New To The Forum And Looking For Help

Hello forum members,

I'm John and reside in the North East U.S. I've been the care taker of a large collection of U.S. and foreign stamps which range from the late 20's to mid 50's. My main concern is the conservation and safe keeping of them.

The condition of them ranges from cut off envelopes and stored in paper bags to hinged in books and sheets keep between sheets of wax paper and many stored in envelopes, blocks, individual and cut offs.

I'd like to pick up a good stamp reference book and it seems Scotts is preferred by many. Is that correct? I'm not sure of stamp terminology so
forgive me if I'm off in my description.

The quality of the pics isn't the best but it should give an idea of the stamps current state.

A few more pictures...

Yes, go to the library and get a copy of the Scott US Specilized Catalog. It does not have to be a current year. Try to get one from 2021 or before as that has the stamp identifier in the front.

Or buy one on line as cheaply as possible, say 2016 or earlier. heck I have a 2004 I give you for free at the cost of postage. But that would need to be approved by a moderator.

Then check the threads on SCF about stock sheets, stock books and holders for envelopes. For a good overview (not to purchase there) search for Lighthouse Publication in the USA (New Jersey I think). The have a great assortment shown on their website. Most can be had for less elsewhere especially if you don't mind pre owned.

You do have a solid collection of stuff and I think you may have fun "working it up" as the saying goes while to arrange the material in safe containers.

Yes were are all just custodians of the material we own until it is passed on to the next custodian.

Welcome!

Dale

Normandy,

Enjoy having fun with stamps! That is the name of this game. Wonderful you are carrying on your father's collection. You are the next steward of a family treasure you can pass on to future generations. Its value as a family heirloom wil always surpass it monetary value.

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

My personal bias is a used stamp loses the story of its journey in the postal service when it is removed from the cover it transported to its destination. Collecting postal history adds a whole new aspect to your journey in our hobby.

Wishing you many enjoyable future days in our hobby. Russ

As Russ said, many times the interest or value of a stamp is enhanced immeasurably by the paper it is attached to. This is certainly true of the revenue stamps shown in pics 5 & 6 of your second post. There are people on this forum (I am not one of them) who could help you see if any are of special interest. It would also be of interest to see the first page of some of the countries in the Scott International Junior edition, perhaps US, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, etc

Thank you all for the welcome and advice. Parcelpostguy I'll start at the library and in time buy a Scott US Specilized Catalog, kind of you to offer.

I think I need to organize the collection a little better then its state its in now to understand what it actually there.

Thanks again!

John

John,
Welcome.
Before investing on hardcopy resources, please note that there is a significant amount of knowledge freely available online (like this community). You might also spend some time on Stamp Smarter which has several thousand pages of stamp collecting info for interested people at any level of collecting. It has 'How To' articles, a fully illustrated Philatelic Glossary, and many, many pages of IDing US and Canadian stamps and postmarks.
https://stampsmarter.org/features/H...eatures.html
https://stampsmarter.org/learning/H...earning.html

This approach will allow you to come up to speed on much of what you need to know about collecting stamps. Once you are up to speed, you will then be better able to decide what hard copy resources you might want to invest in.
Don

Welcome to the forum and the hobby. You have the start of a nice classic USA collection there - how exciting! Once you start reading on sites like the one recommended above (stamp smarter) I'm sure you'll be hooked. And kudos for being concerned about preserving the material carefully. Enjoy!

Thank you Don for those links I will check them out!

philatelia7 thank you as well, this collection was started
by my Grandfather so preserving it and figuring out what's in it
are my goals. Then at some point I'll decide what to do with it.

Very helpful advice.