Brand New Member - Overwhelmed With Information

Hi all. From downunder. Have been putting off looking at a large loose collection that was inherited and passed down about 15 years ago (so there's really no hurry). Hoping someone might be able to help as I know nothing. Basic research shows there are many varieties, watermarks, dies etc...

- Is there a recommended "safe" long term storage album and tweezer set to begin putting them away safely? They've been transferred into ziplock bags but are still loose:



-Most are pre-decimal, but some are later. I plan on separating them. Trying to understand how to identify potential value is overwhelming. Is there a "safe" watermark identification kit? I've looked at many with a magnifying glass and can't seem to see a single mark. For example, there's an envelope with "to check" labelled... it has many 1/2d orange kangaroos in various states. Found the " 'Roo Stamps of Australia - Watermarks and Dies " website - but can't identify a single mark on any of them.

Is there a safe way to separate stamps? Some pre-war European stamps were kept in envelopes and have stuck together.

Thank you

Welcome to the forum. Stick around, ask questions, have fun.



First thing is that if you were given a collection like this in the bags that you are showing us, there is very little chance of anything of value in there. Most were probably soaked off envelopes, and may be found for about one penny each.

But, there could be some winners in there, hiding amongst the others. I like your idea of separating them first, putting the similar / exactly the same stamps in one place. Then you can take the time to see if they really are the same, or subtly different.

There is lots and lots to learn about stamp handling (with tongs), watermark fluid (like Ronsonol), different perforation rates (use a stamp gage), different die types (especially true on early Australian Kangaroos and King George V stamps) which can be seen with a magnifying glass, and lots of other fun info.

If you are overwhelmed, start off slowly with the basics. Philately can bring a lifetime of learning and enjoyment, there is no need to rush.

Watermarks and perforations and dies do not need to be your first line of attack.

I don't see a problem with ziplock bags, but most collectors use glassine envelopes that are easier to handle and organize your big bags into smaller quantities. Or you can use less expensive plain white letter envelopes for sorting your stamps by country and then into smaller groups.

Do you have a stamp album? Someone in another thread just found a starter album at a garage sale for $5. You can frequently find them online for under $20. These single-volume albums have spaces for the most common stamp designs and don't often distinguish the perforation and watermark varieties. This is where most people start, matching the picture and mounting the stamp with stamp hinges.

You might also want a "stock book" to help organize and store your stamps and duplicates.

I agree with Partime you are unlikely to find any rarities in there, but it is certainly possible. For me, my enjoyment with a collection like this would be looking for town cancels. I like trying to find stamps cancelled in every single state, or different small towns rather than the common big cities. To me that is more fun than measuring perforations and watermarks. The chances of finding that rare "perf 10 on top" variety are so small, that I would rather spend my time and energy on something I enjoy.

But to your questions,
> Is there a "safe" watermark identification kit?
Do you mean safe for the stamps or safe for humans?
Ronsonol lighter fluid is safe for 99.9% of the stamps that you would use it on, but you should use it in a well ventilated area. That said, stamp dealers have been using this for years inside their closed offices without any ill effects that we know of.
There are "safer" watermark fluids such as Clarity that you can get from a stamp supplies company. I like www.ihobb.com, but find one closer to you to save on shipping charges. They will have a good selection of stamp tongs or tweezers as well.
Even safer (but expensive) are mechanical devices like the Sherlock Watermark Detector from Lighthouse or the Signoscope.

> Some pre-war European stamps were kept in envelopes and have stuck together.
If you have just a few that are lightly stuck together, you should be able to separate them by holding them in the steam above a teapot and carefully and slowly pulling them apart. If you have a whole bunch and if they are very stuck together, it is probably not worth the effort to save their gum. Just dump the whole wad into a bowl of water and soak them clean, laying them out individually on a towel to dry. Assuming they are all common stamps, they are not worth that much less without gum than with. Additional pictures may help decide your best approach.

Have fun and welcome to the community. You will find a wide array of collecting styles here, with some collecting the entire world, some focused on just one or a few countries, and others specializing on varieties or plating a single stamp issue. There is no right way to collect; do what feels right to you.

cigar boxes , glassine, & one stock book (or package of stock pages), a marker (country glassine) Minimize the over whelm by working on country separation, separate mint from used, (stock book), don't overfill the glassine, use cigar box for storage by continent. Slow & focus. When you get tired stop. When it becomes a burden task, stop, take a break away then come back. After you have done a considerable amount of sorting, go back & review for 'special attention' items. You'll figure it out.

Thanks everyone for the wealth of information - it puts me a little at ease. They seem so fragile & minute!

