Large Collection Tasked To Sort, Ideas About How!

Hi SCF,

My grandfather was a huge collector of stamps and postal history, and I have the task of sorting it out. I have to say that there may be little interest to add to the collection. (TBH, a collection of postcards from 1900-1920s by his sister hold more of an interest to me because of the family history in the correspondence.)

I will open a thread or two in the ' inherited' section to give you an idea of the monumental task. He has GB stamps from 1840s through to 2000, including collections he had put together, first day covers, and special collections (ie Royal weddings, etc.) There are similar stamps and collections from IoM, Channel Islands, Falklands and the Commonwealth.

Q1. Some of these stamps are in little A6 size notebooks, stuck on the page with hinges. What should I do about them? Carefully remove the stamp and hinge from the book and place in a proper album? Should the hinges be left on the back? Don't panic! Will NOT attempt to peel off.

Q2. Some stamps are in albums with these hinges on, but not attached to the page, should these be left?

I am coming across loads of unsorted stamps from all over the world; they are probably from 1920s through to WWII. As well of stamps in collectors albums aimed at kiddies. The albums are in very poor condition. Grandfather lived in house with open coal fire, very dirty. Don't think these stamps have great value.

Q3. Should these left in albums or transferred to modern?

There are many, over 200 letters, comprising his postal history collection. This has not been sorted.

Q4. How would you sort these? Try to put in date order?

Finally, where are good places to get albums / pages to put stamps in?

Hello. I shouldn't take anything out of albums for the time being. If you decide to sell, old albums can do well on ebay. There's no point in your transferring their stamps to modern albums unless you want to collect yourself. You also shouldn't spend too much time on the modern FDCs, royal weddings, IoM and Channel Islands - these things are a bit of a drug on the market. Perhaps get the unsorted material in some sort of order - I'd start with area or continent, eg GB, British Empire, Europe etc. You can then break down into countries. Good luck!

bpld_kobppold,

What a wonderful project. Hopefully, like the post cards, you and future generations will enjoy looking through these treasures.

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

Have uploaded some piccies to the ' inherited' forum.

Welcome.

Dale

Welcome!

Before going out an investing in printed album pages, I would suggest purchasing stock pages (my preference are Lighthouse brand Vario). These should be available in the UK.

Initially, you can sort by country and this will help you understand. You may have to soak the stamps off the pages and hinges. There are videos on youtube on how to properly soak stamps.

If you want to organize more, you will need to obtain a catalog that assists with identification (country, date of issue). I suspect you would use Stanley Gibbons since in the UK.