New Guy Trying To Sort Through Grandpa's Collection

More Australia (better view). Interesting the one with the swan in the top left has a cancellation stamp about election voting being compulsory...

HAB, not to be picky but please do not put your stamps in a photo album as the pages are not acid free

Peter

Petert4522- please be picky. Total newbie here! Everything is as my grandfather left it. I would like to know how to best catalogue and preserve everything for sure!

Welcome!

Suggest that you keep everything stored in a cool dry place. Everything looks to be well cared for so far.

Also, black photo album pages are not the best thing for stamps. The black ink can transfer with handling and the paper tends to absorb moisture, bad for stamp gum. Again, good storage looks to have saved these stamps so far. Check out posts on albums and stockbooks here and on stamp supply sales sites. That said, I would want to somehow save the beautifully lettered headers as found on the Canada Jubilees page.

Hello all!

I have been posting more in the relevant countries stamps topics but I thought I would do a general update here since it is more about the entire collection than individual stamps.

I have been getting up early before work every day and sometimes late into the evening after work trying to go through all grandpa's stamps and get them semi organized and removed from the less than desirable oldschool black non-archival paper albums he was initially working with. I have gone through and gotten a Canada section with some of his better examples (there are so many more than this still!) Documented and laid out. This should make it much easier later when I want to go through and set up a much nicer display but I had to start somewhere. He has so many more countries to go through but I am happy to have gotten to this point so far.

Anyhow, please check the pics out and let me know if anyone has any extra advice or questions... Thanks!

Love the waythe last set of stamps are organized.

Hi Hab, really nice collection. My father back to the 40's started a collection as your grapnpa did.
I have almost finished to separate from of any value envelopes tousend of Machins. Hope to get among them a rare pearl.

Nice pics, If I can add a comment, do not keep them inside plastics envelope. With time plastics chance colour and shape and this could effect the quality of stemps. The papar use for the stemps inder is the best one.

I think you'll find that most of us, at least in part, use stock-pages of this kind without problems.

The Canada 155-159 on the black page appears to have the stamps mounted in old Crystal Mounts which are very bad indeed. They grip the stamps too tightly, and the glue used to seal them is dangerous to stamps. I'd very gently slit them open (they're stupidly sealed shut, another very bad idea) with a sharp pen knife or hobby knife, remove the stamps and store them in a stock book or on Vario pages for later re-mounting. Generally, Crystal Mounts are pretty much reviled nowadays. They're recognizable because they will have a distinctive brown glue strip visible through the mount (pretty ugly), glue may leak out, and the mount has rounded edges that wrap around the stamp (a bad idea) unlike modern mounts which simply "clasp" the stamp between front and back.

The stamps mounted on lined notebook paper may need to be removed, as well, and can be put into a stockbook or on Vario pages quickly and easily. The chance is relatively high that the notebook paper is cheap and acidic and might damage the stamps. Maybe not, but better safe than sorry.

Get rid of the photo album if it's the kind which has glue on the pages to hold photos. That glue is death to photos and will ruin stamps.

Be sure to use stamp tongs to handle stamps. After awhile, you'll find they're much better than even your hands and will damage stamps much less, keeping dirt and grease off them. Glassine envelopes are a good way to store bulk stamps for later sorting. Both tongs and glassine can be purchased on Amazon and from many normal stamp suppliers like Subway, Amos Advantage, and others.

It's an excellent idea to remove the stamps and put them onto Vario (or other) stock pages, as you're doing. Store the binders upright in a place where the temp and the humidity don't wildly fluctuate where they will be safe (ie. NOT in a garage or basement ever). "Airing" them out which means just flipping through the pages once in awhile will also keep stamps fresh. Don't seal them up, in other words. You can store them in slipcases to keep dust and dirt away, and be aware that various household bugs eat paper, so keep them up off the floor and be watchful. Certain citrus smells and others tend to keep bugs away, I've read.

Keep at it! Nice collection, maybe better than my modest Canada collection.

A nice, solid collection of Canada to build on! Lots of good mint in there. And couldn't agree more on the Crystal mounts - the stamps in a small Israel collection I got last year as part of a bulk lot had been mounted using Crystal mounts and were 80% ruined by them.

Thanks all! I definitely am working at getting everything safely stored and then I am going to start figuring out a nice display. I get nervous removing the stamps from their current storage methods and have yet to try and remove them from the crystal mounts. Hopefully they are not stuck excessively in there!

Everything is looking great. Hope my heirs pay attention to my collection as well as you are handling your grandfather's!!!

Got to put on a few hours today going through more of Grandpa's stamps, today focusing on Newfoundland. Not near as comprehensive as some of his other countries and regions but pretty cool I must say! I also found a New Brunswick and two Nova Scotia stamps as well as a weird Ontario Law stamp. Anyhow, another day down and better organized... Hope you all like it!

Thank you for sharing. Looking good. Your Ontario Law stamp is Van Dam OL47.