Need Help With China Stamps Please! Monkey????

I have acquired a large collection of binders filled with China stamps. I have been looking to find some gems and came across this one. It appears authentic with raised ink but how else can I verify that this is the 1980 year of the monkey stamp?

Also, I posted scans of two similar scarlet colored Hall of Peking stamps. Is there a way to distinguish these two besides the Scotts numbers?



My dad used to collect these and recently moved. He did not want to take all these binders to his new home and was done with his stamp collecting hobby. Your help is appreciated!

Kathy

Here is another image from my phone that shows the raised ink

Lovely stamps, Kathy! I am not an expert on China stamps, but at a glance, the monkey looks good (Scott catalogue 1586). You will need proper authentication on this, and any other China stamps you have from that era. Here is a link to one of these for sale on ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHINA-1980-...t_821wt_1312

Brian

Thank you for the reply! I do have it listed now and was wondering best way to get authentication? I am in the Houston area and see stamp appraisers collect $75/hour. Is this standard? Thanks! 1980-1981 must have been a good year! A good number of the stamps fro this particular book appear valuable. My dad collected for years, many moons ago, and was going to toss these books.

The market is a bit out of balance for stamps from China, so now is a great time to sell. The era known as the "cultural revolution" in communist China has seen a revival of sorts, and now the Chinese people are collecting stamps (among other collectables) like crazy. This particular stamp is not rare, but it is very popular. I expect the values for this, and other stamps from this era to drop dramatically in the next few years.

As far as the cost of expertising, I am not aware of anyone charging by the hour. Most expertizers charge a fee based on the catalogue value of the stamp. The American Philatelic Society (APS) is a good place to start when looking for the expertization of foreign stamps.

Good luck!

Brian