I Inherited Grandfather's World Stamp Collection, Help?

Rocky, it may be too late now..but if you knew you might have dropped everything and ran...now it sounds like you are being sucked into our orbit !!

Seriously Rocky, theres no end to it...i have been a stamp collector since 1949, most of the reading I do is about stamps, most of the people I socialize with are stamp collectors and I am AT BEST only an intermediate collector !!

Yeah, I almost already need more glassines!

I am starting to think I may stick with it, lol. I do hope I can get the hang out of figuring out the ones that are more valuable, or at least more "special", so that I could set those aside and keep them safer or something. It's been a long weekend but I'll be posting more this week, and HOPEFULLY get around to scanning the album!

Since 1949 Philb?! WOW! I haven't even been alive that long let alone collecting anything...lol Guess I'm a youngster yet eh?

ILS, I always dabbled in stamps..then in 1986 I started to get more serious...its a great stress reliever to me and I am rarely bored..always something to sort !!

Oddly enough I have found it to be a great stress reliever as well.

Rocky, theres no doubt about it...you can spend what amounts to a pack of cigarettes or a drink over the bar a week on stamps and have a lot of fun !!

I'm with Philb as I hit the stamps at least a few minutes everyday and sometimes the entire day. I have been collecting less than a year and a youngster at this game being a baby of the early seventies

And the learning and discoveries never stop.

I had a dream the other night of sorting through a ton of stamps trying to find perfect SONs!

I also sorta got crazy and bought 1,478 19th & early 20th century stamps from around the world for $60. I figured what the heck for around $0.04 a stamp. I have no clue why I did that, but figured what the heck. I'm sure I'll get lambasted for spending that much, on that many, as a total beginner not knowing at all what I'm doing, lol.

Welcome to the club Rocky....i still overpay when emotion takes over..but it evens out..i like worldwide covers and at times a U.S. dealer will have a pick box of foreign covers and postcards cards on his table for 50 cents or a dollar...he has no knowledge of what they are worth.....i could easily say I have found 40 dollar items for a buck..the dealer gets his dollar and I make my day !!

I'll post some images up of what I bought soon.

I still need to scan the album too.

I certainly don't think you spent too much. My rule of thumb when I was bidding on worldwide albums of this era on ebay was to try to buy them at between 3c and 8c a stamp. While you didn't get an album, after you've bought several of these collections, the albums just sort of get in the way once you've removed the stamps you need. In any event, I think you'll learn more with loose stamps where you have to go through the identification process. Sounds like $60 well spent.

Thanks, I hope it wasn't too bad. I'll post them up soon and let you guys decide for sure, lol.

I mainly bought it because it had a few that were older than most of what I have now, and I saw a few SONs that I liked.

If the below should be posted in its own thread somewhere, please let me know.

Alright, I can't believe I just did this. I was going to scan each page, but the way the binding of the album is, I couldn't figure out a way to do it without light coming in on the scan. All of the test scans I tried were either totally awful quality, or one side was fine and the other was horrible. So...what I did is take a picture of each and every page in the album with my digital camera. I'm going to post them all here for you guys to look at if you wish. If you come across any pages, or specific stamps, you would like a closer image of just let me know and I'll try to take a picture of it up close, or try to scan just that one stamp.

I am not asking for your opinion on value for all of this, I wouldn't do that. But I would like for you to give me your opinion of the album, and if I should focus on researching any specific stamps that are included. I would just like to hear whatever thoughts and opinions you have to offer on it.

The only thing I have done different to the album that wasn't done originally is that I have removed the loose stamps and put them to the side. I imagine most of the empty spaces where something was once attached, are in my pile of loose stamps. The last two images are things that were in the album between pages.

I'll post what I recently bought soon as well. I will wait a while after this though since I know this is a lot to look over. Thanks for all of your help so far, and thanks in advance for anything you comment with after this.

(Please see next page for photos with reduced file sizes.)

Rocky,

It looks like a lot of fun! Many of the pages look messed up so your first step might be to secure those stamps that may be in danger of being damaged.

Please note: Fewer photos per post make things easier for people who don't have fast internet.

I love your enthusiasm!!

Karen