Any Reason To Organize Stamps By Face Value?

Hi, I'm semi-new to stamp collecting, so bear with me if I don't use the right terminology. I'm still learning.

I recently bought a few stamp lots at an auction, and when I went to pick them up, they turned out to be far larger than the photos showed. I've been having a great time sorting through them and seeing what I've got. Mostly stamps on paper but also not on paper, tons of covers including first day issue, random stamp ephemera, and even letters.

There are a number of bags and envelopes full of stamps that have been organized by the stamps' face value, like the bag will be labeled "10¢". Is there any reason to keep them organized that way? Some bags/envelopes are worldwide stamps, some are all dupes of one specific stamp (usually US in those cases). I can't figure a reason to keep them separated that way. Is there a reason I don't know about?

If they are all US commemoratives, then all the 10c stamps will have come from the same time frame.

You decide how you will order your stamps.

Stamps are a mirror of society at the moment they were issued. So old 10 c, stamps will be very different from modern ones. The old ones may have paid a special tariff, modern ones may only serve as make-up values.

Another thing you might consider is that many stamps are issued as part of a range of stamps with different values.

Keep in mind that a USD 1 stamp from 1900 was a very expensive stamp. One from 2026 is not.

Still, it is your choice. You might like that.

Perhaps the seller organized the stamps that way to approximate the year that the stamps were issued. In other words, first class postage was 5 cents at one point, and later increased to 5 cents and then 8 cents - and so the seller organized the stamps this way as a proxy for how old the stamps are.
It would be interesting to see a stamp collection organized by face value, but it would be unusual too. Good luck!

This sounds to me like kiloware that has been partly sorted by a previous owner. Sorting by face value is a reasonable way of starting to make sense of a random accumulation, and it's good news for you if somebody has done some of the boring mechanical work already. You can have years of fun sorting, cataloguing and arranging!

FINN ------ Welcome to the chat board .
We all will tell you ,collect how you want . There are no set rules how you need to build your own collection .

Please take your time and enjoy the hobby . I started off watching the older boys in the neighborhood and kept my stamps in a envelope . I learned what they were doing ,you need to do the same . Watch what others are doing and ask questions .

Do whatever you want but I've never seen a collection organized that way, and I can't think of any reason to do that. You could also organize stamps by color, but ditto for that approach. Or size. Or whether the person on the stamp was facing right or left.

Scott organizes stamps by removing all the air mails that were in common use with all the other postage stamps along with all the semi-postals and putting them into a separate section. Go figure.