New To The Stamp World And Have Questions About The Civil War Era Stamps I Obtained Recently.

Hello, newbie here. Is it best to leave a stamp on the letter/envelope or should it be removed. Letters with dates would seemingly authenticate which stamp is on the letter. I would like to know more and look forward to hearing everyone's opinions. Thanks!

Hard to answer about all stamps, but generally, for older covers, much better to leave them intact .

Thanks, I have a few Scott #1, Washington's. Is it appropriate to post pictures on here?

'yes, it is not only appropriate but strongly recommended.

#1s should definitely be left on their envelopes or folded letters.

Cool, I will post some pics in hopes you guys can let me know if there's anything of value in this old metal box of letter and canceled checks. Thanks! I would guess these letters and checks have not been handled much the past 175 years.

#1's will have Ben Franklin, #2's will have George Washington.

Until you get a deeper sense of the "postal history" aspect (and monetary value difference) of the complete mail piece versus soaked stamps, it is best to leave postage stamps intact on their envelopes and revenue stamps on their checks. And any letters should stay paired with their envelopes. Like a physician, first, do no harm.

On the monetary side, valuing a soaked stamp is fairly simple compared to (the art, if you will) of valuing a complete mail piece of "postal history", which may depend on the stamp, cancel, rate, route, any unusual postal markings, the noteworthiness of the sender/recipient, the content of the letter, etc. etc. And like "Antiques Roadshow", so much depends on condition, condition, condition. As an example of the importance of being cautious to soak old covers, here is a circa 1855 cover which has a poor-condition stamp worth maybe a buck or two if soaked, but on a cover addressed to "A Lincoln Esq, Springfield, Illinois", makes it worth $100 or more.

upload test. lol

Are these perfect correct. I can't find another like this. Either it's so common nobody is selling them, or it's different. Also, what stamp/year is it. Thanks!

Your upload test worked!

To get the best feedback for an item, I would recommend two images. One of the stamp and another of the entire mail piece to provide the fine detail and the overall context. As an example, the #1 on cover may have interesting features beyond the stamp, either on the address panel or in the contents. (Note the cover to Lincoln posted above.)

The 2 cent red Washngton stamp has poor centering, but within production tolerance. It was the workhorse stamp of its era (1920's and 1930s, the cancel should tell you that) and is very common, so any monetary or historical value tends to be from the cancel, contents, etc.

Pen cancel less desirable than regular cancel.

Thanks for the tips. I will have plenty more questions.

This will probably help....
https://stampsmarter.org/

Was there a time when the stamp hobby was lucrative? If so, when?

Define lucrative, and for whom?

Today, H.R. Harmer Inc. auctioned off part 10 of one man's collection, with total proceeds for this one sale adding up to over 3 million dollars.

The auction house has an 18% commission, meaning that they were paid at least $540,000 for the privilege of selling this collection. Not bad for a day's work.

We don't know what this collector paid for these items, but as noted in another thread, some of these same items sold for more money in the past. This is a hobby, it should not be treated as an investment or you may be disappointed.

That said, there are a lot of hobbyists and part-time dealers having fun and making some income selling stamps and other collectibles on ebay. It appears to be quite a lucrative business for some of them. The Covid pandemic lockdown seems to have created a burst of activity for the stamp hobby.

From what I understand, the real hay-day and top of the market was the 1980s, when prices across the board were a lot higher than today, not even taking inflation into consideration.

Prior to that, I would say the peak of stamp collecting popularity across the general public was the 1930s when FDR was president and that continued through the 1950s.