My Biggest Payment Buying US Classic Stamp

I bought this lot of US classic stamps, it is the biggest payment I have made in one go buying stamps...I really don't mind spending a small budget a month buying stamps worth two hamburgers, cheap stamps that, even if they are bad , I like them or they seem interesting to me...This lot doesn't seem expensive I think, based on the stamps I've seen on it, but even so they were close to 100 Dollars, and it is lot of money...I would like to know what you think, Has it been a good purchase or should I have waited to learn more about the classic American stamps before spending so much money? I already have some of them repeated and I will try to get rid of them by changing or selling, we will see...
The best stamps think are in the 4 first pictures...I see some stamps very valuables but I am not sure, interesting are sure.

Some of them look nice, but do not wait too long and remove them from that terrible paper


Peter

My two cents, speaking as someone who has been intensively involved in philately for only five years:

Assuming the price of two hamburgers is about $20, then what you paid for these is "okay." To evaluate "what was spent," consider these two options for procurement:

1) Search for collections or lots, which, over time, provide specimens for pennies on the dollar, compared to what you would pay when acquiring the same specimens one at a time. The downside to this is you accumulate a lot of dross - dozens if not hundreds of virtually worthless stamps for each "good" one you find. Your space and time have value as well. You can get some relief by attempting to re-sell the remainders, almost certainly at a discount.... but it takes time and effort.

2) Seek out individual or small sets of stamps. Inform yourself first by looking at market prices for these. One way to do this is to use stamp smarter.com (worthy of a separate discussion). "Best prices" may be found on ebay or Hipstamp.com (for example). You will pay more per stamp this way, but you are eliminating the clutter and extra work that the other option entails.

3) Trade with like-minded philatelists. A local stamp club is a plus, if available. I understand some folks here on stamp community.org trade/buy/sell with each other as well.

Hope this helps.

You could do better and you could do worse, but you can only buy what is in front of you offered for sale. Here, you seemed to do well for you money.

if that's a U.S. #118 or #119 you did good, in my opinion.

I have a dealer/ friend that has an excellent U.S #C13 he will let me have for $125.00. will be the most I ever paid for one stamp.

My favorite of the lot is the #162 twelve cent banknote that looks like it may have a New York Foreign Mail fancy cancel. Centering is pretty good and the cancel is not too heavy.

The 116 and 118/119 make the purchase worthwhile, IMO, but I'd agree with ZebraMan on the 12c bank note (even with what appears to me to be a perf tip crease LR).

I would think that you did well with this mixture. Congrats
Ray

This collection looks truly amazing!

It was a lot of money, but it seemed like a good opportunity because the specimens look really interesting and will be a great addition to my collection, making an expensive but unique coup. There may be valuable examples, but I especially like SC#116 for its design and especially its color; I'm also very excited about SC#401 because it didn't have any pre-cancellations like that; I find the Washington 24cent very interesting, I think it will give me hours of fun and I also don't dislike its cancellation even though it puts a lot of strain on the design; I think SC#118/119 is beautiful and valuable; In general, they all seem great to me, my US stamps began in the 1873 series, now the date of the oldest stamps has noticeably improved to a range in which I thought it would be extremely difficult for me to access.

its all in what you can afford, in the past month I have spent close to $1000 on stamps and books.

After factoring in the enjoyment component, all that for less than a Benjamin sounds pretty good to me

I think you did well. US stamps from this era are holding their value, if not increasing. They are in reasonable condition, there are a few stars, yes, a good buy