"Really, Really Old Stamps"

A friend called me a while back, telling me that his co-worker had inherited a "bunch of really old stamps" and he was wondering if I could tell him what they were worth. I agree, and he describes several stamps from the late 1980's and early 1990's. I ask if they are used or unused. He replies that they are "like new". He was totally shocked when I told him to use them for postage. "But they're really, really old!" he argues. I explained to him that a computer or TV from the 1980's is "really, really old", but stamps from the 1980's are so common that no stamp dealer would even pay face price for them. His co-worker thinks I'm lying and is planning to take them to a stamp show where he can sell them for a bunch of money. I wished him luck.

Gotta love it. You try to be honest with someone and they - or their 'friend' thinks you are trying to bilk them. I understand most people out there have no idea of stamp values and sort of assume anything old is valuable, but for gosh sake, these are at best 20-30 years old. This is 'really old'? Let me guess, these are a couple of twenty somethings.

I had a very good friend who called me to come over and give an opinion on his father's collection of plate blocks. His father was a postmaster and the collection went from the early 50's to early 80's. I pointed out a few that might bring more than face but told him really he would expect maybe to get 70% of face as his best offer.

He didn't believe me. Well four years later he asked if I would be interested in buying them. Over those four years he tried to sell them to dealers and other collectors. I think his best offer might have been just over 50 cent on the dollar.

He is a friend so I gave him face for the blocks and got all the foreign and single USA plus 12 nice leather stock books for nothing. It worked out for both of us.

He was expecting a large windfall but was happy to get something in the end. He said in the end he thought he was sitting on a gold mine.

Remember the school boy Louis Vernon Vaughan ,who sold his stamp (British Guiana 1c magenta) for
6 shillings ? These legends still exist today In the collective mind I think...

This is why I sometimes wish that any experienced hobbyist who posts 'Hey look at the great buy I found on ebay' would also;
- post a qualifying statement that they also invested 20 years in learning the hobby so they could spot the find
- also help with replying to numerous and frequent newbie 'I have windfall' posts
Don

I do wish people would not call stamps half as old as I am "really old."

Don

For many years now, I have always said that non collectors believe that 'old' means rare and expensive and this is the hardest thing to explain to them w/o them thinking you are trying to rip them off. I try to tell them by saying - "Before I even see your collection, please be aware that old does not mean rare".

I have also stated for many years that, in our hobby, the word 'rare' is used all too often and loosely. I have seen ads showing relatively common stamps (seen in multiples in most collections) as 'rare'. This by itself has a lot of non collectors thinking that they have a gold mine in their possession. Things like this can give honest collectors a bad name, when in fact we are trying to help them and does not help the hobby at all.

I belong to an online stamp chat with some friends of mine and we jokingly use the word 'rare'. Also, we jokingly say that when we are looking forward to viewing a person's ' inherited' collection, we are on guard to look at the cover of the album. We always say, 'if we see an astronaut or a cowboy on the cover, we are in for another regular collection of common, and not 'rare' stamps'.

Just a personal joke of course.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Back in the 1980's. along time before I could possibly have been considered 'old' I was working as food stamp caseworker in an inner city DHHS office. For some reason when an applicant couldn't remember my name I was referred to as 'that old dude'. why I don't know. One day a young guy called and when he couldn't think of my name described me as 'the great big fat old ugly White dude.'

I called him back and when he answered I calmly and matter of factly told him I was the great big fat old ugly White dude. Long silence. One of my best memories of those days.

As the president of our stamp club, I get calls frequently from people who have "found" or inherited a stamp collection.

I always meet with them and explain what they have. It may be as small as the "collection" of about twenty used 20 cent ram stamps one lady had or it might be sheet after sheet after sheet of 3-25 cent commemorative stamps.

Occasionally, I run into a collection which has some value. Those are actually the hardest as the heir(s) have looked at the catalogues and just KNOW they are getting thousands and thousands of dollars for the collection. I have to ask them to go back to the beginning of the Scott catalogue and ask them to read the first page, where it explains the prices listed are "...WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT TO PAY A DEALER FOR THE STAMP IN THAT GRADE..."

If anyone else is doing this, I recommend having the heir look at the price of a mint stamp from the 1950-1960 range. Then, ask them to look at the price listed for a plate block. It's usually about 40-60 cents. That helps drive home the point of the minimum value for the single stamp listings.