>there is very little chance of anything of value in there. Most were probably soaked off envelopes

They all look the same to me - that said, they were not able to be sorted before being passed down & there are still thousands here so would like to give it a go. Are there other methods of acquiring postmarked stock without them having been posted? It would be strange for the family member to have bought stamps - likely from envelopes. They were acquired sometime in between 1950 and 1990

> Do you have a stamp album?
> You might also want a "stock book"
> There are "safer" watermark fluids such as Clarity

All excellent, many thanks. Would like to spend a little to get the right equipment the first time, but not go overboard. So it'll be Stamp Tongs, Stamp Album, watermark fluid, Envelopes (glassline) to start with. When I used "safe" - it was more "safe for stamps" as in other hobbies such as automotive work, one buys e.g. ebay specials, and they end up damaging the panelwork etc.

> cigar boxes , glassine, & one stock book (or package of stock pages), a marker (country glassine) Minimize the over whelm by working on country separation, separate mint from used, (stock book), don't overfill the glassine, use cigar box for storage by continent. Slow & focus. When you get tired stop. When it becomes a burden task, stop, take a break away then come back. After you have done a considerable amount of sorting, go back & review for 'special attention' items. You'll figure it out.

Fantastic advice. I'd like to get around to posting a small update here once things are moving. Appreciate everyone's help

Win2, I recommend that you first get a stamp album. A used album would be a fine start since you could get a better one (more room for stamps) for less money than a new one. A local stamp store might have a few big old stamp albums for sale, and you could search for albums on the many stamp-selling websites.

Let your stamp album be your guide. That will give you focus, and at the beginning, focus is what you need, I think.
By focus, I mean that, between a big pile of stamps, and a destination (the stamp album), you will first want to sort the pile by country.

Then, within each country, sort by the stamp's approximate age 1800s, pre-1940, post-1940, etc. Make a little pile of each type of stamp within that country, and then put the country's little piles in order and into one or more glassine envelopes. Then move on to the next country.
By type of stamp, I mean that you might have 22 copies of the same stamp; same denomination same color, same person or scene on it, etc.

After getting all this sorted, go through each country and find the best example of each type of stamp. That will be the one that you will want to put in your album. At this stage, don't worry about watermarks. That will come later on, after you've gone through the whole pile and put the best stamps in your album. There are only a very few types of stamps that have different watermarks, and almost all of those are pre-1940.

As for the glassines, buy a couple hundred of them of a handy size, like the size of your hand. Buy a few cheap file boxes of that size, so that you can store the glassines by country and general age bracket into the file boxes. On each glassine, write the name of the country.

As for tweezers, use them if your fingers have trouble picking up individual stamps or trouble with getting little piles of stamps into a glassine envelope. For a pile of not-old, used stamps, using your fingers for sorting them will be OK. Be sure to wash your hands before handling your stamps! Tweezers are also good for un-bending curly bunches of stamp hinges, and for easily picking up an individual stamp hinge from a pile of them.

As for stamp albums, it is possible that your pile of stamps are all newer than any of the stamp spaces in an album you're considering buying. If you'll be collecting stamps post 1950, it might be better to print your own album pages on a printer, punch holes in the paper with a hole punch and put the pages in 3-ring binders. Those binders will be your stamp albums. There are several brands of print-your-own-pages companies. Pick one and print the pages you need on "acid-free" paper with a laser printer. If pre-made album pages won't be good for your type of stamp collecting, you can find a software for designing your own pages.

After you're getting used to putting stamps in albums, you might want to get a stamp catalog to help you figure out the age of each stamp, and approximately where it will go in your album. I highly recommend buying a used catalog! The catalog will also alert you about any stamps that have particular watermarks to separate that issue of stamp. If so, you can then go back to your glassine to find out if you have a watermark variety for that stamp in there.

(my italic, meaning the 'Introduce Yourself Here' forum) You should know that posts in this forum do not count towards your post count. Remember that you'll need 50 quality posts before you can email or be contacted by anyone here.

Win2,

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

My personal bias is a used stamp loses the story of its journey in the postal service when it is removed from the cover it transported to its destination. Collecting postal history adds a whole new aspect to your journey in our hobby.

Wishing you many enjoyable future days in our hobby. Russ

Just getting started on this site. I retired about two years ago and have collected primarily US stamps for about 60 years. Currently interested in the Washington Franklin set, third bureau series. I put together a "bucket list"of approximately eight nice US issues, including the Black Bull

Win2,

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

My personal bias is a used stamp loses the story of its journey in the postal service when it is removed from the cover it transported to its destination. Collecting postal history adds a whole new aspect to your journey in our hobby.

Wishing you many enjoyable future days in our hobby. Russ

Welcome to the forum.

You got a lot of good advice.

How has it been going since September?