A Few Newbie Questions

Greetings to all. I am brand new here and this Forum looks like a great resource for sharing knowledge and information about stamp collection. I have a few newbie questions so I figure this might be a good place to start. I recently inherited my father's stamp collection which hasn't been touched in 35 years. Most of the stamps were kept in albums and a few got a bit damaged from humidity and storage over time. I have spent the last few weeks organizing, sorting, and trying to figure out what the value is of what he has. Following are a few simple questions I have and would appreciate any answers that people would be kind enough to take the time to share with me. My questions are as follows:

1- There are a few stamps where the glue on the back of the MNH stamps got damaged from sticking to the paper backing in either the album he had them stored in or from some poorly chosen envelope with black paper backing. I managed to carefully remove the stamps with a pair of tongs on most of them without damaging the stamps themselves, but on some of them the glue got damaged. In cases like this, how would you classify the stamps, would you now refer to them as hinged or something else?

2 - There are some that some of the minted stamps though that are so heavily adhered to the album pages that I guess the only way to remove them would be to soak them off, is this correct?

3 - Once I soak them off, then how do I refer to these type of stamps? If they were MNH before they stuck to the paper, and then were removed by soaking them and all the glue is gone now would you refer to them as simply "Unused"?

4 - In general I was wondering how much added value is added to the Scott catalog value of a stamp if you have a connected pair or a plate block of 4 or 6 in terms of the value of each stamp? Since Scott doesn't often give the value for a pair of 2 or a plate of 4 or 6 in Scott, is there just a general rule of thumb on how much value is added by having them in blocks? In other words, would you say 20% to 30% value is added by being in a plate block or is it more or less than that? I realize every stamp will be completely different in that respect because there are many other factors that can affect value, but I am just looking for a general estimation I can apply since Scott often does not give values for pairs or plate blocks.

5 - The paper on some of the older stamps I have has begun to yellow. Is there a classification to describe the aging of the paper and discoloration of the paper that occurs over time?

Many thanks to all for any answers you might be able to help with on my questions.

Best wishes....

Marc

Hi Marc and welcome.

I'm no expert, but since nobody else has replied, here is a little insight gained from readings and observations here and on the web...

If the back of the stamp is damaged, or the gum is thinned, or you had to soak the gum off to get it off the page, I have seen these sorts of things mentioned in sales descriptions of a stamp, often with accompanying images of the front and back. ("Damaged gum" "Disturbed gum" "Thins" " Thinning gum" "No gum" etc). Not sure re: "mint, no gum" versus "unused, no gum." These seem somewhat indistinguishable...

Here is one glossary, though many more can be found: http://www.askphil.org/b25m.htm

I have seen some auctions for stamps so stuck to the page that the seller just offers the whole page for sale with stamps attached (shipping would be obviously more complicated).

Regarding plate blocks, etc...best bet is to look around and see what comparable items are selling for, if Scott offers no guidance (though honestly, in the limited time that I have been actively buying, it seems like Scott values are based on wild dreams and not really close at all to what things will go for on the open market). The "watch" feature on ebay lets you keep on eye on an auction within putting cash down, while stamps2go has thousands of stamps listed for sale (though what actually sells or sits quietly in somebody's closet is a mystery).

As far as yellowing of the stamp goes, I think that this is factored into the grading of the stamp, along with centering, coloring of the ink, and integrity of perforation. I'm sure that some more expert members here will be able to expand. Again, this is where digital images of stamps are helpful...

Enjoy!

Thank you Gaff. Much appreciated for the input you have provided. It is for sure useful. Incidentally, how grossly over do you think the Scott values are? Again, just as a rough rule of thumb?

Again, much appreciated for your time.

Hi marchkk, welcome!

Good answer above by Gaff.

I will add the blocks and pairs etc depend on plate numbers on the selvage or zip numbers or if they are just blocks with plain margins or no margins.

Generally a block of four is priced in the catalogs as 5 stamps. A block of 6 is roughly priced as 7 stamps.

A pair is just two stamps unless there is selvage or something special about the pair, example, one stamp is regular and the other has an error on it. Then it would depend on the error or special feature. Some people do collect multiples of stamps.

I would not (to be safe) call the stamps that you hand to soak off mint or unused without mentioning the words No Gum. Their value is dimished greatly if these are relatively ordinary stamps.

Used collectors like to see a cancel. Mint collectors like to see original gum undisturbed.

The yellowing and discoloration of the paper is a scary thing. It could be mold or mildew . If it is that (and you have mentioned those words yourself), I would separate these stamps from the remaining non-infected stamps so the stuff doesn't spread. Depending on the stamp the general recommendation on here is to separate and seal up the bad guys so the good guys stay good. There can be treatments for the molds etc but these can destroy the stamp all together also. cCare is needed for health and safety.

