Relative Value Of US Mint Hinged Collection - Sell, Or Use As Postage?

Hi all,

Am interested to hear your thoughts on this: I have a pretty complete US collection in a Harris album. (From Scott 1, 2 and onward, excluding only some of the high-end stuff, like dollar Columbians, some of the coils, etc, all the way up until the early 1990s.)

Picked up a near-mint Scott National album that goes up until the late 60s and have been slowly migrating stamps to that. While the Harris album is virtually complete, given that they left out spaces for the really expensive material, the National album obviously has more holes with stamps I might afford someday (and those I certainly won't). That's okay, though, since the luxurious presentation of the National more than makes up for it.

The problem is that pretty much everything is hinged. Not an issue for the earlier material, but I get the sense that this drastically devalues the post-1940s material. The collection is in fantastic shape, and every space is neatly filled, but they're all hinged to the page. There are fortunately a handful of e.g. the $9.95 Priority Mail issues that are in glassines, but almost everything else is hinged.

Given that I personally *prefer* used stamps to mint (philosophical reasons!), I have no problem using them for postage and, once I find a suitable add-on to my National album, tracking down clean, postally used examples instead.

Because they're hinged, are they just worth face? Or still more, especially as a pretty intact collection?

From the year 1935 to the present the stamps are worth face value, and even then, only as postage. There are a handful of exceptions. The hinging is irrelevant. Sorry.

If you are looking to sell, you will be offered significantly less than face for almost everything after WWII for NH and even less for H.

I would also think that if you are willing to trade, there are many p pole on this forum that would gladly give you a nice used version for a mint, hinged version. Just a thought.