A Side Job Cleaning Storage Lockers May Have Led To A Cool Collection?

Hello all,

Glad to be with you all and explore everything there has to do with stamps.

Here is a little about myself and my possibly lucky find. I am a full time musician, so I have been forced to find some side work during all of this craziness. I picked up a job clearing out old storage units. I stumbled upon a old wooden box in one of the overly cluttered units. At first glance I thought it was an old recipe book. Upon further inspection it ended up being labels of countries from all over the world.

The contents of the box ended up being stamps from all over the world. I have not counted them all yet, but I would estimate there are 30-40 countries total. Some countries have 3-5 stamps, while others have 30-40 stamps. The general time frame of the stamps have been the early 1900's to the late 1940's.

After some research and scouring google, it seems that we may have some stamps of some value. Most stamps have been in the .20-.50cent range, some in the $1-5, a few in the $100's depending on watermarks/perforations.

My wife and I are documenting each stamp. Initially, we are just using a website to get general estimates of each stamp so we are not walking into an appraisal blind. We have been thoroughly enjoying going through all of the stamps and admiring the beauty and creativity behind them!

So my question is, what should we do with this find? We honestly have no interest in keeping them, but would love to find them a good home at a honest evaluation.

We wondered if we should try to sell the collection as a whole(rarity of 30+ countries together?) or sell the high value stamps individually...?

We live in the Chicagoland area and have been looking for stamp collectors/appraisers/etc..


Thank you all in advance for any advice!

Hello. Perhaps the best first step would be to upload some scans of what you consider the scarcer items.

Welcome.
It is always best to start with the assumption that you have the most common stamps. It would be like finding a stash of lottery tickets in the locker. yes, there is a chance that you might have a winner but the odds are against it. Most stamps were printed in the millions and even billions. During long production runs, sometimes less common varieties were produced and collectors enjoy hunting for them. Many collectors never find a real rarity in a lifetime.
I agree with GeoffHa, posting some images would be the best approach in getting feedback on the scope of your find.
Don

Here are a few -

These seem very common stamps. Which stamps do you think are in the 1000+ range?

The very heavy hinges - if you can call those hinges - on the Northern Rhodesia stamps are not a good sign.

luckyfind88,

Welcome to the forum!

I concur with the other posters that the stamps you have shown are pretty common,

Keep posting though! You never know. You might even get the stamp collecting bug!

What interested me the most about your post was the storage method. It brought back a lot of memories. When my dad was young, he used to keep his duplicates in church offering envelopes. It's the first time I've seen anyone do that besides dad.

Dan

What stamps list for and what they sell for is wider than the Grand Canyon. The stamps you have are a fun hobby. There is much be had here but $$ is not one of them. Keep studying and showing pictures.