What Do You Do With A Philatelic Windfall?

I didn't really want to post this in this part of the forum, but I guess it seemed the best place for it.

I've inherited a couple of collections somewhat recently. No, this is not an "I inherited dad's stamp collection, how do I sell it?" type of post. A couple of friends of mine knew that I was a long-time collector, and offered me their late parent's stamp collections to add to mine. Jackpot! Treasure hunt! My question is, what do I do with all the new material I've added to my own collection? I'm now the proud owner of 3 volumes of Big Blue. One friend's collection contained Volume I (from 1948, I believe), the other contained Volume I and II (from 1956). I've cherry-picked some of the U.S. stamps that I didn't have already and added them to my own albums. That was easy. Now I have 3 large albums with scatterings of worldwide stamps, with nothing newer than maybe 1950. Lots of neat stuff I'd never seen before. I have Nazi Germany Hitler stamps now...although they don't seem to have the value I thought they might. I have worldwide albums of my own...I'm making my own pages...and my first thought would be to pick what I like and just add them to my own collection. That would leave me with 3 old Scott albums with a few stamps left in them. What do I do with them? Is there a market for them? Is there a fun project I can do with them and keep them? What kind of things have you all done with something similar?

I also received a box full of old first day covers. My friend's mom must have collected them as a young girl. The majority of them are addressed to her, no cachets. There were a number of WWII covers...ship launches, "Win the War", patriotic stuff like that. Those I like very much and I've added them to my own collection in a small binder. I never got into FDCs, and I just don't know what the heck to do with the rest of them. I'm sure it's not worth much, but there was a huge FDC for the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Had stamps from France, Great Britain, and the U.S. franked on it. I think it's a Fleetwood cover. I plan to frame that one and put it on the wall of my den.

So, what do any of you do with such a windfall? I'm curious to hear your stories.

It sound's like you had a very good day. I've has a couple windfalls but mostly due to bulk purchases as opposed to gifts.

I would (and have) treat it like any purchased windfall. Do as you have already started. Cull the stamps out that you want or need. Maybe separate others of some interest to keep and inventory/catalog the rest to sell or trade.

In one case for me there is a sentimental attachment for my father's small collection, while this doesn't add tangible value, it means something to me and I still have those items. In this case I assume there is no sentimental attachment for you. I presume your friends would not be offended if you were fold part into your collection and divest the rest that you aren't interested in. You'll have to be the judge of that. By all means let them know how much you appreciate it.

Other then sell/trade the unwanted items, another option is to give the remainders to a kid to get them interested or to another collector just starting out and may appreciate them.

When I narrowed my focus to the US a while back, I gave some foreign material to the son of a friend who displayed an interest. Later, I also gave some to one of my kids. Made me feel good to spread the sickness... er, I mean joy of collecting.

Jeff

What are your own worldwide albums like? Might be worth using the Big Blues for your collection, rather than removing stamps from them!

If you haven't seen Jim's blog, it may give you some ideas

http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co.uk

GeoffHa...I've considered using them as my worldwide albums, but decided against it, mainly because they are out of date. Much of the WW stamps I already have are newer than these albums, so there'd be no places for them, and perhaps not even a page for a country. There's not a tremendous amount of WW stamps in these Big Blues. I think they were interested mainly in U.S. but it seems they bought approvals. There's a couple of small boxes of approval packets that never were mounted. My own albums...as I said, I'm making my own. There's no rhyme or reason to my WW holdings. Much of it is stamps from when I was young. If something comes along and I like it, I keep it. Friends and family travel much more than I do, and always bring me something back. I create a page(s) for each country as I need them. The page has the country name on top and that's it. For most countries, I have a page or two of stamps. Many only have one page. It's an ongoing project. My Canada and Great Britain collections grew from this. As I accumulated more stamps for those countries, I became more interested in them and wanted to devote "solo" albums to them. Canada is now 2 volumes, and GB is 3. These are recent expansions, so the extra volumes are pretty sparse at the moment.

jconey...No, I don't think my friends would object to my breaking up the collections. I let them know I would probably do as much and integrate them into my own collection. They both approved. It was fun going through the older U.S. stuff. I found a quite a few early 20th century stamps I did not have.

Congrats to you!

It's clear you like to make your own pages and are willing to expand as your interest and collections grow. Then you can and should sell the Big Blues; check around for pricing, keeping in mind whatever their condition is. You can weigh them now and consult the online USPS site for what shipping costs will be if you decide to sell via ebay, this site or otherwise by mail. Me, I'd adjust the price downward a bit to compensate for shipping cost charges to the buyer.

But before you sell, I suggest going through the US again, now rechecking perfs, gum, watermarks and suchlike, if you haven't done a full review. If the original collector was absolutely correct in IDing say, the Washington-Franklins, you'll find out soon enough if it's worth continuing to dig deeper. You could also find minor varieties and shades you might want to keep.

Another suggestion: When framing that FDC, use UV filter glass or UV filter acrylic. Fading even with indirect light is so slow that you won't notice it until it's too late.

hy-brasil...Ugh. The Washington-Franklins have always given me indigestion. So many varieties. But that's good advice. I will go through them again. I admit, I've only picked out the obvious ones that I needed so far. I could have missed something. I didn't mention, but I also now possess a couple of old volumes of the Scott catalog, hard cover. Still, it's all of those FDC that I don't know what to do with.

DaveG28, worldwide collectors reading your post feel your pain! You don't have to confront the WFs if you don't want to; life is too short. A quicker way is to confirm a few of those you've already taken out, if not already done. If the original collector was 100% correct in ID there, then you can have confidence that what's in the big Blue spaces is correct. You could also pull out the WFs and other older stamps, set them aside for later, whenever that may be. "No problem is so big or so complicated that it can't be run away from".

Indeed. I've run away from Machins, Washington-Franklins, Danish numerals ... I didn't run away from Norwegian posthorns, but I should have done.

Enjoy the stamps, Dave!

It depends how much work you want to put into disposing of them vs. how much you'd like to get for sale-able stamps and supplies. There is a market for used Scott albums of almost any vintage, assuming they're in decent shape. You're not going to pay off your mortgage with the proceeds, but you'll get something if you're willing to do the work of taking pictures and selling it on ebay. Most FDCs aren't worth a lot unless it's a rare cachet, and addressed FDCs are usually worth even less. Those are probably best to sell as a lot or at least in bundles of several or more. If you try to sell them all individually it'll be a lot of work for very little return. It probably isn't worth the effort to try and sell individual stamps with a CV of much less than $10 or so, and lower value stamps would probably sell quicker (and be less work for you) if you sell several or more of them at once. You could also donate them to the APS or other organization, or to a beginning collector.

Hi Dave,well done on your windfall!
Why not sell them on here?

Cheers

Lawrence...shipping seems a little daunting on these books. I mean, they're like door stops! I may sell them eventually, once I glean out the stamps I want to keep. Haven't made up my mind yet. I might just hang on to them until the local stamp show next February and see if I get any interest from one of the dealers there. Or, I might keep at least the nicer one just for grins.

hy-brazil...Don't get me wrong. I'm a U.S. collector first and foremost. I've just never been very good with watermarks and tiny details on older stamps. Which surprises me, because I'm pretty detail oriented and basically anal-retentive usually. lol

Any pictures? I'm looking for stamps. Quick question, how many post before I can send or receive email?

You have 11 posts now, 39 more to post. It's easy, find a subject you like, ask questions.

I'm still learning this forum. I just figured out how to post pictures, I think?

That's a nice collection!

TheStampGuy1964 - That's a very cool collection of arrowheads!