Thanks Puzzler, great advice. In regards to the yellowing, what I think happened possibly was that it could have been caused by acid coming out from the paper they were laid against in the albums. I tend to doubt there is any mold or mildew. If I were to have to make an assumption though on how they look visibly then I would say they appear very dry and more as if they were exposed to too much heat more than anything as if they were browned from heat exposure. But some of them were ones that were kept towards the tops of the pages in the albums and might have been exposed more to air than the ones that were lower down and deeper within the pages of the album. Many thanks, Marc

Glad to be of some help around here! The paradigm so far has been me asking questions and getting a tremendous amount of information in return. Somebody told me recently that among "friendly" stamp club auctions, frequently things go at ~20% Scott or lower. I've ~~kind of~~ set that as a guideline for myself when buying stamps (unless there is something about the stamp design, coloring, centering, etc that I find really compelling and then find myself in an irrational bidding war with another collector). Some dealers post the Scott value on the item up for auction, which is helpful. Sometimes the price goes much closer to SCV value (hopefully I have shut down my computer and may my way out to catch a trout when that is happening), while other times, I have bid really low and wound up with very interesting stamps that I might not otherwise have ever discovered...

Hopefully you will try to hang onto your father's collection at least for a while, try to understand what is in there, and make your own assessment of value (from a $$ standpoint) before trying to off-load the collection. You may find that the value you place on the collection is greater than what the market will bring, as there is something cool about stamps and something maybe very cool about inheriting a collection, as you have...

Oops, you didn't mention mold and mildew. I think I assumed it when you mentioned humidity and storage. Sorry.

The stamps are stuck to the paper pretty well. You can try sticking them in the freezer for a few hours and see if anything happens but probably not much will.

@Gaff. Many thanks again. On the Scott values where you are saying 20% of Scott or lower are you referring to recent stuff or the older and rarer collectible stuff as well?

What I mainly have that is the most valuable in the collection is some early Italian, Canadian, and very early Australian stamps. I am in the process of putting together a spread sheet of everything I have which has some good value and am listing the Scott prices for myself as a guideline.

Also, thank you for the kind advice to take my time and decide what I want to do with the stamps that my father gave to me. I am in no rush to sell them off, but am at least interested to develop a good understanding of what they are really worth so that I can decide from there.

@Puzzler - Cheers. Yes, I didn't mention humidity and that applies to the few stamps that are stuck to the pages. The ones that are browning are different. So there are two separate types of stamps and issues thee. Sorry for not clarifying that, but thanks again for your good advice.

I am still concerned it may be 'rust' (looks like brown spots or edging) or toning, a form of mildew. Is it around the edges of the stamps? You could do a search for Rust or Toning on SCF here and see what pops up.

The enemy of stamps is humidity and dust, and dust could have gotten into the album from the top.

I have never seen dry and cracked stamps (from heat) so am not much help in that regard. From age, yes. Hmmm. Can you do a few photos or scans? Canada eh? I would love to see them, or the others. Start a new thread on them. Everyone likes pics of stamps.

Gaff, you give good advice. I will follow your posts from now on.

Thanks Puzzler for the additional advice. I have to step out right now, but I will do a couple of pics later of the browning and post them. I am actually a commercial photographer by trade, so I have setup an area in my studio to take photos of stamps and I plan to do a number of stamp photos in the near future.

I am not sure though if the browning though is on the Canadian ones and/or others. I have seen some on some of the Italian stamps and so I need to go through them more closely to see which ones are problematic. Luckily there aren't that many that have suffered from this, but it would be nice at least to know the cause. Dust certainly sounds like a possibility.

I would assume aging of 50-100 years simply browns paper, but some of these look a bit extreme to be just aging.

I also have a multiple of Canadian plate blocks of the same stamp for example where some of them are pristine white and others look a bit aged. Not browned like the Italian ones that come to mind, but at least more yellow than some of the whiter ones in the group. Again, don't know why when they were kept together in the same album.

About 50% of the more valuable stamps in the collection are Canadian and of the remaining 50% about 1/3 is Italian and 2/3 Australian.

Many thanks. Marc

20% of scott price means just that. doesn't matter about age.. with the caveat that some of the rarer stamps may sell above and beyond the scott price.. depends on the buyer and the auction.
Some of the rarer stamps show a "price at last auction" because there really is no set price for the stamp.
And Scott stamp listed at .20 is usually worth a penny or 2

Italian stamps from around 1955-1980 (just a guess off the top of my head) had a clear gum that was very much prone to toning - I've never found an article to explain why that is. Stamps printed in Italy during that time for other countries show the same toning problems (San Marino, Vatican City, Somalia, etc.).

Here's an example - this 1971 stamp looks fine from the front, but the gum has been discoloured quite badly. Many stamps look like this if they have been in storage for a long time - some part of the stamp has touched one kind of paper while the other part touched another kind. Whatever it is that causes this, Italian stamps of this era are highly prone to it.

