Do You Throw Away Excess Used Duplicates

Since I've been slowly going thru my used stamps I'm beginning to find too many duplicates of very common stamps. Do you keep them if you have 10 or more of the 4c Lincoln stamp as an example. I'm in the mood for a little housekeeping so I'm throwing them away. A mistake?

I put these in a box, together with stamps from incoming mail and scruffy older items, and, when a box is full, put it in one of the charity bags that are distributed and collected now and then. The stamps doubtless end up in the possession of SCF members who purchase kiloware.

Donating the stamps to Goodwill, Salvation Army, or some other local charity is a good option.

Here is a worthwhile charity for your duplicates.
www.foxboroughrcs.org/studen...tamp-project/

At times, you wonder how friends from other Countries would appreciate to fill their albums with those duplicates......just a thought.........my duplicates go to my friends in Australia, Netherlands etc. and I appreciate getting theirs.......simple (yes) !

Tom,

Why not use them for postage? I see that all the time. Used you say? Then either donate or toss!

Jack

My wife wishes I would...

Before you "throw away" your duplicates, consider keeping them in some type of orderly fashion and donating them to the APS Stamps Teach program. The APS is willing to send you a letter for tax purposes valuing the stamps sent at .25 each. You donate 500 stamps and you've just added $125.00 in taxable donations which can be used when you file your taxes in a few months. I do remember that there was a minimum number to get the letter, but don't recall what that number was.

Just a thought.

Q/ Have you considered a collage?

I don't throw them away unless they're faulty, and even then, they go into a "faulty bin" that I haven't actually gotten around to throwing away yet. There are some stamps that I have literally hundreds of (sound) copies of and I was just thinking today that I need to do some housecleaning and get rid of some of them, one way or another. I remember awhile back hearing about some kids' group trying to collect six million stamps or something along those lines. I'd be happy to ship them a small percentage of that. I doubt the APS would even want the kind of material I'm talking about, so I don't think I'm going to bother them with it. Any other good ideas for donation?

Sorry, but I throw them away.

While getting them to Stamps that Teach might make sense, dumping excess duplicates of common stamps back into the community is not helpful. There are already too many of them floating around.

Are you sure about this. As I understand it by IRS rules the receiving organization can not provide a value, it is up to the donator to provide a value (and to back it up if they are audited).

According to their website, they will acknowledge the receipt. You are responsible to use your own guidelines as to the valuation. Per their website, most donors use catalog value as the basis. Since Scott has a minimum of 25 cents, that would be a safe basis. However, I am planning to do a discount from that value for my donation (and note such in my records.)

Thanks for posting the link.

25 cents each? Gah, I've got about 2 pounds' worth of common junk(probably 10-15K stamps) that I'd feel guilty valuing at even a penny each. If I donated decent, sale-able stamps that had real value, I'd take a deduction, of course. But dumping a pile of garbage (almost literally) on the APS and then expecting a tax benefit out of it is ethically questionable, in my opinion. Otherwise all I'd have to do is buy the biggest junk lots I could find, at a fraction of a cent apiece, and turn around and donate it wholesale to the APS, taking a deduction of 25 cents apiece. Wouldn't take long before my taxable income would be zero. I think the IRS would probably have something to say about the legality of that...

As a bemused observer (here charity is charity, not a tax dodge), I'm really bemused by this - both in terms of the ethics, as Artful points out, and the slackness of the tax authorities (which, I suppose, lack the resources to check the real world value of donations).

I'm with eyeonthewall. Throw them away !