Hello To All. We Have Lots Of Stamps That We Want To Find For About

Hello. My grandfather collected stamps when he was younger. He passed away in 1999 at which time I inherited several books and bags of loose stamps. I recently discovered them and my 11yo son has been doing his best to organize them. We are looking to see if any are worth selling. He is wanting a gaming computer and an airsoft gun and I told him selling these may help. Thanks in advance.

I'm sorry to break it to you but these are all worthless. From what I see a dealer wouldn't even pay $20 at a show. This in my opinion is free table material

Yes, I have to agree that getting someone to purchase these from you for more that $10 or so would be a challenge. Condition is everything, and most of what I see are in very poor shape. If you are interested in learning a bit more about specific stamps, please post those and we can assist.

Oldbold good work! I can't even really see detail in several of the images and had to give up. Atrain, from what I can see I would have to agree that the collection has minimal value (at least for the Germany and the US). Collections where the original collector didn't really spend money on their collection will generally not have much value even decades later. Unfortunately this appears to be one of those types of collections.

Agreed, all very common stamps from what we can see pictured. Not even worth one of these, sorry to say.

OMG "dot matrix??" Does that mean it also came with a pin printer?

With apologies to the original poster, I did not mean to offend or laugh at your collection. It looks like your Grandfather had a lot of fun filling spaces in his album(s), collecting stamps from all over the world. That is how we all started. I figure there are tens of thousands of different stamps from almost every continent that can be had for under a nickel. It takes a long time of collecting before we started paying even a dollar a stamp to acquire some of the missing spaces. What you have is typical for a collection from that era, all the stamps that I see in your collection were common then, and they are still common now.
I'm glad your son took the time to look through them and start to organize them. Hopefully he was mindful to look closely at some of the stamp designs and maybe recognize some names or places from his studies. Stamp collecting is a fascinating hobby, and as I said, doesn't have to be expensive to have a lot of fun.

A huge amount of worthless stamps. 10 $? keep on dreaming!

One of the more interesting groups of stamps (historically) that I see here is on the third page of Germany during the hyperinflation period from 1921-1923.

Inflation was rising so fast that the postage rates for the old stamps had to be reset and instead of printing new stamps they overprinted the older stamps with new values. For example I think I see there a red stamp that was originally printed as 500 marks and it has a 250 thousand mark overprint (revaluation) on the stamp. To the left of it is a green stamp that was originally from when the postage rate was just 1 thousand marks and it is revalued with a 75 thousand mark overprint.

The London Postal Museum briefly describes the stamps from this period of hyperinflation and says, "The cost of a loaf of bread, which had previously cost a mere 250 marks in January 1923; catapulted to 200,000 million (200,000,000,000) marks by November."

https://www.postalmuseum.org/blog/s...curiosities/

Inflation kept rising so fast that the stamps became worthless very soon after they were printed, and they still have little value today, but they are a fun relic and souvenir from that little part of history.

Very like your collection I inherited two albums from both my grandfather and father. Like yours, the stamps value in the albums are essentially worthless. But to me they are both priceless and I have kept them exactly as I received them. I would definitely look at alternate sources to fund the gaming computer or airsoft gun.

Thank you all that took the time to reply. I will inform my son he will need to continue mowing lawns to pay for his new adventures. I will probably just put them back in closet and pull them out again in twenty years. Thanks again, Adrian

atrain943,

The real value in these stamps is that they came from your grandfather. Personally, I would keep them safe as a family keepsake. Guessing bassed on your atrain handle, are you a railroad fan? You might want to look at railroad related covers (RPO).

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