New Member Just Inherited Massive Collection,

Welcome.

Stamp insurance - For APS members :

https://stamps.org/services/insurance

It says in his records he acquired these coat of arms stamps in the 1940's from work. I assume it was probably an Iranian industrial engineer. He himself was an industrial engineer in oil and gas after being a soldier in WWII (engineer corps in france and other places). He designed gas and oil meters from late 1940's up to the 1980's. He traveled and collected alot of middle eastern country's like that I imagine. He was also addicted to auctions. Alot of his stamps come from auctions and his father (my great grandfather) also collected that way. Estate auctions, stamp shows, and things like that.

https://fuchs-online.com/iran/lions-11.htm

The top left suggests it should be a type B 5 Kran.
The lower right value tablet does appear different from the type B cliché.




Looking different does not change a violet colour into a bronze-violet that was due to mixing bronze-red ink that is a completely different colour. The image does not show a hint of bronze-red.

Thanks for that link. Only 4000 of these stamps ever existed in the world!? That is wild. Probably alot less nowadays.

Also NSK none of the known examples of the stamp I can find images of show a visible bronze red, so do you have images of the stamp I can see? The reddish bronze is clear I guess but the violet bronze all look pretty evenly violet with just a hint of that bronze like dark violet color.

Also do you have references for the ink that they used? Its like going down a rabbit hole of history. Pretty neat.

Yes, of the violet stamp.

What the author writes is that 4,000 of the violet stamps (1878), 2,500 of the gold stamps (1879), and another 2,000 to 2,500 of the red-bronze mixed with other inks (1879) that would have been the source of the bronze-violet, probably, were printed. That makes about 8,500 stamps of the 5 Kran.

Implement - Lou sounds like a man that lived a full and interesting life. Please excuse the original tones of skepticism on my part. There are many who come here with similar inheritance stories of collections full of great stamps but when you dig deeper, they are not and when told so they get angry. Your information about Lou's background and memberships along with the certificates is a very good sign that you likely have something special beyond the sentimental aspect. Stick around and post some pics. You will find a wealth of knowledge here to be shared by members.

Roger

rogdcam I understand. I have been double checking and triple checking everything in disbelief. I only knew he collected stamps and had left me his collection which I did not collect from his home for twenty years. I saw how large it was in the storage bins but I had never looked through it. I still have the stamp album he gave me when I was a child. He would hand me piles of stamps and I would sit there with him for hours just filling up my book trying to match the stamp pictures with the album. I knew how to use a perforation gauge but I have never looked up watermarks or any of the deep history on stamps. He did make me write some things in my albums about the stamps that he would tell me stories about. I remember him showing me things I just don't remember specifically what they were. I know he had a TON of knowledge and he loved the fact that I would come with my stamp book and I even went to a show with him. I thought it was way cooler then baseball cards. Stamps just look old and valuable and the pictures on them are never ending insights into history and things and places. Countries I only know exist through stamps. I guess that is why he gifted me his collection.

I will gladly show it all here.

ALso one last thing, I really really enjoyed going through all the loose stamps and sorting them into country's. I definitely see the appeal. It took me probably 30 hours to do.
It was really addicting.

I started to look for large lots of loose stamps to buy in order to do it again. I found a lot of really cool stamps. It was like an archaelogical dig, you dont know what you are going to find.

Im looking forward to next going through all the old 1 cent stamps and looking for the varieties and rarities/errors/oddities. He has so many that I assume there has to be some interesting stamps in there. I think even some of the varities only came to light after he would of passed in 2002, so he may have never knew about them.

Fwiw, I would not spend a lot of time on the items of little value, such as the bag of stamps on paper (what we call "kiloware" because it is typically sold by the kilo or pound) and the first day covers. There is almost no market value in those areas. Focus on the very early stamps, as you seem to be doing. I would suspect he knew which were better stamps and those are already in something protective. Putting everything in individual glassines regardless of value will not be a good use of time.

There are lots of members here willing to share their knowledge, so post your curiosities and let us be part of your education. Everyone enjoys a good treasure hunt!

And, btw, Welcome!

I agree, you are unlikely to find any rarities when looking through the piles of bulk stamps, but don't let that stop you from having fun searching and learning. I will emphasize don't waste your (or our) time measuring the size of your US 610s or 552s looking for the rare rotary press printings.

And with the First Day Covers post 1940, sure they have little market value, but it can still be interesting to look through them especially the nice artwork from some of the cachet makers. But to each his own. Focus on what brings the most enjoyment to you.

You mentioned he was involved in the Attleboro stamp community. Keep an eye out for the Attleboro Stamp Company vending machine private perforations. Those are fairly scarce and can be quite valuable (in good condition with proper certification). There is a chance he has an envelope or stock book of these stashed away somewhere since they were of local interest.


Image from Siegel.

Hi Implement,

I notice that you have continued to use the 'Introduce Yourself here' site for ALL your updates to this site. This category does NOT increase your Post count. You will notice that you are still at zero!

I would suggest that you create a new topic that is applicable to the subject of your post, and put it in the appropriate folder. With the volume of your inheritance, I foresee that you will have a number of different topics that will result in multiple 'new' topics.

- stamporator -