Stamp Confusion! Help!

Hi! My mom recently inherited some stamps and neither of us can find anything about them online. One seems to be an old album that only has a few stamps inside of it and the others seem to be envelopes with stamps inside? Any information helps! Thank you

Hi Soph, and welcome to this forum.
Is there any way you can post a photo of a page out of the album - a page with at least a couple of stamps on it?
The small envelopes are the way stamps were sold a lot in department stores, back in the days. You would have to remove the stamps from the envelopes to see what they look like!


Peter

I enjoy seeing those old envelope packets of colorful stamps and the album. Child at play

Presumably the contents of the envelopes still match the labels, so that takes care of the big question (Where do the stamps come from?). Beyond that, to identify them further you could use a copy of the Scott Stamp Catalog likely found at your local library, or a smartphone app like Stamp Identifier, or a website like stampworld.com. I'd warn, that while valuable in a sentimental sense, there's an all but 100% chance that the stamps themselves have zero economic value.

Hi,


Welcome to the stamp community. You and your Mom must be so excited about your new hobby.. In this forum you have reached a place of many many answers and a lot of helpful people here.

Collecting stamps is like a swimming pool.....so feel free to jump right in.

The people who have responded so far are spot on. I would add that the stamps in the album are probably worldwide along with the individual country stamp packets. If it were me, I would open the packets (they look old and the stamps might be stuck together.... if so, soak them
in warm water, lay them out and let them dry) and mount them in the inherited album. You can buy a pack of stamp hinges on ebay.

From there it is up to you and your Mom. There are all kinds of bigger and better albums. US and foreign stamps similar to what you have can also be purchased in bulk (1,000 to 20,000?) on ebay for as low as 3 stamps to the penny.

The world is your oyster.....even in a swimming pool.

Good luck,

Greg

Hi I was wondering if the 4¢ Lincoln stamp is really worth the amount I keep seeing them priced at on ebay ? Like a cpl grand? Cuz if that's true...

Very likely not. There are a lot of absolutely worthless stamps on ebay that are offered at insane prices.

But why use this thread and not specify the stamp, nor the listings you are referring to?

The bargain basement is open for business.

I wonder why ebay feels it is good for its business to provide a platform for these clowns.

Every time I see one of those, I ask myself if anybody ever bites on one of those listings? You would hope not, but then why are there so many?

Here are some tips, as you review ebay listings:
1) sellers with (0) reviews offering "valuable" items, are scams
2) "valuable" (in the high hundreds or thousands of dollars) stamps without a certification from a recognized authority, are scams
3) if the title or description has a question mark, it's a scam
4) selling a stamp for thousands of dollars, while shipping is $4.95, is a scam
5) sellers that don't identify a stamp with a catalog number (Scott, Michel, Stanley Gibbons, etc), are scams
6) philately is sometimes a hobby of minute detail, where a seemingly small thing (like ink shade, or perforation, or printing method) is the difference between treasure and trash. See 2) above

Most of those listings are not scams, but simply naive people.

Usually it starts with a simpleton who offers a common stamp for $5000, usually "rare", "antique", "grandfather" is found in the description. Other simpletons see they have the same stamp and start listing their stamps wanting the same price. These new simpletons mostly have 0-1 sales or often sell motor parts, vases and other "antiques".

Last year I contacted about 100 sellers on German ebay (I head a lot of time to waste...) and asked why they thought their stuff is "rare" and why it wasn't. Half didn't answer, half were healed. Only one seller responded with a cascade of insults (it actually was a seller whom I was certain he knew very well his stuff was trash).

FYI - It looks like your stamp album cover has been eaten by silverfish. Very destructive to paper items. They like the starch in the paper.