Inherited Stamp Collection Need Advice!

Note: This is was first posted under the general discussions and was advised to post under this forum.

I inherited a stamp collection/accumulation from my brother who collected stamps for over 50 years and had a stamp business in the mid 1970's. I've started to organize it and have some questions on what to spend time on. His collection includes several boxes of loose stamps from all over the world sent to him over the years that have been torn off of envelopes, several boxes of loose stamps not on paper in small vellum envelopes, old stamp albums, first day issue covers, plate blocks and full sheets of unused stamps (mostly US) and some old stamp albums with a few stamps in them. Has anyone used the Stamp Manager software? This is very over-whelming! Hope the picture downloads work. Where do I start!!

For the stamps that are torn off the envelopes - are they worth more if I soaked them off the paper or keep them on the paper? What is the best way to store the stamps - in albums or leave in the vellum envelopes? Any advice is certainly appreciated.

Please note that the pictures I posted are just a very little sampling of the entire collection.

Hi lwr, and welome to the forum. The answer of your inquiry depends a lot on what you plan on doing. This could be a great start of your own collection - or maybe you would like to go on a trip around the world. Please let us know your intentions,

Peter

I don't even know where to begin right now. This was my late brother's passion and I want to really know what I have. I've been doing research on the internet and it's pretty over-whelming and interesting at the same time. There are so many ways to value each stamp! I've at least started organizing them by country and then going from there. For the ones that are on paper - someone told me to not bother with them and just donate them to a stamp club. However, I'm not yet convinced that's what I want to do - in going through them, especially the worldwide ones there are some pretty interesting looking ones. How do most collectors inventory their collections? ANY advice is welcomed!!

Try and determine if there is a stamp club in your area, and if there is, go to a meeting and talk with folks there. They should be able to guide you.

Those books you have, "The Encyclopedia of colors", are
valuable!

Yes, White's books reach several hundreds of dollars at auctions....

Most collectors probably don't "inventory" their collections, although many do, and obsessively. Whether you keep this material or get rid if it, your initial approach of sorting the loose material or the stamps in glassines and approval/dealer sheets into countries or geographical/political areas is the right one. If you sell, eg via auction, the more organised the material, the more it is likely to fetch. As your sorting progresses, you might find it helpful to store the stamps in stock-books. From the look of the stamps on paper, I'd assume very little financial value, and I shouldn't put effort into soaking them at this stage.

I think the big question here is what is in the Scott Albums? I would expect that a collector who owned the Color Encyclopedia was a serious collector but it all depends what he put in the albums. The rest of the stuff isn't worth much except perhaps for the glassines but still only $100-200. The albums could be a different story.

Yes, agree with Ken. Perhaps scan a few of the early pages from several countries (maybe start with some European countries) and show here.

First, welcome to the forum and sorry for the loss of your brother. It is not the best way to gain a collection.
Second, on " How do most collectors inventory their collections? " Uhhh... Well, welcome to our world of boxes, albums, loose stamps, glassines, dealer pages, mint sheet files, literature, plate blocks, country collections, world-wide stamps, BOB (back-of-the-book= mostly non basic postage), postal history, First Day Covers (FDC), etc.
I agree with Geoffha that inventory systems range from almost nothing to extremely detailed ones. I suggest that you read a bunch of the threads on this forum and kinda decide what you want to concentrate on. Some people love the sorting and organizing (inventory), others love filling holes in their collections, some want to concentrate on one issue (or country, or topical, or #1 of the world) and many like it all. About the only absolute is "DO NO HARM TO THE STAMPS".
Again, welcome to our world.

Along with the others, I welcome you to Stamp Collecting. I am also intrigued with the White Encyclopedias, as I have several of those in my possession. The volumes I-II, and III-IV are clear, and I also own the Papers and Gums binder. I am curious as to what is in Volume V. Can you take a look and report back? Could you also see if the Papers and Gums binder has actual paper samples?

There was only a limited print of this set (400?), and we have had several discussions in this forum about the value of an older book meant to differentiate colors. I believe it is a worthwhile item, but only if it was kept in a good place, away from light and other sources of damage. You may want to open up and look at a few of the color pages and see if they appear to be in good shape.

One wonders why he would have spent money on this item, as it is useful only for identifying colors of the earliest US stamps. Maybe one of those US Scott Albums has some interesting items in the front? Post some pictures, if you can.

Thanks for posting.

Lwr, I think there is a shortcut to your strategic decision: keep or sale
Why don't you ask several insurance companies that insure stamp collections to come and give you a quotation? [Make sure you have handy all the certificates of the high-value stamps.]
Like that, you at least will have a starting point ...

Thank you all for your posts! I appreciate all the information and how welcoming everyone is. I will try to get some more pictures of what is in the albums. As for the White Encyclopedias - they all seem to be in excellent condition - they look brand new to me. The Papers and Gums does not have actual paper samples. Volume V covers the Postage Due Issues 1879-1916. If you want more information, I can send a photo of the Table of Contents. At this point, I think that I will take the advice to start sorting by country and denomination. I will talk to my insurance company about getting some kind of insurance on it. Thank you again to everyone! Any advice, help and comments are greatly appreciated!

You may want to investigate joining the American Philatelic Society. It is the US national stamp society. Along with general information, stamp sales, and a monthly magazine, they also have a insurance program specifically for stamp collections. I think $11000 replacement value is $32 per year. There are other collectible insurance companies that offer similar insurance for stamps. It "may" be a better deal than an additional rider on your home owner policy. Good luck.

As several other have pointed out, the White books are normally owned by more advanced collectors of US stamps, and thus while the stamps you showed are not valuable, he might have had some better ones. If you can find his main US collection, show us some of the fist pages that have stamps on them.