Inherited A Small Worldwide Stamps And Old Letters

Hello I have a small collection of stamps that are worldwide and it looks to me they're mainly from 1974. Then I have bunch of old letters & postcardsfrom my grandmother starting around 1932 and are attracted to the envelope. Have no idea their value or what to do with them.

Eric,
I have very bad news (potentially)
That is referred to, as a "Magnetic" photo album,
The lines are of a glue substance,
I would suggest all the stamps are damaged, and worthless (A term I very rarely use )

Tip: Remove some stamps, and see if they have the glue lines transferred to the back of the stamps, if so , damaged irreparably.
I hope not, Good Luck.
The envelopes (covers) may be salvageable, US specialists here, will advise.

PS: Your Grandmother's envelopes not suitable to save for Family geneology? Interest?

The stamps are in a photo album - extremely bad medium for stamps. Please remove from these pages as soon as you can

Peter

Ok as for the photo album stamps that's the way I got them and the plastic around them as well as the stamps dont stick if I were to shake the photo album the stamps would just slide off.

Welcome to the forum, Ericsavedfred. Nice collection to learn from and possibly grow. The others are correct about those "magnetic" photo albums with the wax stripes. They will "bleed" an oily substance over time and cause damage. Best to avoid. Just get some stocksheets or stockbook to put them in for now.

Browse the site and check out the stampsmarter site to learn more about what you have. Biggest thing is to have fun, and someone will always give you good advice or information to use, learn and grow your knowledge base. Enjoy!

Mike

As for the letters I have many more about 100 in total. Also it would have been my great great mother who I never met. The letters are from my cousin who was incarcerated. The story goes she had four children from four different men, never married which in the thirties being full blooded indian she was looked down upon. That plus the fact it was said she bootlegged whiskey during the prohibition. Supposedly her bar looked like an ordinary house from the outside. I would of loved that recipe for the whiskey through I checked she never wrote it down. I do admire for being Indian she had very nice and neat penmanship.

Also I'm pulling the stamps off the album and it looks like they cut around the stamp so many have the envelope behind the stamp

If that makes any difference

On those photos of the stamps with paper still attached you can see the brown lines from the photo album. This is what others mentioned above. Stamp collectors are serious about clean, undamaged stamps. If those brown lines are on the stamps themselves then they are damaged. Don't fool yourself and say "those lines are almost invisible, no one would notice that." Collectors will notice. You should take photos of the stamps on the pages and save those photos. It may be hard but throw the damaged stamps away. Any stamps with paper on the back could be soaked in water and kept. The stamps on the envelopes look to be common and should be kept on the envelopes.

Frankly, it doesn't matter what you do with the loose stamps, and I shouldn't myself spend time photographing them. The real interest lies in the letters from your grandmother that you've described. If this were my family, I'd love to have these, and would keep them and the envelopes they came in.

Okay I got it the album stamps the lucky winner of that beautiful collection is the trashman. So the letters stay on the envelopes or should I very carefully peal them from the envelope. I'll give a couple a try and see how that goes. I'll post a full complete photo of all of them....GeoffHa... how do I put this starting with my great grand mother bootlegging whiskey from a bar that was also her house. Let's just say from there each next generation just got worse.

Opinion:
Your stamps, your choice.
"Best practice" would have you leave them well alone, what purpose does soaking them off, achieve? apart from a waste of time.

Your family's history, is what it is. You may judge it harshly, but that's all it is, judgement. Your descendents may well value this history highly.

If you are faced with a choice of "right" or "kind"..choose "kind"

Indeed. For instance, fifty years ago, Aussies whose ancestors were transported kept quiet about it. Things are different now. Like Rod, I'd leave the stamps on the envelopes and the letters in the envelopes, and keep them safe.

Indeed Geoff, we celebrate our criminals,
If your descendent was a convict.....huge bragging rights.
The first Australians of course, were our indigenous.

What we really are celebrating, is our history, most of us like to know where we came from.