What do I do with an old, valuable (?) stamp collection?

[KarenB]

When I was very young, I would visit my aunt and we would work on our stamp collections. Mine of course was a starter set, but my aunt's was her's even when she was a little girl. Hers included stamps from the 1800's, many older mint condition stamps, complete sets, etc.

When she died I think I was around 10 (1970) I was given her stamp collection. I have kept it in a dry safe place all of these years. I always thought I would get it out again or possibly give it to my own children. Well, sadly it hasn't been touched. My teen DSs enjoy hearing the stories about my aunt and glancing through the collection, but no other interest has been shown.

I am now wondering if maybe the time has come to sell it. DSs are soon entering college and I would possibly use the money for their education, something my aunt never had.

The big question is "How do I find someone I can trust to give me an asking price?" There are 1000s of stamps on 100s of pages. I could never possibly photograph each page....or is this is must? I live in a very small town. The only resources I can think of would be an auctioneering company.

Can anyone make any suggestions as to my first step in finding the value of this collection?

Thanks,
Karen

 

[agnes!]

Some ideas...

Do some searches on EBay. See what other collections have sold for, see if any of the individual stamps have sold for decent prices.

I don't really know what you can do about the 1000s of stamps & 100s of pages. I would make a digital photograph of EACH PAGE. You should have a record of some sort for insurance purposes. There must be some stamp collectors in your town, county, nearby city, your state. *Some* kind of club within an hour's drive. Maybe you can contact the club, ask when their next meeting is and see if they could be some help.

Contact a large auction house, for instance Sotheby's, etc. Pick up the phone and call, ask to speak to their philatatelic specialist. If you can e-mail some jpeg files of the pages to their expert, maybe they can give you some kind of idea of the value.

Buy a identification book with pics. Maybe you can ID some of the stamps yourself from your book.

Post this question on the DIS Collectors Forum, they might have some other ideas.

Good luck.
agnes!

 

[KarenB]

Thanks agnes! Your reply did help. You know, after I posted my original post, I thought that if we are talking quite a bit of $$ here, then taking the time to photograph them would be worth it. After all these years, what is another month if it takes me that long. I could photograph each page, take the memory card to Wal-Mart and get a bunch of CDs made. I could send the CDs out for appraisals.

Karen