Pricing Of Foreign Stamps.

Like many others in this community, I am dealing with a stamp collection willed to me when I was in my early teens. Being a retiree now, I have some time to put towards this collection of foreign stamps. I would like to find out their values.
What is the best, free, well organized, online source for prices on foreign stamps?
And, when organizing my stamps, what is the best stamp numbering system to use...Scott, Michel, Harris, etc.?
Thanks very much for your help.
Regards,
allstamps

Welcome to the world of collecting stamps or "stamps", allstamps!

If you have a willed WW collection, stamp values should not be big concern. Most likely the values will be nominal.

The focus should be on learning what you have and organizing them in a way meaningful to you.

There are many on-line sources for "value" but unless you have stamps of significant value, spending time in that area is not that productive or rewarding unless you are selling your collection, in which case just send them off to a dealer or auction house and they will tell you value.

What are my stamps worth:
1. http://www.stamp-collecting-resourc...-values.html
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrRdLEjVH8k
3. http://stamporama.com/articles/disp...ASd3nKLqcQNo
4. http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/...th-money.php
5. http://www.wikihow.com/Find-The-Value-Of-a-Stamp
6. http://album.dweeb.org/albumvalue.html
7. etc., etc., etc. ....

Enjoy our collection and have a great time examining them before being concerned about worth or value.... value is most in the enjoyment of collecting and learning.

Numbering systems actually don't mean that much. There are two broad approaches - that followed by Gibbons and, I think, Michel, which arrange issues in a straightforward, cheonological basis, and that followed by Scott, which separates air mail and charity stamps, and lists them after other issues, but otherwise follows the same chronological approach. In its more detailed catalgues, Gibbons also puts issues such as Postage Dues in the same chronological run as standard issues. Other publishers retain them at the back of the catalogue.

Another approach is to focus on themes, rather than countries, if there are subjects that particularly interest you. There are thematic catalogues ( eg aircraft) and albums around.

The important thing here is entertainment, not monetary value.

Since I see you are in the US, I will tell you that most US collectors use the Scott catalogs.

Not online, but many libraries have reasonably current editions of the Scott catalog in the reference section. This can be an enjoyable afternoon or evening in the quiet confines of your local library.

I have personally found it very practical to use the catalog that is the standard in your country. When buying or exchanging stamps you can use the numbers everybody else is also using. So if yo're US based that would be Scott. A not so recent set - say 2011 - will be quite affordable and cover probably 98% of what's in your collection.

Online I would recommend Stampworld.com as a rather complete standard catalog.