Advice On Getting A Fair Appraisal For My Stamps.

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Better here than in the Main forum***
Hello all, I have several stamps in my collection and I am aware that most of them have very little worth. However, after some rudimentary online research, it would appear that some of my stamps MIGHT be of more significant value.
I would appreciate some advice on securing a fair valuation (preferably UK based) for them, thanks.
For example:

If the stamps in your picture are an example you can rest easy that you don't need them appraised. Not trying to be harsh but don't know how else to say it.

Hello and welcome!

The top left stamp is from the German Occupation of Belgium, issued in 1916 and very common.

The next is a very common West Berlin tax stamp of 1948. The third I'll pass on. All the others look like very common stamps of the German Empire (1920s) and German Democratic Republic (1950s).

Am I missing something? What in your researches has led you to think any of them might be valuable?

No value .

Time for the Stamp Community to wake up and understand ,just like" The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch " we now have a "Philatelic Garbage Patch " floating around the hobby of stamp collecting . This pile of stamps floats around between dealers and collectors . Collectors buying box lots and now even pallets of stamps ,yes 1,000 or 1500 pounds of stamps delivered to your house with the cost of shipping exceedes the price paid for .
I have had my share of it, like the same DDR stamp in full sheets times 10,000 copies and packages of Sand Dune stamps still wrapped from the printers who put them in packages of 100 sheets and all stamps neatly canceled right from the printing firm .Even have FDC covers that I can't sell for 5 cents each unless I pay the shipping cost .

The pile of philatelic junk is growing every day .

I would like to slap those collectors who come on here and say donate this material to charities or to young kids , which only ends up back at the stamp auction firms to be sold to another collector . I swear this stuff just like the plastic in the Pacfic Ocean just keeps rotaining around in a circle .

Floortrader - quite right - there's nothing immoral about putting stamps in the recycling bag.

I agree and will tell you that I have loaded more than one dumpster with the leftovers from large auction purchases. The ones that hurt the most were, as Floortrader says, the really heavy ones where the albums and other storage vehicles weighed hundreds of pounds which I paid shipping for. The 15-pound behemoth albums and photo albums that filled cartons and contained either a) absolute junk or b) three lonely stamps. Looking at you Rasdale.

Now before you get your knickers in a knot over throwing junk out know this. I have donated copious amounts of stamps to the Holyoke Soldiers Home and THEY finally said, "No Mas!".

PS: There is much fun to be had by shooting a stamp at 50 yards with a .223.

There seems to be a consensus, not only that Appley's stamps are rubbish, but that he ought to destroy them lest they pollute other people's stamp collections in the future. Is that really fair? The stamps have no monetary value, but they illustrate various events in the rise and fall of the German Empire. I think he should keep them but arrange them on the page better.

I love the garbage patch comparison.
I envision philatelic historians 100 years in the future pointing to this thread as the cause of the great stamp purge of 2030.
The purge causing exponential value growth in stamps of the mid 20th century! With catalogues having to add categories for "original limited printings" raritiy and "purge related" rarity.
My great great grand children will be looking to make big money from the garbage patch of stamp filled plastic bins circling under my bed.
Lol

Stamps that have no philatelic value might have value on the craft market. Not a ton of money, but people do like to use stamps in their collages.

Ever see the show Hoarders? They all think the things they accumulated would be valuable at some point.

PJR and ALUB, I'm with you. While I'm as tired of the next stamp collector of hearing the question "Are my stamps worth a lot?" or one of the many variants, to say that the stamps should be discarded is a waste. The stamps may have no material financial value, but they do serve as great start material for new collectors, artists, etc. I'm always on the lookout for stamp donations to use for merit badge workshops. Scouts love this stuff.

Brings back memories. At 17 when I bought my first collection there were two with very different characteristics. After some research I discovered they were considered damaged & people were putting them in the trash. But they were different so I kept them. 66 years later I dug them out of an old box of stamps worth nothing & looked at them again. Today at least one of those that everyone was pitching into the trash now has a Scott value of $65,000. It is special because of the Schermack perforation. Do mine qualify. I don't know but for whoever inherits them I hope so. They appear to be the correct type. They aren't perfect. Poorly trimmed so one side has full perf but the other none but the stamp is in good condition.

My opinion the stamp community needs to find a way to get these stamps worth nothing into the hands of the youth of today. I consistently hear the woes about the lack of new collectors as well as loosing valuable experts. Advertise in young people's venues. Get those throw aways into their hands with a cheap album at giveaway prices. Build the stamp collecting community don't give up on it. From that will emerge collectors who seek the quality and from them will emerge experts. I'm still just a collector and don't care to be an expert. But I love to collect stamps. I don't keep damaged stamps but I also don't throw away a good one. I know that most that I have are worth nearly nothing but I don't care. Last check of my computer inventory I have 558,000 +, maybe couple hundred thousand not cataloged Cinderella's, postcards up the ying yang and another hundred thousand or so wallpaper only. But you don't have to worry that they will end up in some auction. You see I collect postage stamps.

Beginners deserve better than our trash.

It may be trash to you, but to someone new to stamps and/or on a short financial leash, they can be a happy new addition

Something about the question regarding appraisal tells me we are not really talking about a collector.