My Dad's 50+ Year Collection - Where Do I Start?

There are some nice proofs and essays, and some scarcer stamps in very nice condition (catalog values go higher then what some here have posted). The overall condition is very good, and I agree that Richard or Eric would be the people to talk to first. There is also a dealer named Denny Peoples who deals in the ephemera end of a collection such as this as well as the stamps.

I thought I'd follow up on this. I took the collection to St Louis last month. I had gotten in touch with Richard Freidberg and I met him there. He appraised dad's collection for no charge. He also got me in touch with the folks at Harmer Schau, and since no one in the family wanted to have the collection, I consigned it for sale in their August auction. He estimated a 7-10k selling price, which is less than dad paid for the collection over the years but a lot of his stamps were not optimal quality. Anyway, thanks for the advice.

Thanks for letting us know Andy. Please let us know how the collection goes at auction! Best of luck

Andy,

The important thing is that you now have the estate valuation that you needed.

Jack Kelley

You can fit in a thimble what I know about revenues but I love when an advice seeker posts really great, desireable material. The match revenues are especially cool.

The auction rep and Richard split the collection up into I think 6 lots. The ephemera and the match labels were each separate. There were also a couple lots of 1-3 stamps, along with two large lots (representing different types)

Had a chance to talk with a guy looking through Richard's beer stamps. I never knew such a thing existed. That was cool.

Final hammer price was almost $13k, which was quite a bit more than anyone was expecting.

Sort of sad to see it go, but you can't save everything,so I had to pick and choose. I did keep dad's Regina music box and Edison cylinder player, along with the 1800s roll top desk he had in his office when he was teaching.

Very nice! There's some value here, I think. Properly appraised, you should be able to sell without great difficulty. I also like ephemera, and display some material with related stamps, such as exhibition post cards, poster stamps, or admission tickets alongside the Columbian, Trans-Mississippi, Pan-American exposition commemoratives. Doesn't add much value, but to my way of thinking it makes for interesting and engaging displays.