Attacking The 3 Pound Monster.

I finally went and bought a 3 pound off paper US lot. Normally, I would never get one of these. I usually will purchase accumulations or collections. Some of the sprinklings of this lot looked decent for trading. Will post pictures as I break down the lot to show just what fun awaits in three pounds of stamps.

I can tell you what - several years of frustration trying to use or give all of them away. I speak from experience. There are a couple of members who support the Boy Scouts, AmVets, or such organizations. As you cull out what you don't want, they would be a good place to put them.

Well finally got the package. I have decided to post kind of a blogg of breaking down the 3 pound monster. Was thinking about a new project and this should do fine.

Here is thee little monster at his new home.



Just like Christmas opening presents.



WOW!!



Only about half way thru cherry picking as I go. The mix is just great so far.



Finally. So this is what 3 pounds of stamps look like. Yes I did weigh to check. I am really surprised as to the mix. Very much happy with it.



So far have not even started to go thru lot and have found all kinds of gems while I was laying it out. Will post some more pics in awhile. Oh Happy Days!

Looks like fun. I must order one of those!

David

Here are some posts of just what I snatched as I laid it out.



My heart jumped a little on this one but the $5 America was slightly used. Still a great find.



The mix was pretty much constant all the way through with even unused or mnh stamps popping up also some mnh plate blocks.



Even had lots of back of book stamps.



Just keeps getting better. Wish he had more of these lots. He was doing a clearance.



Even came across many line pairs,coils,stock transfers.



Haven't even scratched the surface and found some nice airmails.



I think this is going to take a while. Will post some more as it breaks down.

Hello 1775mac....

I love mystery boxes......I've found some very interesting items in them. Often there are some that we oldtimers call "gems" or "little gems". Most are of low to moderate value (though I've also found a few nicer items) but a gem can be an odd variety of perfing, watermark, color, paper type or a number of other things. It could be just a nicely centered item with a nice or very light cancel. Or an interesting fancy cancel. Can't wait to see what you've found.

I love mystery boxes.......as you mentioned....it can feel like Christmas morning.

Don't you love those mixed treats, my Washington's and Franklin's are going to pale with what you have here. I have bought about 3 1/2 pounds of mixed US this past month and I loved it. I did find enough of the gems to more than cover the cost plus of the mix that I bought. However it was the little things that I liked the most. Since mine was on paper there were more interesting cancellations complete with cites and dates. I quickly was able to increase my collection of banknotes with fancy cancellations. I was able to pick out great examples of used stamps with very nice fancy cancellations on a wide range of stamps from banknotes to the Colombians and so on.

Some of those turned out to be valued over the $10 mark even if I bought them from places like Stampworks. However it was even the simple things such as having a stock book page filled with just one stamp with different cancellations marks on each of them. Yeah the stamp may be worth a few cents but when you have 50 of them on a page they look priceless to me.

Some of the pluses where the large volume of the back of the book stamps. This is an area that I probably wouldn't of went out of my way to collect. I even found a real need fold error / freak on one of my banknotes that looks real cool. I will have to post that later.

In any event I know I had fun with mine and I hope to start to see your nice finds soon. I call it the poor mans pot of gold. Now we are going to have to compare notes to trade some of our duplicates.

Yes I'm definitely going to have to look out for one of those.

Dianne

Back in the 90's there was a Lutheran organization that was advertising 4 pounds of donated stamps for a very small fee including postage..it was mostly U.S. but enough foreign to make it interesting...Well dont you know the Postal service got on their case stating that people were re using the skips..stamps that had escaped a cancel...which is true to some extent..but they actually forced those charities out of business...some of you were probably around at the time and remember..it was really a shame !!

That's a really nice lot. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Very cool!

I don't know if you mentioned it - maybe I missed it. Where did you buy the lot?

And if you don't mind saying, how much did it cost?

I purchased for total with shipping for $46.00. So that figures out to about $15 dollars a pound. I found one stamp today that I am trying to get the color identified, will post tonight probably for help. Camera battery dead will try to post first update tomorrow.

Well, I see when I run out of stamps in a few years down the road, there will be others to take my place as they try to clear out their room I think Greg and I have learned our lesson, although I think we both have added 104 card collections from the same ebay seller recently! I like my packages a little organized these days !

Jim

Organization!


Now that's the ticket!

Nice lot of stamps--I see some plate numbered stamps and even a plate numbered precancel--Cool!

Happy stamping!
Gussyboy1