Need Encouragement Mostly

Just retired from post office where I was a clerk. I've always loved stamps and flirted with the idea of joining my local philately society but worked so much I never had time to do anything.

I'm a bit overwhelmed because we just moved my 100 year old mother in law into a nursing home in PA, cleaned out her house to get it ready for sale and all the rest of the logistics involved in such a thing. My husband and I brought back her jewelry collection, late husband's stamp and train collection, and other odds and ends.

My husband is an antiquarian books seller so we are very familiar with ebay. I've spent so much time researching trains, jewelry, and stamps that I'm starting to feel overwhelmed.

The stamps are the most interesting part for me. As a postal clerk, I bought nearly every new sheet of stamps that came out in the last five years, not for an investment but because I like them. I know it sounds crazy.

I don't think I have a terribly valuable stamp collection, I know I'm not going to get rich, but now that I've left the post office, I need the money and my new job is selling all this stuff on ebay.

I have aa couple of concerns.

First, I'm worried I might inaccurately describe something as many things look very similar. Second, to try to get an idea of what stamps are selling for currently, I search for the stamp in the sold listings. I have one stamp that some seller listed for $1800 or best offer. For all I know,, it's worth $1 but the guy might use that best offer with a high price trying to get people to bid more. I have no way of knowing what the seller actually received for his stamp.

Though most of the stamps are probably common, and some blocks and sheets might sell for $4 or $5 each, I don't might that, it will be fun. One of the albums, the best one, is in some kind of photo album where none of the stamps were glued, taped, hinged, etc., but placed in holders on the page with a date and that sort of thing.

Now I've found some stamps that might be worth $10 to $80 each and that sounds grand but you have to count perforations. i've been researching how to do that for an hour and finally figured out I could probably do it with a centimeter ruler. I actually have an old perforation counter I left in a display I set up at the post office along with some other vintage philately related objects I've found over the years. I can't wait to go pick that stuff up.

I guess I'm babbling at this point because I'm exhausted but I was just about ready to find my centimeter ruler and start taking photos and trying to sell some stamps on ebay and then I saw this thing about watermarks. However, I'm hoping someone will tell me it's probably not necessary to worry about watermarks unless you have some kind of ultra rare stamp and I'm pretty sure I don't have anything terribly rare.

One of the guys from our local society came into the post office a few times and we talked a lot and I am thinking of going to a meeting but the next one won't be until after Thanksgiving and I feel a bit shy about it. The guy told me to come sometime and he said nobody there was looking to get rich, it was just a bunch of old men sitting around talking stamps. Sounds good to me.

Thanks for any advice or encouragement and if anybody knows anything about people putting high prices on things but taking a best offer so you don't know how much things sold for, I'd like to hear about it.

Thanks in advance.

Former postal clerk who likes cool stamps and knows she isn't going to get rich.

Welcome !

When starting or evaluating a collection you have inherited there is a learning curve and a little reality.

A few basic thoughts..

Most stamps issued after the 1940's are not worth that much and often can be purchased below face value. The US stamp collectors follow the Scott Catalogue system so having a Scott Catalogue or a fully illustrated dealer price list. This allows you do know what a Scott 1053 is ($5 Alexander Hamilton)/

The fact of life - catalogue prices are an approximate and usually not reflecting market. There are two value systems: what a dealer will pay and what a particular seller would buy. Many are surprised how little they will pay -- 10 to 20% of catalogue.

Scott prices are closer to what a dealer would like to sell it but most people are selling to dealers not buying.

Value is based upon identification and condition (terms like Mint, Unused, Hinged, etc. come into play) so a catalog and perforation gauge are key. There are other tools like tongs (tweezers) for handling stamps.

A lot of prices you may see on ebay are people thinking their stamps are worth more than they are. The best advice is to find a local stamp club or experienced collector to provide guidance.

The fun is the stamps (collecting, organizing, history) but if the investment aspect is important then many get disappointed.

Don't spend a fortune on Scott catalogs. They're in the public library.

