Spring Cleaning - What Are You Throwing Out?

My New Year's resolution is to be a more intentional collector. So I am discarding things, starting with some old covers that are dirty, stained or boring. What are you getting rid of this year?

I have quite a few (relatively speaking) doubles of blocks of 4 of US stamps. A nuisance worth only the postage, or worth 1/2 of catalog value? Depends on who you ask.

Basically have been going through other materials I have and discarding to make room for family history and stamp stuff (my #1 and 1A hobbies). Some of this is old correspondence, keeping nearly all the postcards though for now.

Over the last few months I have been going through my duplicates and items that I don't actively collect, like postal history and first day covers. I make up large lots and sell them at a local auction that is held once a month. Most times I make enough to pay for the stamps I purchase

My next project is to get rid of the thousands of mint Canada I have collected over the years. I will keep some for postage but at the moment I have enough to last me 100 years

I am also considering limiting the countries I collect to the albums I already have printed and getting rid of the stamps for all others. ( I printed my own Steiner Pages). I have 168 binders and I am pretty certain that I will not fill those in a lifetime

Dianne

when we say "discarding" or "getting rid of" are we giving the OK to rip up and throw into the garbage all stained and dirty stamps, stamped covers, FDC's, and stamp material? I have dirty stamps and covers myself but I am unsure of what to do with it as well. For instance, I have FDC's that have envelope glue staining the back of some of my First Day Covers and I don't know whether to throw them out into the garbage or give them away.

Personally, if I have things that aren't nice enough to feel good about selling them and going into someone else's collection, those are going into the recycling bin. Sometimes the condition is so poor that I would feel a little embarrassed about asking for money.

I am doing similar. It doesn't matter how nice the cachets are or the interesting pm's. There is simply no interest.

There is an organization, Stamps for the Wounded" that promotes stamp collecting to U.S. veterans. They accept donations of just about anything philatelic for their cause. I have donated various stamps, catalogs, stock books etc. in the past and always gratefully accepted. They can be found on line.

To judge from thousands of philatelic communications I've seen over the years, the question of monetary value and saleability is never too far in the background for a majority of collectors, regardless of their stated "first" priorities -- and I admit to this myself. That being said, when acquiring material especially in bulk, I feel best whenever I can add value to my collection, recoup my costs by reselling, and finally throw away a bunch of junk and thus help to "clean up" the market.

Hate to think of flat out throwing out saved items. It would be great if there could be a new home short of the garbage dump?

Our philatelic society gives stamps and support to the veterans' organization, above, as well as local schools and Scouts organizations.

For a while here it was also fashionable to say that you could send stamps off to craft purgatory, for eventual assimilation as decoupaged vases and lampshades.

Stamps for the Wounded: https://www.stampsforthewounded.org/ 100% volunteer since 1942.

Stamps for crafts is better than throwing them away, and better than hoarding for next of kin to discard for multiple of the same stamp. For a variety of low value duplicates, somebody like me would buy at a fair price, or can donate to organizations- thankful some of you have identified some.

When we moved a decade ago, I cleared out the excess. I went to a local stamp club and found three young, new collectors and gave them each thousands of stamps. I do not buy random stamps anymore, I get what I need and when I do unintentionally get stamps I don't need, they get them for free.

Only one still collects a decade later and I think she's really started to limit what she takes in. I've sent a couple of boxes off to Stamps for the Wounded lately.

I throw out damaged stamps that I come across that I would not put in my collection. These are mostly common material; I would consider a damaged spacefiller for a costly item. I figure if I wouldn't put it in my album, why would anyone else?

I also keep only 5 or so duplicates of common items for trading and donate the rest to kids, like my niece's home school. They can use them to learn, collect or create art. I sent some suggestions along. :)

"For instance, I have FDC's that have envelope glue staining the back of some of my First Day Covers and I don't know whether to throw them out into the garbage or give them away."

Has it also stained the front? If no, not a big problem. If yes, depends on how common they are (including how common the cachet is).

Stamps for the Wounded is mentioned frequently, but I've never been comfortable donating there. Their most recent IRS tax return, for tax year 2023, https://projects.propublica.org/non...9301602/full, is worth a read. It shows donations skyrocketing in 2023 compared to 2022, but program service expenses of only a fraction of donations. Nonprofits commonly have annual service expenses that are much larger as a percentage of revenue than donations and relatively little retained revenue.

I am not ascribing any improper motive to anyone. One possible explanation is receiving a large estate gift from someone who died in 2022 or 2023. If that occurred, I would have expected a news announcement on their website. They attend shows only in northern Virginia, which is understandable but makes it hard for anyone outside that area to see the level of services they provide and develop confidence in them.

@cjpalermo1964 : I would prefer to address this off-line. I don't have enough posting credits to email you directly. You may contact me via the contact form on our web site, at
https://stampsforthewounded.org/contact/ . Those messages come to me, and I would be happy to explain in more detail.

The "TL;DR" response is that we changed our accounting method. 2023 was the first year that we filed Form 990 since the charity received 501(c)(3) status in 1955. Until then we were filing Form 990-N which does not have any numbers on it. That is noted several times in Schedule O (Other Information).

Is SFTW for real? SFTW shipped over 3 tons of stamps, covers, supplies and literature -- all donated materials, to veterans in 45 or 46 states last year. This year will be more as we have been aggressively reaching out to add veterans to our program. Everything we do happens because of a very small cadre (less than 27) of dedicated volunteers. Nobody gets paid for what we do. Other than sales of a small proportion of donations to cover our operating expenses (cash donations last year were a whopping $8k), everything donated is earmarked for our veterans.

Rob Jenson -- President of Stamps for the Wounded.