Overwhelmed Sorting My Stamps

Hi! I'm new to the whole process of collecting and organizing stamps. I received thousands of stamps from my mother and decided to have a go at organizing them. They're all sitting in a container. I don't even know the first thing about stamp collecting. Any help would be appreciated. I started categorizing by country but not all stamps have a country name… how do I find them online? How do number them?! How do I know the year they were printed? I hope I can receive help from this community. Thanks in advance!!

H Devf,
Don't get frustrated, it is all part of the learning process and enjoy the ride. You will undoubtedly run across countries that you have never heard of (because they no longer exist, or perhaps have changed their name decades ago).

For stamps with no country name, if there is a silhouette of The Queen, the stamp is probably from GB/UK. Otherwise, if the stamp has a country name but in a language that you can't read, check your local library for a copy of the Scott's Stamp Catalog. Some of the editions have a Stamp Identifier chapter that pictures common stamps from around the world and how to recognize what country they are from (China vs Japan vs Korea etc).

If you have a stamp with no denomination, possibly it is a charity seal of some kind and not actually a postage stamp.

But my advice is, don't fret or focus on the stamps you can't identify. Set them aside for now and spend time with the ones that you can identify. Eventually you can go back to the mystery pile (we all have one) and things that you didn't know before will now help you to identify these unknowns.

If you cannot help the curiosity, see if you can download the Stamp Identifier app to your mobile phone, or use the Google Image Search. They sometimes get it wrong but more often than not will lead you in the right direction. If you still can't find it, feel free to post a few pictures here and someone will probably be able to help solve the mystery.

Have fun sorting!

The first thing you need is a big table! If you don't have a surface that you can permanently set aside, you could use something like this - not space-saving, but capable of being moved when you want to eat

https://www.amazon.com/VEVOR-Puzzle.../B0CRYYYPD6/

My own approach when I had lots to sort was to start by area - I'd have British Commonwealth, French colonies and then continents. You can then narrow things down from each heap.

For countries where the name printed on the stamp is not obvious, this link can help identify the country.

https://iswsc.org/iswsc_identifier.html

At somepoint, you will need a stamp listing catalog (online or printed) to get beyond the country level.

Don't get discouraged, it is all part of the fun of stamp collecting. You will run across stamps from countries that are not in english, or just characters, but that come with world stamps.

Now one tool we have is the internet. Google image search will help, and if you have a phone, ipod or tablet, there are free apps to help with stamp identification. Now they are not 100% but can be used as a guild as to where to look in a catalogue of stamps.

If all else fails in research, you can use forums to post and ask for help. Many people will help where possible.

You are already on the first step with sorting by country. After that, they take a step back and decide how and what you want to collect and display. Maybe you will find a country of interest, an area or even a topic.

But for now, do not be discouraged, and ask questions as you get them.
Enjoy Stamp Collecting.

I've used Google's image search to identify some stamps I couldn't figure out. You just copy a photo and drop it into the search bar and see what the search returns.

But don't give up. Running into brick walls every once in awhile can be frustrating but it turned out that is how I had my best learning experiences.

As others said, don't get discouraged! Start with what you know, and set aside and come back to the rest.

I use a 24-compartment organizer to sort my accumulated stamps by country. I labeled each compartment with a letter (2 have 2 letters) and put the stamps in the right alphabetic place, because most catalogs or reference sites are organized this way, including my albums. These are nice because you can close them up and move them around and your stamps are safe. Here's an example: https://www.amazon.com/RYKOMO-Organ.../B0CJX1SNNC/

Then I often use the Stamp World site to search by country and denomination...that gets me to year which helps me find it in the catalog and in my album.

Most importantly, don't hurry and have fun!

Use plastic ice cream crtons and such to sort by country, If you can't identify the country look for the same pattern of symbols and characters. I collected quite a stack of Bulgarian stamps before I identified the country. As someone else said don't try to sort everything at once choose one country first, probably your own. you could cheat and start by collecting all the British stamps of King Edward the Eigth When you've filed that page. Don't be scared of collecting an "easy" subject. I probably get as much pleasure from stamps that cost me pennies as some of the stuff that cost over a $120 per stamp. also seek advice and opinions on stamp mounts, pages and albums etc. Catalogues are invaluable but you don't need the latest unless your collecting really modern stuff.Used catalogues can be bought cheaply or someone might give you one.

Most stamps that don't have a country name are from Great Britain. I've heard the 'reason' is that they invented stamps. LOL

Yes there are a very few instances of stamps without their country name on them, and of course, a lot of stamps that might be in a language that you're not able to read (yet!).

You might consider buying an old stamp catalogue. A stamp catalogue is useful for finding out the age of your stamp and its country. The catalogs have a number for each stamp. If your stamps are older than 1970, older Scott catalogs and Minkus catalogs can be bought for not much money. Depending on the catalog's publishing date, they might be one-volume or several volumes. The older ones are printed in black & white, and the newer ones are in color.

I see a 2023 that's a 12-volume set, a 1925 catalog (just 1 volume), a 1973 catalog (3 volumes, then), a 1989 set (4 volumes then). A 2012 set is 6 volumes.

If you have a few puzzling stamps and you don't want to buy a catalog new enough to look for them, put them in a glassine envelope and take them to a public library and use their stamp catalogue.