Beginner In Philately - Need Help

Hi all,

I have a huge collection of stamps from all over the world, inherited from my FIL. He was an avid Philatelist and his collection encompasses periods, themes and a lot others that I am yet to understand. The stamps have all been preserved immaculately and cataloged expertly.

I need help in understanding the value of the stamps and I have attached some pics, can anyone in this learned forum help me understand more about these stamps.

I will upload more pics as I get to them, thanks in advance, much appreciated.
Pic 1- 1882, Garfield 5 Cents, Pic 2 - 1875 Zachary Taylor 5 Cent, Pic 3 - 1894 Postage due 1 Cent, part of a larger collection

Kamal Indian,

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

I am sure your FIL [father in law?] received great enjoyment and pleasure from his stamps. Wishing you the same.

Welcome.
A good place to start for learning more on US stamps is here http://stampsmarter.com/1847usa/1847Home.html
Don

Looks like the first two stamps you posted may have been chosen based on the extremely high catalog price for some very rare instances of them. Don's recommendation is a good place to start your search, but you probably also want to consider getting a copy of the Scott Specialized US catalog which provides great info about each of the stamps; grill / no grill; gum / no gum; scissor cut / torn, soft porous paper, wove paper, etc. For the Taylor, you probably have the most common variety (Scott 179) which , in a well centered, cancelled instance catalogs for $25.

Where are you from? If outside the US, the catalogue numbers may be Gibbons numbers.

By Gibbons, he means Stanley Gibbons. Scott and Gibbons are the biggies. You can purchase catalogs online. For USA, go to Mystic and get a USA one for free. Or..., you can go to the library.

Jack Kelley