Help With Understanding Germany Please

Am a US revenue collector and just was passed down a large Germany collection. The last cat they used was 2011 for which I have along with his other books such as Germany Philatelic Society Reference Manuals etc.

My major questions are has much changed since 2011 for Germany? Should I get the recent cat or will 2011 be ok?

I am looking thru his albums and stock books and see many singles and sets. Started with a random album his semi-postals and see nice sets such as b8-11 mnh. b15-18 mnh and so on. what I am wondering there are also many singles and sets that catalogue under a $1. Is Germany like US and just take out the under $1 items and such or just try and organize it as a whole? I see like sheets and partial sheets of 9N148 - 9N156. The cat shows some of these worth a few dollars but 2-3 sheets of the cheaper seems like common US commemoratives. Any thoughts?

Thank you for your time and assistance. I have an entire winters worth of material to go thru, just trying to understand the german market to a nth degree using the wisdom of those on the forums.

The intent is not to sell atm, but to organize and sell items not worth keeping within collection. Just trying to make sense of an area I am not familiar with.

Thank you for your time and guidance.

Respectfully,
Richard

RICHARD-----Germany is much more complicated than the U.S. ,you will have too basic understanding using Scott Catalog ,you need to work with a MICHEL specialized .

Ok thank you. I assume it will be in English and somewhat easy to understand? or Will it take time to learn that catalogue system?

And lastly can I buy a year or older cat? will it be ok?

Thanks
Richard

Be aware that for Germany, in many instances used semipostals are worth more than the same stamps mnh.

In terms of catalog pricing, there won't be huge differences from 2011 to the current edition. With a few exceptions, most stamps today will have catalog values flat to maybe 10% higher or lower than what's in the 2011 edition. If you're just looking for ballpark figures and to see which stamps are worth 50 cents and which ones 50 bucks, a 2011 catalog will be fine. I know that's the case for Scott (because I just got a new 2015 edition myself) and I assume Michel isn't much different. Just keep in mind that Michel's prices are even more inflated than Scott's.

There are people on here far more knowledgeable about Germany than I, but in reference to your sheets, I don't think much modern material (after about the mid-1950's or so) has much value no matter what condition it's in. Regarding the cheap items, if you have them in complete sets you can usually get a few bucks here or there for them. You can look around on ebay a bit to see what they go for, as almost any given set from the 1880's forward is on ebay at any given time. Might be a little effort in parceling them out, but it'll probably add up to enough to buy you some other nice stamps you want.

Just a point about East Germany, prices stiffened after the fall of Communism, specifically the immediate post-war material.

Ty all for your guidance and wisdom

And postmarks are often forged. That is a problem.

"So postmarks are often forged" That's why most experts have collected thousands of cheap stamps and used on cover to build a reference source. They spend years getting a bookcase of reference literature also .But where is the next generation of EXPERTS ? I watch prices of books and philatelic literature at auctions and very little aggressive bidding for reference material .

Unfortunately, I think that we are no longer a "print-oriented" society. Younger people (under 40) do not have the patience, and sometimes the skills, to sit down and read a book or magazine. They seek answers to their questions online.

Don

Make that under 60. If there is a online source, I will use that. I can't take my library with me, but if I have my phone I have access to everything online and it fits in my pocket.

Indeed. There are a lot of issues where the used value is a fairly sizable multiple of the mint value. For most areas of philately that means that the stamps are scarcer in used condition than mint, and I assume that's the case with German stamps as well. One would therefore expect ebay listings to reflect this - i.e. there would be more listings for mint stamps than used ones. But there are some issues where you will find dozens of used examples and maybe a couple mint ones, or even none at all.

On many of those issues (early Berlin immediately comes to mind), I just pretty much assume the cancellations are faked. Looking at Berlin 9NB8-11, for example (cv $8.40 hinged, $22.50 NH, $197.50 used), there are currently 15 sets for sale on ebay, 12 used, only 3 mint. If genuinely used examples are as scarce as their values would suggest, I would think this ratio would be reversed. One can find many, many more examples like this on ebay. Even though I collect mostly used stamps, there are a lot of issues I won't buy in used condition for that reason. It's to the point where I wonder if mint examples are getting much scarcer because they've all had fake cancellations applied.