I Inherited Grandfather's World Stamp Collection, Help?

Thanks, not so clear as I hoped it might be.

That is a transportation cancel I think. Like our Railway Post Office (RPO) ones kind of. Should say 'a town' A 'different town', means somewhere to somewhere. date in the center.

Or at different times a maritime ship cancel or received from a ship, or a Pneumatic tubes cancel (in Paris).

I'll be on the lookout Puzzler!

Rocky,

I am in a similar situation, only instead of one collection, it's about 50. let me give you a heads up about supplies. you are going to need a sharpie, freezer bags, glassine envelopes, storage of some sort and a few sticky pads for lables. You'll also need a scott catalogue and a measuring device for the stamps.

First off, I suggest looking up world's most valuable stamps, so you know what to definitely be on the look out for.

Loose stamps will be the death of you, I'd suggest grabbing some freezer bags and separating countries first. This will give you the opportunity to see each stamp at least once. Write country names on the bags.

From here, grab U.S. and familarize yourself with early stamps and buy a stamp measuring device. I'd suggest also getting a color guide. Glassines are good, but only if you have a decent place to store them. I bought a few of the mini storage containers with three drawrs and indicated increments of 200 on the fronts (For scott numbers.) Duck stamps are of some worth here. Back of the book (revenues, hunting and taxation are of decent monetary value) Good luck on the fishing stamps, I haven't found them in a scott catalogue yet. Typically in auction, these go pretty well.

From here it's as simple as reading the scott worth of the stamps. If you are selling on ebay, be aware the stamps may not get what they are worth. If you have a lot of mint never hinged duplicates, you can lot them in face value and sell them for postage. Increments of 100 go for around $70 in a seven day auction.

Next, I did Canada. Same fashion. Be on the look out for the beavers and the blue nose.

We tackled Central and South America soon after, a fruitless little journey. These went into lots by date, pre 1800, 1900 to 1940 and back of the book and revenue stamps. For 70 individuals, these auctions, via ebay, went for around $7, but it cleared out a lot of space.

I am currently working on Germany. When you get here, I'd suggest pulling the 16 German state stamps together first. Stock pages have been wonderful for this. Organize by Scott numbers again. For Berlin, be on the lookout for a souvenir page (one page roughly the size of a flash card) with three different color stamps featuring a hand holding a platter with a bear. These stamps are going for about $250 together, mint never hinged.

Pull aside anything from Germany with a swastika or Hitler. Set them in a different bag. Or, if you have invested in black stock pages you should put them here.

If you are using ebay, take as many pictures as needed to represent the condition of the stamp. Do NOT mask the condition and use natural lighting if possible.

If there is gum disturbance, note it. I personally don't bother writing about the centering, it can be seen in the pictures, and every one is a critic...so it's best to let the buyers judge.

Good luck! Hope this helped!

Oh! Leave the book in tact for the time being. It's a pain to try and separate pages at the same time as loose stamps.

Third Reich is a category all on it's own, similar to each of the German states.

Hi incorruptibleid!

First of all, welcome to SCF!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with selling your collection. Others may find it useful.

But it's important to read the whole thread before responding. For now Rocky is not selling his grandfather's collection. He is enjoying his collection and is actually buying more stamps.

Karen

D'oh! Sorry guys -_-

Well, the same goes for separating as well... I insisted on putting everything together before I would offer it to anyone else. I stand by what I said, separate the countries out and tackle 'em one by one. It'll save you time on research.

And! Since you are buying, the ebay information is useful when looking for certain stamps as well.

Don't be sorry, it was a ton of great information. I'm very much open to finding some hidden gems and possibly selling them, but I am not interested in selling the entire collection. As mentioned before, I recently bought a lot of 1,000+ stamps to go through. I love the idea of buying lots like that for not too much, especially unsorted, and then going through it looking for nice items and learning all kinds of different things along the way.

I am starting to get more of a hang on looking things up in the Scott guides. I have no clue about the perf measurements and all of that yet though, same thing about watermarks and errors. What I do know is that I have poured an ungodly amount of hours into this so far since I started this thread.

Should I work on removing the ones "on paper" where the paper is mainly just the background, and doesn't include the full cancel?

Sure. There are lots of good ideas on SCF (Stamp Community) , just use the Search button on top.

Or my method:

Once you are soaking a lot it is nice to use the Desert Magic drying book. keeps the stamps nice and safe and organized and drys them very well.

Soak in water, rinse, rinse again, lay out to dry a bit, transfer to drying book or in between plain white paper and place in a telephone book or under some heavy books for a day or less (depending on climate humidity) and voila, nice flat dry stamps.

Thanks, I'll work on that soon as well.

In the last image from my batch I posted before, the one stamp near the top that looks different - what is that one exactly? This one here...

MG]

I do not know. I noticed it also before.

It is grouped with stamps from French Persia (?) or occupation of Persia or something. Not sure. Worthy of a separate post those all are I would think.

edit: or maybe just Persia stamps and they decided to use French as one of the languages of the Universal Postal Union? My history in this area is sadly lacking sometimes. Egypt stamps use French also.

Many thanks again, I'll start a thread just for this on the other part of the board.

You know, for years I thought all of this was stupid, I'll be perfectly honest. I've had these stamps in my possession for almost 10 years now and I have never decided to look into them. I should have done this a long time ago.

Right time, right place, right people, etc, etc.

God knows that I know that's the truth!

I'll keep my eye out at local auctions now, which I frequently attend anyway.

Saw this on ebay and remembered you wanted to see an example.
Rust / mold / toning on a Canada King George V Admiral stamp and lathework.



The brownish darkened areas around the edges and the perfs between. This will grow under the right conditions and spread like mold / fungus does by releasing spores that will float around in the smallest of air currents and land everywhere.

Dark, moist or damp areas are a no no for stamps.
Dust is bad too. Use dust covers. Air your stamps out once in a while too.

Cleaning this in chemicals (say hydrogen peroxide in the brown bottle from the pharmacy) will seem to clean it a bit but it will always come back. Best to separate and destroy.

It gets into the loose fibres at the torn eprfs' edges.

Thanks for that example! I'll be on the lookout and pull them.

I am getting much better at using the Scott guides. I have gone through multiple envelopes of loose stamps so far. The ones with minimal to no monetary value I have set aside. The ones I find with a book value of $1 or more I've set aside separate as well, then the ones I can't find in the book or the ones I find with multiple listings and I can't tell the difference I put aside to post here later to ask about. Having fun with it!