Hoard- Of US Christmas Seals, Etc. Any Value?

Before I go through the trouble of photographing/scanning tons of sheets, blocks, etc., is there any market for bulk lots of seals?

It's virtually all U.S. (some Canada). The majority are Christmas Seals, but also Easter Seals, Boys Town, Crippled Children, Disabled Amterican Veterans, American Legion, Conservation, and some others, from the 1930s to the 2000s, mostly in full sheets and large multiples.

There's also the occasional oddball item like the "Anti-Communism League", Jewish Synagogue of America, several years of Linn's "Collect Stamps" seals, etc.

There's gotta be about 6-10 pounds of it. Literally tens of thousands of seals.

I have a small collection of US Christmas seals. For the most part, they are of minimal value, but there are one or two exceptions. Check your US Specialized catalog. In the early years, there is one that is valuable, but you would have to identify it and then find a collector willing to spend the big bucks.

There are quite a few collectors of seals and cinderellas. I am one of them. I especially like the oddball items. You should have no problem selling this especially at this time of year when interest peaks in them. I would be interested, but I don't know if we allowed to offer things for sale here. I Don't want to violate any rules. If you are allowed you can email me.

I definitely think so. As mentioned they are listed in Scott's Specialized. And I think, design wise, they are every bit as attractive as regular stamps. Value wise, probably minimal, esthetically and historically I think there's a definite market.
I've been outbid on a couple of seal lots on ebay recently, so I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I really don't think the Scott catalog is going to be of any assistance here, as even valuing everything at the Scott minimum would result in a ginormous total, just due to the sheer quantity. That amount would by hyperinflated and have absolutely no basis in reality.

You are right in that the Scott catalog will be of little help, unless you have stuff prior to 1916. I would sell anything from 1907 to 1915 as individual listings and the rest as a bulk lot. I bought two bankers boxes full of Xmas seals a couple of years ago for $35.00 and it was primarily 1920's through the 80's with full sheets starting in the late 20's. Boystown, Easter, Audobon and Wildlife are tough to sell. Some of the odd Christmas seals(not wx #'s) from smaller organizations have done very well for me. Anything early tied on a cover or postcard really commands a premium.

Most U.S. Christmas and Easter seals from the 1940's to date have minimal value, but there are a lot of exceptions. You would have to use a Green's Christmas Seal catalogue and a Mosbaugh Easter Seal catalogue to find out. Both are available at http://seal-society.org/.

There a several Christmas seal and Easter Seals stamps in the 1930's worth good money. The 1934 Easter Seals sheets can retail from $100 to $500 per sheet if undamaged, depending on variety. A variety of the 1971 Easter Seal can retail for over $100.00 per sheet.

There are a lot of collectors for the other charity stamps as well. They are also listed in the Mosbaugh catalogues.

If you are planning on selling the seals on ebay in bulk lots, they do sell well.

I would strongly recommend, for the best price, to separate them into individual themes or types. Tuberculosis Chistmas seals together. Easter Seals (crippled children) together. Veteran and patriotic seals together. Christian religious seals together. Jewish seals as a separate lot. The remaining seals in a Miscellaneous seals lot.

I've collected these seals for over 50 years and have over 20 albums full of them.

One more thing... The Linn's "Collect Stamps" ones.... I couldn't find ANY collectors to give them to, so I donated about 100 sheets of them to a craft club for decorating projects.

Although I'd agree that while most modern seals (Christmas, Easter, Charity, etc.) are of minimal value, keep in mind that the printing was done by a variety of small and larger commercial establishments that did not have to keep to strict tolerances that postage stamp printers must adhere to. Therefore, it is quite easy to find misprinted, color missing, mis-registrations, perforation errors, etc., that make collecting these seals a specialty by themselves.

Even though there may be little value to the modern seals, it can still be a fun and challenging study, especially for those on a limited budget.

Another interesting aspect is that Easter Seals would print limited numbers of a certain format of Easter Seals and distributed them in limited areas to see how well received they are. These sheets are often very scarce and valuble. This was the case with a seal issued in 1971 with sheets valued at 100.00+.

I wrote the current Easter Seals catalogue in 2009 for the Christmas Seal and Charity Stamp Society and still today new discoveries are being made of previously unknown varieties.

Would anyone mind providing the specifics on the "rare" 1971 Easter Seal variant? (It's unlikely that the 1971 sheets in this lot are that version, but it doesn't hurt to check).

If they offered a downloadable PDF version for the catalog, I'd buy it immediately, but I don't have time to wait a week or three for a CD to arrive.

Thanks.

The last one I saw on ebay sold for $115.00.

As I figured, no such luck. Thanks for posting the image.

Timm, these would have been great to donate to a youth stamp program. Kids love things like that.

Even the local stamp club didn't want them... they had too many already.

I set a couple dozen sheets on the free table at the local stamp show and they were still there at closing.

Should have added a sign, "Strict Limit - 1 Sheet per Person"