Any Of The "Mature" Collectors Have Guidance For A Renewed Collector

I am back in the hobby after a 35 year absence. The renewal began when inheriting my fathers collection. It is something we did together from my early teens through my early 30s. There were significant investments on my part during my 20s and more and continuing investment, that I was not aware of, on my dad's part. The collection is US and WW mint and used. I now find myself with what is a somewhat daunting task and incredibly revitalized passion in the hobby. There are however a number of questions. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.
1) After about 8 months of 15 - 20 hour a week work, approximately 15% of the inventory is now in EZ Stamp. I am grading as best I can on centering and MHN, NH etc. The majority are F to VF. The collection is entirely classic to 1975. The value of this collection is quite honestly scaring me. I assume the low end stamps, at an average of .15 - .20 cents each, are likely at 10% or less of the listed value. What are fair estimates for the more significant values that are in the $10s, $100s and $1000 each?
2) I am looking into a gun safe for storage. If that is not a good idea, what are other suggestions?
3) Insuring? Should I use an estimated real value or the EZ Stamp value. Use a rider on my homeowners or a specialist insurer.
4) I have zero interest in selling the main collection, however, many thousands of duplicates are included and there simply is not enough time left in my lifetime, to inventory those. So - - - Save them and let my eventual estate worry about them? Sell them off in bulk on E-whatever? Take them to a stamp show and go to the highest offer?
I apologize for the length of this but any guidance, recommendations etc. is greatly appreciated.

Welcome back to a great hobby. It would be fun to look at your collection in depth, but could you scan some of the better items for us?

In terms of selling prices,my experience with F-VF stamps in the mid-range ($5-50) is about 30% catalog is a fair estimate. Very fine, high value stamps, hard to say, could even go up to full catalog, sometimes over. Less than fine condition, lucky to get 10%.

On the insurance side, specialty insurance will likely cost a small fraction of what a homeowners rider would cost and will have much easier claims processing. I have used the American Philatelic Society's insurance program (through Hugh Wood) for years. $75,000 in insurance as a premium in the $200 range.

Italy pages 1 - 4 attached. It is what I am working on at this time. Not the most $$ but a good representation of WW. Trying to complete all pages with notations of any significance. I am including Forgeries on the pages but not placing any value on them. Should I be?

As a returnee I'd say the hard lesson is one that any collector needs to face and deal with - focus. When you were a kid you might have figured you could assemble a credible world collection - and 70 years ago you just might have been able to do it. Today - not likely. I;'d suggest you choose a country or two, or a region, a topical or two, or a speciality.....some like re-entries, others like colour variations. Being older, you may have more patience, and more resources to buy specialized tools like magnifiers. You may be able to attend local club meetings or philatelic conventions. You could attend auctions and acquire needed / wanted additions. And to help make all this work, you need to REDUCE! Cull out the countries / topics / material you can live without and sell it singly, as a lot, or give it away. Whatever. As long as you have that wide a collection you will spend more time organizing - and worrying - than enjoying. Just my 2 cents - even though we in Canada don't have pennies.

2) Several collectors here use gun safes. Be sure it is not the type in which the interior walls release a fluid in response to the heat of a fire.

3) Insurance - Use a specialist insurer. Hugh Woods, mentioned above, is a broker/agent available only to APS members, but APS is not costly to join. The actual policies are currently written by Chubb.

4) Duplicates - You will probably realize the highest price by listing them on ebay, but unless you have an established account as a seller it may be hard to get "eyeballs". A clear title oriented to keyword searching, and a clear description with plenty of photos, are essential.

Forgeries - My personal view is they should NOT be mixed in with your genuine collection. A buyer or dealer pressed for time, and spotting a couple of forgeries mixed in, is apt to offer a lower total price, figuring there must be a lot of other forgeries among material that the buyer/dealer didn't closely review. Consider setting up a separate binder with separate pages that are clearly labeled as showing forgeries. You can use Vario pages for this, or print your own using a word processing program or MS-PowerPoint.

Excellent guidance from all. Thank you so much!

Should be emphasized in bold capital letters.

The guidance given earlier about general values is probably pretty close to the mark, but keep in mind that's the value if you're selling them individually to other collectors. The value to a dealer or if you're selling them in bulk will be quite a bit less still. Most stamps with value of less than a few dollars are, in reality, worth pennies. I wouldn't even figure on 10% for a $2 or $3 CV stamp, in most cases, as these are usually bought and sold in bulk. $5 and $10 (or more) stamps turn up with some frequency in stamp packets that I pay 3 cents apiece or so for, although they're usually mixed in with a lot of cheaper ones, too. And it varies by country, some countries (Italy is one) are extremely overvalued in Scott, while some others are fairly close. An easy way to get an idea of the true market value is to search ebay for sold listings of a particular stamp or set, or peruse dealer price lists (which will probably be about double ebay realizations).

Keep stampin!

When noting condition, you could use the system by which (*) = unused, no gum, * = mint and ** = unmounted mint. Not being American, I find the idea that someone would plod through a collection grading it for centring (if that's what you mean by grading) odd, but each to his or her own, Like others, I'd have forgeries on separate sheets - presented as such, these can have value of their own. My own albums are doubtless full of the things, and I need to segregate them. I shouldn't jump to getting rid of countries - lots of us here collect the whole world, without anticipating completeness!

wheelman

Happy that you are back and hope you enjoy every minute of it, like I do.

Re: World collections, I agree this is difficult in 2016. If you are like me, you do have a World collection and want at least to inventory it. I do. I really do not care if the collection is not up to date which would be impossible. It is nice to see all those old stamps and their history. As to value, it is what it is....not important for me.

Rene

A hobby as opposed to part of a wealth portfolio?
I get that the idea you have is one of investment and that being the case I can't really help you much. I consider my collection which is US to be worthless. That way I don't have to worry about the value of it. When I pass away my orders will be throw it in the trash.