Stamp Talk

So you were given a collection or inherited some old stamps that your grandfather had and wonder what they might be worth. Well, to be honest, 99% of the time they will be worth little or nothing. If someone did not spend good money in building a collection, it’s doubtful it will be worth good money, now.

But don’t be discouraged, maybe you really have been given a valuable collection, and the best way to determine if this is so is to visit your library and check what you have against the Scott Standard Postage Catalogue, a multi-volume set of books that you can use to get an idea of their worth. Other ways are to visit your local stamp club or a stamp show in your area and have collectors or dealers look at it, but checking with the Scott Catalogue is a good way to start.

Remember that catalog value is not what an interested party will pay you, but what a stamp might be worth at retail, though because of competition, most stamps retail for far less than catalog value, and dealers will pay only a fraction of that.

Since collectors want stamps in good condition, condition is an important consideration. Unless they are true rarities, damaged stamps and stamps not in good condition are generally worth little or nothing.

Every now and then you will see or hear that stamp collecting is dead, or at least dieing.

But if you haven’t collected stamps continuously, that is, without interruption, have you noticed that when you stopped, stamp collecting seemed to be dead or dieing, and when you returned, it was quite alive?

As long as you are collecting, it is quite alive. As long as one person, somewhere, collects stamps, the hobby remains viable and with a hope that it will survive extinction.

The Modern-Vue Stamp Shop is your quick link to all the many thousands of stamp offers listed on ebay. Simply choose your category from the Stamp Shop menu at the left. Read the articles, too.

Sometimes what seems like all the looking in the world doesn’t help to find the stamp I’m looking for in my Scott catalogs. One thing that has helped has been using a digital edition of the catalog which can be key word searched. But there’s a new trick I’ve discovered that saves loading in a catalog disk and is faster and easier, too. That is going to bidStart or eBay and just searching the keyword or keywords within the stamp listings for a country. With so many stamps listed on these sites, the image usually comes up along with the correct catalog number of the stamp I’m trying to identify.

There seems to be a fear among many of the stamp collectors that I come in contact with that stamp collecting will be lost in the future, that there is just too much to keep kids occupied for them to take an interest in collecting stamps, and that when all of the current crop of collectors move on to that big club meeting in the sky, no one will be left to carry on a hobby that goes back almost as far as the first postage stamp, itself.

I was recently surprised to find an eight-year-old interested in stamp collecting, a niece who started looking over and through the many glassines of stamps scattered around a computer of mine that she wanted to use while the adults ‘visited.’

It both surprised and pleased me, so I put together an album, tongs, stamps, and hinges to get her started.

I guess exposure is the key. I was exposed to it through my father when I was eight.

Kids certainly won’t know about stamp collecting if they are never exposed to it. And for many, once exposed, it turns into something that sometimes after a long period of absence comes back into their lives, maybe when their children are grown and as, perhaps, things begin to slow down for them again.

Sometimes I wonder if we have any obligation to try to keep the hobby alive and to introduce new collectors to stamps… and why. Is it to try to share the fun we have? Is it to know we are not alone in our interests? Is it to be sure someone will be there to carry on our collection or purchase it when we are though with it?

Will stamp collecting be lost on the young? Is it our responsibility to keep it alive? And if it is our responsibility to keep it alive, why?

– From The Stamping Ground