Hmm, the original scan wasn't very good at defining what I was trying to point out, so the second picture below has the colours greatly exaggerated to show the gum problems on this stamp.

Ryan

Hello marcbkk,

I am newbie too so thanks for your questions (and everyone else for answers) as I too have inherited a collection which I will be selling over the coming months. We may have similar pricing problems ahead of us.

My approach has been to scan each stamp/block, label the jpg with the Scott # and enter it into Stamp Manage 2010 software to get catalogue values--software also helps me to do stock control, to remember asking prices and buyer info, etc. From there I go to auctions for more 'realistic' pricing. The only modern Canadian stamp I found, and do not have, of extreme rarity is #1181a Runnymede Library, but otherwise there is not alot of money to be lost by under-evaluating anything so new so I am not sweating (yet). Once I get into the older stamps things will no doubt get more complicated, especially the fine art of grading.

What is your approach? Software? PLaces of auction?

Ryan,Marc....

The stamp shown by Ryan has been a Stockbook, most likely one with black pages. The light part of the gum is the original colour and this was over the glassine or plastic strips. The toned areas were sitting on the black card of the stockbook. This is less pronounced on stockbooks with white pages, unless they are of the older variety.

Londonbus1...definitely of the older variety !

I am sorry for dropping out of this thread for a few days and I meant to post some examples of the browning I was asking about.

Londonbus1's answer seems like the most plausible in terms of the problem I have. Much of the browning occurred at edges of stamps that I think were sticking out from some of the pages. Many of the stamps were also kept in albums which had a black card background. Basically my father had 2 big albums, one with black card and the other one was higher quality with white card. I have since removed everything from the albums and put everything into either glassines or dealer cards from Subway, so looking at the browned stamps at this point it is hard to know stamps which came out from which album anymore.

I was just going through some things this morning and I came across this stamp sheet of a 1963 Korean stamp (Scott #411a). The browning is not as pronounced on this stamp as it is on some of the others I have, but it does show the issue I am referring to. My guess is that this one was sticking a bit out of the page above the plastic strip.

What Londonbus1 is saying is that occurred from the black card being behind the stamps, but on this one I think it might of occurred from not being protected by the page and exposed to air, but again I can't be sure how it was being kept at this point since I have removed it for some time already.



Again, I have some other stamps where the browning is more pronounced which I will post later. I even have some stamps where I have multiple plate blocks and some are yellow and others have stayed white of the same stamp blocks.

I also have one San Marino plate block that my father stored in a glassine which is nice and white and yet he also has a single stamp of the same stamp from the plate block that he kept in the album and which has yellowed throughout the stamp both front and back.

So I think it probably has something to do with the album for sure, either the black paper the white paper, acid in the paper in general, or something else. Also, with mine obviously it is not just an Italian paper issue. If I go through my stuff I am sure I will find it occurred on stamps from many different countries and it is probably based more upon how they were stored rather than what country they came from.

I guess at this point though the bigger question though is not if it occurred from dust, mold, or paper backing, but how does this issue affect the value of a stamp once the damage is done? I am sure it can't be good and it has to be a turn off for collectors when they see something like this?

I was also wondering what sort of a notation should I make in the description of a stamp where this has occurred? Is there some way of referring to it in the stamp collecting world?

@Tom H - To answer your question about how I am organizing things for the time being; Well I have pretty much already gone through what my father gave me and I would say that the stamps that have any decent value are mostly stamps from Italy, Australia, San Marino, Canada, and a few other bits and pieces here and there. I basically separated everything which had a Scott value of $10 or more into a separate collection and put all the data for those stamps into an Excel spread sheet for easy reference. Then I have the remainder of the collection, which doesn't have much value at all in another box. That is mostly newer stamps from the sixties and seventies.

On the spread sheet, I also added in comments on all the observations I made on each stamp to help potential buyers in the future to understand the physical condition of all the stamps at a glance and I also plan to go through them all again once more just to make sure I have noted all the comments and that there fully covered.

That software you are using sounds good, but I think I should be able to manage with the Excel spread sheet approach I am taking.

As for selling, auctioning, I haven't gotten that far yet and am not even sure when and what part of it I am really going to start selling off.

It could still be a couple of years. Hard to say. It really depends on how things develop with it all. I still want to learn more about what I have and what it is really worth before I take any additional steps.

I think for online auctions people use of course ebay, then there is bidstart.com, declampe.net, and a few others I think.

Maybe best to defer that question to the experts on here who know far more about buying and selling than I do at this point.

Best wishes with your collection...

You are correct about the Korean S/S, the browning is due to exposure, usually heat or light related. It is not reversible without leaving tell-tale signs. Too bad, because the Nubia topicals have a decent premium, although most people don't realize that.



Unfortunately, you are correct again. Sellers will (or should) peg it from Major Fault to 2nds to even Space Filler status, depending on how much toning and what it covers.