Sitting Helvetia 40 C. Grey

Dear forum,
I have some Swiss stamps - I was told worthless, as it's not a ‚complete' collection … I was just about to put them to the old newspapers, when this stamp catalogue from the 80s appeared … now I don't know what to do with them (my wife wants me to throw it all in the bin)? Eg this 40 C. stamp???

It is never a good idea to throw away something that people collect


Peter

Obbixx, according to my Zumstein ( 2000 edition ) it could be Zumstein 42 and is valued at Swiss franc 200.00.
Reason enough not to get rid of it


Peter

Hi Peter, thanks so much for you super quick response! The value you found out fits to what it said in my 1987-catalogue ... although I had already mailed 2 philatelists in Switzerland - both replied that there was nothing 'interesting' among the stamps!? What would you do: pick some stamps that seem a bit valuable and offer them separately on ebay, offer everything all together, contact mor Swiss philatelists ... ??? How serious are the values printed in the catalogues? ... This is another stamp that seems older ...

Yup, it is older and dates from october 1850
It is also a better one I imagine, but I am not good at these older ones


Peter

The second stamp has an issue date of 1st October 1850.

Catalogue values (Stanley Gibbons 1993) dependent on variety of yellow.


SG 10 - Yellow CV £80 used.
SG 11 - Orange-Yellow - CV £275 used.
SG 12 - Brownish Yellow - CV £275 used.

I think your stamp will be a SG 10.

thanks for the info!
... in the meantime I've found this table with the different types of the stamp:
http://www.pro-philatelie.info/fael...abelle-2.jpg

If I remember correctly this stamp was printed in sheets of 40 and totally 26 plates were used to print them, All of the stamps have small differences so a specialized collector need to have 1040 stamps to have a complete collection

Contact American Helvetic Philatelic Society if you want the get rid of it. They can help you to get your value and make sure these go to other folks that collect Swiss Stamps: https://swiss-stamps.org/about/member-meetings/

The first stamp you posted with the 1881 postmark is more valuable with the postmark than not, if there are colored threads in the paper.
A collection not being complete has little impact on the value of individual stamps. I hope you found a home for this, as binning it would be a sad thing to do with a collection that included multiple stamps from prior to 1900.