Strange Circumstances

Hello all,

This is my first post!
Some background: when I was a child I somehow inherited a stamp collection from an old man whom I had never even met (something like a grandma's friend's neighbor's husband?). So now I've been revisiting the collection and have been wondering about the value of some of them.
This man collected stamps from all over the world, so I'll probably be popping up all over this forum.
Below I've attached some images of stamps from his American book that it seemed he had valued the highest in his lifetime.
If you have any knowledge of these things, please help!

1894





1851-7



1862-3

(Two confederate stamps that I cannot seem to upload regardless of how many rules I follow!
One is an 1862 blue five cent stamp, the other is an 1863 "10 Cent")

My guesses are as follows: Scott # J32 Postage Due and J52 & J53 for the other Postage Dues. The next one is probably either Scott # 10A or 11A. Slight differences in colors that don't always come through from scans makes the difference in identifying the stamps. Hope this helped.

The 1851-57 3-cent stamp with the grid cancel is a Scott #11A, probably printed from plate 1L (1 late). Are there any annotations written on the back of this stamp?

People, we need a different title to this post. Godiva12 please edit so we know what the subject is or ask a moderator. Thank you,


Peter

If you have a lot of stamps to ID, might I suggest a trip to your local public libraries now that most are back in operation. Check out or browse through for Scott's Catalogue. It's a set of 13 books (plus Classics). "US Specialized Catalogue of United stamps Stamps and Covers" Volume 1A is what you will need for most things US. There are different volumes for other countries.

Not sure many folks use libraries anymore, but the alternative (the internet) is free and always open. Stamp Smarter offer a large amount of information as does communities like this one. For any new person coming into the hobby, it is well worth the time to spend a few hours doing online discovery.

The original poster can find specific information on all US stamps here https://stampsmarter.org/features/H...fiersUS.html. Additionally, I recommend the Illustrated Glossary located here https://stampsmarter.org/Learning/G...aryHome.html and the 'How To' section of the library here https://stampsmarter.org/learning/Home_HowTo.html
Don