But don't let stamps turn you into a financial worrywart. TRY TO JUST HAVE FUN WITH THEM!

If this is a true photo album that was meant to hold older polaroids, etc., then you may want to remove the stamps. These can discolor and ruin stamps pretty quickly.

Good luck, and post pictures of some of your items, including the one potentially valued at $1800. We'd like to see and comment.

By all means go to the local stamp club. My local club is a bunch of older men AND women sitting around eating free cookies and talking about stamps. Lots of fun and very low key!

Welcome,
You may want to check out Stamp Smarter website, it should be helpful in identifying your stamps.
http://stampsmarter.com/
Don

Sounds to me like a Columbian Single or a Trans-Miss... At $1800, I am thinking it is a Mississippi one... very suspenseful...

The fun in the hobby is the material itself, the stories about them and where you found them and the people you connect with along the way who have their own material and stories to tell. Most collectors are very enthusiastic about their hobby or passion and very receptive to discussing all aspects of the hobby. I wouldn't be in a rush to do anything except joining a club. I wish I had one near me.

I've been collecting for almost 60 years and I've never sold one of my stamps so consider the source. You indicate that you are valuing some of your stamps by looking at ebay. Use the advanced search and look at the closed listings that actually sold. Assuming the condition of the stamp sold is similar to yours, then you might have a real world idea as to what that stamp is worth.

Thanks for all the incredibly helpful information.

First of all, let me answer the question of the ebay seller who had a stamp listed at $1875 or best offer. Someone purchased the stamp but I am pretty sure it's fairly common. It's the 1928 Valley Forge stamp, unhinged (as all of the stamps in the album are). I seem to see quite a few sets of these stamps so I know to ignore ebay's sold listings that were 'or best offer'.

Second, someone pointed out that the prices given by Scott or other catalogs are what dealers would hope to sell theirs for and it's unlikely you would get those kind of prices. Since my husband and I have been in the antiquarian books business for decades, we know that scenario well. If you are a full time professional dealer (my husband is anyway), you are making a living on buying things at lower prices so you can sell them and stay in business. That was a good reminder.

I've collected stamps intermittently for 30 years but never bothered to look up values and my interests only started when I worked in a university chair's department and we got letters from all over the world that I cut the stamps off off because I was drawn to them, uhm, liked them. I've never done anything other than look at them from time to time.

I guess I'm not a serious collector, I'm a casual collector. Whenever we would go to estate sales to purchase books for the business, I found myself drawn to fountain pens, stamp albums, and old telephones. I have a weakness for these things. I've sold a few of those common stamp albums kids used in the 40s but kept most to make a display at my local post office where we had an empty display case. When I started working at the post office in 2012, I bought a lot of sheets of stamps. I usually bought two sheets, one to use and one to keep. I knew they weren't going to be an investment but I like them. I don't know why.

Someone suggested I upload a few pictures of the album so I will because it's not a photo album, it was made, I think by the post office or some other stamp collecting company (not Scott). Oh, and thanks for the advice about tweezers. I didn't know how to get stamps out of the album, I was afraid I would accidentally tear one.

Thanks again for all the advice and information. I love the Smarter Stamp site by the way.

Which reminds me; Hobbizine has a lot of stamp prices online, are they reputable?





















Hope that's not too many photos. I wanted to show some from the album that doesn't have hinges, it is a postal collecting album copyrighted byWalter C Sargent. And I also uploaded some from the album that has hinges. I wanted to upload more but didn't want to be ridiculous.

Thanks again for all the sound information.

I did look at Hobbizine and their prices are extremely over valued. For example, my benchmark stamp Scott 1053 Alexander Hamilton is listed at $125.

Bardo Stamps bardostamps.com pricing is closer to Scott's and typical of a "dealer" price. They price the same stamp for $45 so I would divide the Hobbizine by 3 at least. A dealer would pay around $15 for it.

The picture corner mounts may damage the stamps but they stamps seems to have good color, etc.

Yes, I'd carefully remove the stamps from the photo mounts and put them in a stock-book.