Hello From New Jersey! Finally Going Through My Great-Grandfather's Collection!

Hello everyone!

I am finally going through my great-grandfather's gift to me: his 5 stamp albums and shoebox full of small satchels and an entire collection of mounted pre-sold collections of stamps, most from 1890-1940. So many from overseas, he travelled extensively as a soldier.

I know next to nothing about stamp collecting, so I'm looking forward to learning much!

A basic catalog, which you can borrow through many libraries will help. The Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue is 6 volumes (divided into 12 actual books the past few years), so it would be best just to pick a couple of countries to start. Best of luck and ask questions when needed. Specific questions may call for specific images to be posted. After that, a basic stamp collecting book would help answer many questions. Welcome.

Ah ,, your photos did now show up on my screen at first. Are the Canadian stamps placed on the page with mounts or are they fastened directly to the paper with something like glue?

They are all mounted with these little mounting tapes, there's actually a box of them in the shoebox that's probably 90+ years old! The albums have pages and pages of these, all organized by country.

The small packets (eg the Hitler one) look like packets bought from stamp dealers over the counter or by mail probably in the 1940s or 1950s. The likelihood is that they're common stamps, but, if you wanted to collect, they'd make an attractive start. Your "mounting tapes" are probably stamp hinges.

Yes, from a a few brief searches I can probably safely assume that some of the completed sets are worth maybe $5-10 but this size of my family isn't well documented, so I'm much more interested in honoring his work while making it more accessible to me and my own kids.

But how in the world do I catalogue all of this? A spreadsheet? Any suggestions welcome.

Welcome to the forum! And it looks like you have a great start to a fantastic hobby! Ask away...


Peter

I use a Coin database that is modified for stamps. Its also free. It also has a demo for stamps to show you what it looks like.

***No 'drive-by' links for new members please***
https://www.stampcommunity.org/rules.asp#rulesid8

Many people start with a spreadsheet, and then either eventually use another program or stick with a spreadsheet, and just modify it as needed. Best to keep it simple until you decide how much & to what detail you want to track your stamps.

Welcome!

Dale

StampFromThePast,

Your stamps are probably much more valuable to you given they came from your great grand father than any dealer. Hope you enjoy your family treasures, add to them, and pass them on to future generations.

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. Russ

You never know what has been used as a hinge. The last lot I bought had a bunch of stamps loose off paper, but the 'hinge remnants' are hole punch reinforcements. Yes, the little white rings you put on ripped 3 ring pages. They looked pretty old too. They are folded sideways, not up and down. Made me laugh pretty loud.

An awful lot of people who inherit -- or find -- stamp collections, immediately wonder how much they're "worth" as if that's the point of a stamp collection. But the person collecting those stamps, maybe for many years, probably didn't think that way very often. They collected them because they enjoyed it, because it helped them learn about the world, and it kept their mind focused away from all the petty annoyances of daily life. To reduce that to how much it's "worth" kind of cheapens the whole thing. Now, if it's an anonymous collection from somewhere, maybe that's all you can do. But if it's one you inherited from someone in your family, I'd value it much more as a family treasure than as monetary value.

It's more than likely a collection of common stamps since nearly all collections are. If you want an idea of its value, look at the Scott Postage Stamp Catalogues. But that's gong to take a lot of time stamp by stamp, and I know what you're going to end up with. It's a modest collection of little value. Realize that whatever "catalogue value" you end up with is not its retail value which will be much lower, as little as 10% of the catalogue value, perhaps a little more if the stamps are very nice and not so common. You might hope for 20% of catalogue value from a stamp buyer at a dealer. Sold one set at a time, you'd get more money, but do you really want to devote hundreds of hours to doing that? I sure wouldn't.

I'd get a rough idea of its value with a few hours with a catalogue and leave it at that. Then I'd either enjoy it, build on it by adding more stamps, or give it away to someone who collects stamps and will enjoy it. For me, at least, the last choice would be to sell it given the likelihood of it not earning much money. Of course, if it's filled with expensive stamps, that's a whole different story.

Those little pieces of paper that hold the stamps on the page are called "stamp hinges". The books stamps are mounted in are generally called "albums". Have fun!

Hello New Jersey!

There is much that can be said about stamp collecting. Stamps are of interest for various factors including: rarity, value, beauty, and historical significance. For example, the stamps you showed with the image of Hitler are low in terms of rarity and value, and it is hard to think of anything more ugly than the image of Hitler. But they have historical significance. Those particular stamps are "General Government" stamps issued during the occupation of Poland by Germany in WWII. If you were a Pole in the early 1940s, you would have to use these stamps with the image of the person who conquered you country on it. You would have to lick the back of those stamps to send a letter. How would that make you feel?

You mentioned that you looked forward to learning a lot. This may be the greatest value of philately. I don't know how old you are, but as you get older, you need to force yourself to keep learning new things. Learning keeps you brain in good condition, much like physical exercise keeps your body in good condition. There are many on this forum who could spend 5 minutes with your stamps and tell you fairly accurately what they are worth, because they have decades of seeing and valuing stamps in there mind. The more your learn and keep learning, the better your mind works.

There is a book that is considered an excellent introduction to the hobby: Fundamentals of Philately

https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals...p/0933580134

I'd get a copy and read every word. Your brain will thank you!