Stamp Collection help!!!

bugbabe1970

Hi everyone, first time for me to post on this board so hope you dont mind me dropping in?

My dad sadly passed away in December and I have inherited my grandfathers stamp collection from him. The stamps date back to around 1890 and just to give you an idea there's probably about 4,000 stamps there altogether. Some of them are in books, some in tins, envelopes etc.

So my question is.......Where on earth do I start trying to sort them out? I want to get them valued as I am sure I should put them onto my house insurance before I store them away. I am not going to sell them as they are very sentimental and are absolutely beautiful, a real link to the past, and will be passed onto my sons, but it would be nice to know if they are worth much.

I am nervous about sending them away to be valued as I dont really know what's there altogether!! Could someone come to the house and value them for me? Any advice would be much appreciated

Thank you x

jad

If you want to get a valuation, purely for interests sake, it can cost quite a bit so, you'll want to get a valuation with a view to selling, because that's normally free (they don't need to know you have no intention of selling).

If you google 'stamp valuations', you'll get a long list of places that will value your stamps for you, though most/all will only come to your home for a larger, more valuable collection. Since you have no idea of the value of your collection, they probably wouldn't be keen on this.

A couple of other options that might be worth considering:
1- Look for a stamp shop in your yellow pages. They should be prepared to have a quick look over your collection, and hopefully tell you if there's anything worthwhile there
2- Try to find out if there are any local philately groups in your area - you might be able to pop along to one of their meetings - someone there would also hopefully be able to tell you if you have anything of interest.

I'd also recommend not taking them to your local auction house...they rarely have any idea of value for this sort of thing there - I've picked up some real bargains in the past because of this!

Dizzie77

Do you have an antiques centre near you? or an auction house? They would be a good place to start - they could probably put you in touch with people who could help you to sort them out too.

DJDLP1

I took some stamps to STANLEY GIBBONS in london, they are worth a look. They might know someone in your local area as well, worth getting them checked out.

Hermia

Lots of libraries will have the current Stanley Gibbons catalogues in stock. I work in a library and we often get people coming in with a big bag of stamps!

soolin

Hermia wrote: »

Lots of libraries will have the current Stanley Gibbons catalogues in stock. I work in a library and we often get people coming in with a big bag of stamps!

Unfortunately though they are selling prices at which SG would sell to you , based on those prices the two collections i have in storage would buy me a new house. Instead they are basically worthless and just sitting there eating up room.

Stanley Gibbons no longer do free valuations and will quote several hundred pounds to do one professionally. This is alas one of those hobbies where people have spent a fortune and where fashion changes means they are left with basically worthless bits of paper.

SINBAD_2

I risk being told this is an old post, yes I know!!
I used to work at Stanley Gibbons, actually they do do valuations that don't cost a fortune, a fiver a few years ago when I worked there. Most collections aren't worth anything; as the person above said, the catologue price is the SG selling price for excellent condition stamps. Common stamps (those with a cat val of less than 25pound odd) have little real value.

An excellent book to read about stamps is Blue Mauritius, it will appeal to anyone.