as other things took off...

I've been a member at the other forum here for a few months...the coin community one...and everyone seems really nice and helpful there, so when all of this stamp stuff started coming up, I figured I'd try here and see what happens.

My wife's grandmother was a postmaster and collected stamps while she worked and after she retired. When she recently moved into a retirement community, my wife was given her stamp collection and it is fairly daunting in scale! My wife has never collected stamps and I have not dealt with stamps aside from what little I could afford to collect as a kid!

The collection includes US Commemorative sets from last year going back through the 70s...some have multiple years. Several books of first day covers and other large albums. Sheets and sheets of full mint sheets of stamps going back through at least the 80s...maybe further back. Some stuff that was only available to postmasters (I think). Booklets full of stamps. Most of it is US stamp stuff, but there's a small collection of stamps from China...books of Chinese stamps, etc. I think she had friends that traveled to China and brought back or mailed her Chinese stamps.

Here's a photo of our bookshelf...most of it is stamp stuff, but the right hand side of the top and bottom shelf is coin stuff:


We're definitely not looking to sell...we're just trying to figure out what to do with everything to keep it all in good condition, get it organized properly and figure out what it all is. Those envelopes on the bottom shelf are full of more stuff that needs to be organized. The middle shelf is mostly commemorative yearbooks. It's all a bit overwhelming.

Anyway, thanks for looking! I'm sure I'll have questions once we start digging in to everything. I'm looking forward to figuring it all out

Welcome to the forum. When you start digging in to the collection, post any questions you have and someone here will be along to answer it.



Butch

Hey Butch, thanks! I'm sure there will be plenty of questions. I bought a stamp guide and I'm going to try to figure things out a little at a time, but we've already seen things that I don't know where I'd look to find out about them. Thanks again!

Hi, many of us can relate to your picture..looks a bit neater than my room..welcome !!

philb: yeah, I've tried to keep it semi-organized...or at least all up off the floor so nothing gets messed up before I know what is even in there! With my collecting habits, I have a similar bookshelf with sports card boxes, a closet with comic book boxes, shelves full of books and DVDs, etc.

Thanks for the welcome!

Welcome. I can certainly understand how coming into a cache such as you have can be a bit much and the only things I can suggest is that you get a real basic reference book on the hobby and then to review your holdings one, two three times and some inspiration and direction will emerge. Good luck, have fun, and don't hesitate to challenge the members of this group with questions, general and specific, you may have.

cgrotha: Thanks for the advice! I purchased a guidebook shortly after we received the collection. We've been through it a couple of times, but mostly just trying to sort things out...put things in some sort of reasonable order. Now, the next time, we need to go through it all with a purpose of trying to figure out what to do with it all.

I'm sure I'll be begging for help once I get into it Right now, as can be seen in the photo, a good portion of the collection is in albums as part of some set or another, or is a yearly commemorative book. It's the other 1/3 or so that is going to be crazy to dig into!

G'Day BW and to the forum,

Impressive collection BW and like you I also collect stamps and coins as well,if your looking for a catalogue Scott put one out on CD,you can buy these cheep enough off ebay and all you will need is the A to B section for your U.S. stamps.
If you get stuck post on the site and someone will help you out with the answer.
regards Harry

nuggethill: Thanks for the welcome! I think there's a pretty decent sized crossover between stamp and coin collectors here and there from what I've seen. I definitely like them both!

The guide that I currently have, that I purchased shortly after we received this collection, is the Scott 2009 US Pocket Stamp Catalog. It's a spiral bound book with info on US stamps going back to 1847. It has been helpful in figuring out what some of this is exactly!

Welcome and enjoy the site. Looks like alot of material to go through, looks like fun.