Not Totally New To Stamps But After Years, Going Through My Collection

Hi everyone! Brand new to this site. I'm looking for advice and direction on this to learn and enjoy(again) collecting stamps.

My grandfather collected stamps and got me into it as a little kid. I still have my stamps, little books, hinged stamps, some mint blocks and sheets that I bought and put into the kinda see through envelopes. When he passed, I inherited his collection. A nice binder of US stamps, all mounted in the black backing/clear front mounts. Also many envelopes of mint 4x4 blocks, some sheets, collector envelopes. I've also collected other's small collections when they cleaned out their attics, etc and didn't want them. Those are mostly very old albums in bad shape, white envelopes with stamps in them, bags of stamps.. a lot of them stuck together. One album was printed in 1908 covers the years 1901-1908 world wide, kinda falling apart, stamps falling out.. some hinged some licked and stuck right to the pages. The dedication in the front looks like it was a Christmas gift from father(papa) to son. It's pretty cool to see the page art, language, and countries that don't exist anymore.

So besides the one nice album from late 1980's from my grandfather, I have a bunch of junky albums and piles of loose/stuck together stamps that I've just kept adding to a large box.

I want to do this right and learn, I'm not concerned with spending money on something thats not worth the care. I have young kids and I would love to get them into this and have them learn with me - either about the world or about stamps.

My idea was to buy albums, starting with the US. Not touching my grandfather's album but with my old one and all the loose/old mess laying around and mount them all in the black/clear plastic mounts. Then start getting albums for other countries.

So my questions are: How does that sound? Is there a better way to do it? Should I make albums of different qualities or go for more complete collections?

For the blocks and sheets, how would I organize them and store/display them?

For the stuck together lumps and stamps in the old and bad quality albums.. should I soak them in water to separate them? I don't want to make things worse off than they already are but a good majority of the stamps are pretty common as I remember seeing them a lot when I was a kid collecting them.

And finally, any recommendations for the albums so I don't have to spend hours on Amazon trying to second guess myself on which one is the best choice.

I know I'm asking a lot and I'm thankful for any insight and help. And I'd gladly post any pics if anyone is interested.

Albums can be expensive. Depending on the number of stamps that you have from each country it might be best to start organizing your stamps in stock pages, either Manila or plastic see through pages like Vario. It is difficult to advise what to do with the old stamp albums and stuck together stamps, but soaking is likely your best option. The blocks and sheets are likely worth less today than when they were purchased (inflation) and most will sell for 50% of face value, depending on denomination. As with most things philatelic a picture is worth a thousand words. If you post a few of what you have people will be better able to offer advice or opinions.

There is a classical view is that you purchase an pre-printed album, some hinges or mounts, a catalog for the country, tongs/tweezers, magnifying glass, etc. This can be a significant amount of money depending on what you want to collect. With an album you may be faced with many spaces and that may seem overwhelming.

One way to reduce this initial outlay is to buy previously used albums. You can find these on ebay or from a collector that is upgrading. They will often have stamps that jump starts the collection.

You have a lot of choices in pre-printed albums (Scott, Mystic, Harris) and album pages you can print yourself.

The other approach is just organize them on stock pages such as Vario brand (not only brand) until you reach some critical mass where you know what you want to do.

The key aspect is to collect how you want to collect and not how someone wants you to collect, The only aspect is to not store stamps in poor environmental conditions (like damp basement) and properly handle and mount stamps - no tape or glue to attach to page.

You would have to soak stamps stuck to pages. If glues were used, it is more complicated.

I am not sure this helps.

Thank you both - I just spread them out in my shop and took a couple of pics... waiting for them to sync with the laptop so I can upload them. It's not of everything, there's duplicated items that I just left in the boxes. Its been a good 25-30 years since I've messed with my collection, and never with the stuff I've acquired since. I didn't think of stock pages to lump a country into, thats a good idea. lots of what you both said have given me stuff to think about.

Ultimately, I don't care what it costs in the end, but it would be nice to make a dent in these without spending too much initially. The end goal is a collection that was fun and educational for myself and the kids to put together and looks beautiful in the end. I want it to stand up to time better than how they already have. Something that myself and the kids can look at from time to time - gently..

I'd like to have a couple albums for the US stamps - maybe one for each kid and myself, one for the really nice ones. Then for the international ones, maybe we can start with the stock pages for now just to get them organized then get some used or new books. I'm not opposed to buying the used books even now to grow it.

stuck down common mint US can still be used for postage, common stuck down mint foreign is virtually worthless in the market, but both are good teaching tools for the kids (and it won't matter if they manhandle them or use PB&J fingers on them)

Bill,
I collect images of old Postage Stamp Albums
Your "International Postage Stamp Album" looks fabulous.

If you care to post a full front image, and, maybe the frontispiece, I would be delighted.

Thank you.

Sure thing, how's this - cover and first couple of pages.

Thank you kindly Bill.
I saw one either sold, or for sale $350
Depends of course what stamps were included.

The "rulers" as mentioned, I believe to be these examples, and others.

Looks like an interesting project. I would focus on putting the US stamps in your Grandfather's Harris album (up to the last date in the album) and use stock pages for the extra US and all of the International stamps. The old International album is probably worth a few bucks to some collector (with or without stamps) so you might leave the stamps in it until you have a better idea of what you want to do with it.
Just to emphasize, I would not leave this accumulation in your shop for any extended period. Stamps need to be where you live, assuming that you live in relatively low humidity and about 70 degrees.

The shop was just where we could spread them out for the photo shoot for here - lol. They are upstairs with us in the play room where we can work on them.

So I've ordered some stock pages, long tweezers, black back/clear mounts that should be here Wednesday. For now, the stock pages will go into surplus 3 ring binders that we have while doing all this. Eventually when we have enough of a particular country or continent, we will get nice binders.

As for the work, we've started separating them into envelopes for countries, and a pile that will need to be soaked - either stamps on a torn off envelope or the ones that are all stuck together.

Finding some interesting things, especially from the old piles I've acquired from friends. I'll post some pics tonight, I found a couple things that I have no idea if they're collectible or not. They're like pressed in stamps so to speak, like when you get something notarized. I think one is from India decades ago. Some are also perfectly straight edge "stamps" again - same thing, pressed into paper with no adhesive or anything on the back. I think someone cut them off of whatever they came on.

So I ordered mounts to start transferring things to my grandfather's album and I noticed that the vast majority of stamps in there were mint/unused condition. He had a stroke several years before he passed and all of his hobbies started to suffer from the exacting standards that he used to do them to - that might explain the very small handful of canceled stamps I found. I know the devil is in the details - and sometimes I can't get over them without some insight and advice. Would it be better to keep his book mint only stamps and get a new book for all of the rest?

It's really a matter of personal preference. The orthodox view has long been that, for presentational reasons, you should avoid mixing mint and used stamps on a page. However, there are many stamps that are affordable when used and expensive when mint (or, occasionally, vice versa). Once you've organised things, you can see what you prefer.