Identification And Value Of International Stamps

I inherited a stamp collection from my cousin when she passed away. I created an initial topic in the general forum shortly after the fact, but I am now in a state where I am trying to learn more specifics about the collection, so I am looking for some help. The collection is very large and I'm sure most of it is not worth a lot, but I am trying to figure out if there are some stamps that do have some decent value (meaning more than a dollar or two per stamp). I am trying to figure this out because although I would like to keep the majority of the collection intact, I am hoping to be able to sell a small portion of them to help with college expenses.

Here are some of the international stamps. I would appreciate any help in identification and/or estimated value. I am at more of a loss with the international stamps because when I can't read them I don't even know how to determine what country it is from to begin to try to identify it. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

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10. I know numbers 10-16 are from the Saar region that was contested between Germany and France, but am not sure when the stamps are from or what they might be worth.



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17. These next four all say Aden on them and from what I can tell appear to be from a city in Yemen. Again, I'm not sure on when or worth, though.



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21. These last four all appear to have been printed as part of a resistance movement in Albania, but from what I can find, they were never used officially. They aren't perforated along the edges like most stamps are, but they do appear to have the gum on the back. Does a lack of perforations mean anything in particular, or does that just vary from region to region?



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Find a Scott catalog in the library if you can and have some fun finding these stamps Also, if there is a local stamp club, attend a meeting and meet some old-time collectors who can tell you much about stamp values. Good hunting.

RowlandH , you posted two different ( mostly ) threads. The one here does not seem to show anything very valuable, but the other post has potentially some stamps that are of value. In particular a few older US stamps. But those will need to be looked at closer to see if they are more or less common.
With a larger collection it is better to have the opinion of someone who can actually see the stamps, like maybe a member of a local stamp club. Or a local stamp dealer, if you are lucky enough to have a stamp store in your town!

Peter

You didn't say which catalog (Scott, Stanley Gibbons, Michel...) and your profile doesn't say which country you are in. So here are the countries:

1. Japan
2. Mozambique
3. Yugoslavia
4. Russia
5. Ecuador
6. Greece
7. Russia
8. Great Britain
9. Spain
10-16. Saar, looks like ~1927-1954
17-21. Aden, looks like 1939-1948
22-24. Albanian Government in Exile issue of 1945 (comes both perforate and imperforate), these are cinderellas so they won't be listed in Scott

I don't see anything exceptionally valuable, but I do see a lot of fun. I think you are a stage where you should check out your local library as suggested above, or purchase the cheapest set of old catalogs you can get your hand on.

Forget about stamp values right now. The true value is in the enjoyment of your stamps.

Thank you. I have looked into the Scott catalog, but with these stamps there are a few problems with that. First, for the library the closest one with the catalogs is a half hour or so away and I could only keep the catalogs for a period of time before they would need to be returned, making things somewhat inconvenient. I've also looked into buying a set, but even older copies look like it would run $50-$60 for a full set, which isn't cheap. The largest problem is that the Scott catalog is organized by country, but with these international stamps if I don't know what country it is, I have nowhere to start from.

I am also looking into possible local stamp clubs. There aren't any very close (45 min. to an hour away at minimum), but I may try to work things out to make it to one of these.



Thank you for your comment. Yes, my other thread has some older U.S. stamps and I know some of those have some value. However, there are a fair number of international stamps in the collection and whereas I've got kind of an idea of how to go about identifying them, with these international stamps, I really am kind of lost, which is why I am asking for help on them.

I realize it is definitely easier to get the collection looked at by someone in person, and I am looking into these possibilities in my area. There are none super close, but there are some within a moderate distance. My hesitation is that I know nothing about these people and would have no idea whether or not they are giving me fair valuations, which is why I was hoping to get some numbers from here I could compare with.



I am in the U.S., so Scott appears to be the one I would go with. Thank you very much for the country identifications, that helps a lot.

As far as stamp values, I would love to forget about that right now and just enjoy them, but real life dictates otherwise. I understand your point, and I appreciate the thought. For me, though, in addition to the real life expenses of college, enjoyment of the collection is learning as much as I can about it, and part of that is knowing what the stamps are worth.

For finding out the country, try this: Type into Google "postage stamp" followed by whatever you can find in letters on that stamp. Won't work for many Asian countries, etc. but you will be surprised at what you may discover out there on the net.

Near the end of each Scott catalog there are identifiers, one of which tells you where to look in the catalog based on words you find on the stamp (so for Magyar it points to the volume or page number for Hungary) and the other shows examples images for text in other alphabets. They can be a great help in figuring out which country a stamp is from. If you do find a 'local' club, you will likely find they will have older catalogs available for very cheap or free. It's typically the shipping that costs the most when a catalog is 20-30 years old...

I would suggest that the easiest way to get an estimate of the value of your collection is to offer it to the nearest stamp dealer. Please keep in mind that the actual retail value of a collection is very much lower than the total catalog value. An alternative approach to estimate the value is to roughly count the number of stamps and multiply the number with say 3 cents. Seems low but is probably more realistic than the catalog value.

Kenmore has a good identication link. Just type in what's on the stamp and click search

http://www.kenmorestamp.com/worldwide_identifier

It may help you to find it if I point out that no. 3 is not classified as Yugoslavia. After WW2 the coast of Dalmatia was disputed between Yugoslavia and Italy. Until a final decision was made it was administered on behalf of the Allies by the Yugoslav People's Army, who overprinted Yugoslav Service stamps to show they were for use only in the military administered area. I have no idea how Scott describes them, but in SG they are listed as Venezia Giulia and Istria