I do the same thing BKing did and tell them to use them for postage, unless it really is stacks of sheets. Then I show them ads from Linn's where dealers are offering 50% of face value for those sheets and tell them it is there best bet, unless they have the time and inclination to list them on ebay individually. Sometimes, the do sell on ebay, but it will take a LONG time to divest yourself of a collection of sheets in that manner.

I'm with Don too, when he said he wished those who are touting what a great find they got on ebay. Non-collectors need to understand the time and effort it takes to gain an education about this hobby.

I also try to get the heirs to take the used stamps (unless they are of value) and give them to grandkids, nieces, nephews or the local schools to use. If they're really only about "the money" I tell them their best bet is to count 'em up and ship them to the APS for a tax donation.

It's about all we can do.

I recall about a decade ago a person came to me and asked would I like to buy his album of "ancient" stamps (yes, he actually used the word "ancient").

I could tell by the little clip cover album it would have been his stamp album when he was a young boy in the late 1960s.

I knew there would be nothing more than worthless stamps as the book was quite tatty and I could see rust on the page edges.

When I looked at the stamps I saw a lot of rusty pages and the smell of mildew, not one stamp was worth anything, regardless of the presence of a few Queen Victorian Australian stamps and the majority of what you would buy in a packet of 100 world stamps.

I explained to him there was nothing in the album that was of any value, I was then accused of trying to obtain his collection cheaply so I can make a lot of money from them, and that I was jealous that his collection would (and I say this politely), would "urinate over mine", and that he would take it to an auction to get the true worth of his collection.

I wished him good luck in achieving the impossible. never heard from him since.

True story.

I saw a Youtube video - sadly, I can't remember all the details, but someone (I think it was a female) took a stamp to a stamp dealer. It was commemorating an old event from 1670 or something like that - the 'seller' was convinced the stamp dated back to that point in time, because the year was printed in the stamp design, and despite the dealer trying to get her to understand stamps did not even exist back then, she refused to budge and insisted the dealer was trying to scam her!

I always enjoy those people who are told by one of the regulars on here that their stamps have little value . Then they reply with a negative attitude that we don't know what we are talking about .
Those are my favorite person's to play with . I like to respond with a offer to sell them four or five more copies of there "rare" stamps for 20 cents apiece .that usually makes them never to return knowing full well they made themselves into fools .

Heh. I occasionally do that with sellers on ebay that price mixtture-fodder-quality revenues for $100++. I'll offer to sell them as many of these "rare" stamps as they want for $5 each.

For some reason, they usually don't appreciate that. Go figure...

I love going to the local flea market - you know - the thrill of the hunt. Very rarely do I find stamps. That's fine. If I see anyone with old paper I'll usually ask though. One regular "dealer" I do not particularly like but who sometimes brings paper, showed me a tattered Scott Modern album and told me it contained the first stamp ever issued and pointed to a Great Britain #89. I said the first GB stamp should be black. He said it was faded and said I could have the whole book for $100. The next week I took him an ancient old ledger book I had that had hundreds of #89 (among other old and in not particularly good condition stamps). I offered him all the #89s for $1 each. He said he had too many stamps already. But, I stammered, you could make a killing! These are the first stamps ever issued!

I was once in a stamp shop in New York when a woman brought in a bunch of 1930s to 1940s US sheets. The dealer suggested she either give them to her kids or use them for postage. The woman really laid into the dealer in an abusive kind of way, accusing him of trying to swindle her. But he said, "I'm not offering to buy them so I'm not trying to swindle you! Give them to your kids." I'm sure this is a classic scenario. Why do people think you're trying to cheat them when you are not offering to buy the stamps???

Usually such folks have utterly no idea of what stamps are worth but have some outlandish idea of the value of THEIR holdings. Deep inside, they sort of know the dealer is right but having their hopes dashed causes the backlash. One dealer I know told me he has had people, when being told their stamps have no sales value, tell him they will just throw them away. There is usually a pause as if they think he will react in horror and say no. no, I'll buy them! After he tells them to go ahead, it start sinking n.

Another guy brings a rock he found in his back yard to shows. When someone gives him the 'But, it's old' routine he picks up the rock and tells them it is probably a billion years old. What will they pay him for it?