Is there a philatelist in the house

My mother as just given me my great great grandfathers stamp collection.
(Her mothers father)
Quite a few pages of stamps.
From all over the world and including a large collection from Australia.
Quite a lot are over hundred years old.

I would very much like to hear from some one who could help me out in finding out what I have.
They have sentimental value to me more than monetary value.
But I would like to know from an insurance point of view also.
I'm Melbourne based but of course happy to travel if needed of course.

Cheers Matt.http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...574ae0b3a6.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...58a95fee0d.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...efcb854582.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...fb7ba7c73a.jpg

I think I should mention that I am mainly a collector and not someone that is investing in stamps. Basically it will be hard for me to sell any of my stamps, weird definition of a collector. :U

So the two things to remember is why your great great grandfather was collecting as a hobby or as an investor. If the majority of the stamps are used(post marked) it might be safe to say as a hobby. Which would mean that he collected stamps that came to him, which was basically what my mother was doing. If your stamps are in mint condition, with the glue still on the back then these are worth a lot more then the equivalent stamp with a post mark as they have not been posted.

Quite some time ago(15 odd years) I was chatting to one of the stamp dealers, in Sydney and he told me the story of a mint collection of Sydney View stamps that were located in a safety deposit box. These were sold and fetched a price of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Now here is where you get the very odd situation of a used stamp that has errors in the printing that is worth more then the new stamp. As an example lets say that the letter U is missing from Australia. And it was not picked up when the stamp was issued. The same stamp in mint condition could be worth $1.00 and the one with the error even with a post mark could be worth $1.50 where the used stamp would be worth 20cents.

I think the best option would be to seek a stamp dealer who does insurance evaluation. I knew one in Sydney but I have lost his number long time ago.

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Originally Posted by Simplicity

My mother as just given me my great great grandfathers stamp collection.
(Her mothers father)
Quite a few pages of stamps.
From all over the world and including a large collection from Australia.
Quite a lot are over hundred years old.

I would very much like to hear from some one who could help me out in finding out what I have.
They have sentimental value to me more than monetary value.
But I would like to know from an insurance point of view also.
I'm Melbourne based but of course happy to travel if needed of course.

Cheers Matt.

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I'll second Christos advice. Go to a dealer. Or maybe contact a stamp collecting club, there would be a lot of knowledgeable people there happy to help I would imagine.

"Back when I were a lad" in the 1970s I used to do a bit of general stamp collecting, as did a good few of my mates, and kept an interest (in Australian only) till about the 1990s. I'll add:

Low face value stamps tend to be less valuable mainly as they were printed in large numbers for everyday use (remember the purple 7c queens head? I had an icecream container full of those!). I suspect the 1 penny Victorian stamps in your picture fall into that category. However, their printing processes and quality control was not so good back then, and it is more likely to get printing errors, so you'll have to check each one individually. Any dealer/club would help you there.

A quick look at the NSW five pence ones on an online catalogue might indicate they might be worth a few dollars to a few tens of dollars. The others not so much. (see a dealer/club)

The page with the European stamps (mostly Polish [Polska], but I can see a couple of Austrian [Osterreich] ones too) look an awful lot like the stamps I used to get back in the 70s in packs of things called "mission mixtures". They were stamps cut off envelopes and you bought them in packets of a couple of hundred. I believe they were collected for charity organisations (hence "mission" mixtures). Usually the stamps most commonly used for normal letters in the country of origin, although every now and then a couple of good ones would pop up.

The page with the stamps with cyrillic writing are Ukrainian. That's interesting. Wiki seems to indicate that Ukraine didn't have any stamps of its own between about the 1920s and 1990s (and it dates the 20 value stamp in your picture as a 1918 issue). Having said that, like Japanese invasion money, some stamps just aren't worth much because so many were printed and never got used (for instance, because the government collapsed) until they found their way into the hands of dealers who sold them on to collectors etc. Once again, a dealer or club would know.

SWK

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Originally Posted by swk

...Having said that, like Japanese invasion money, some stamps just aren't worth much because so many were printed and never got used (for instance, because the government collapsed) until they found their way into the hands of dealers who sold them on to collectors etc. Once again, a dealer or club would know.

SWK

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A good guess. It seems they were printed in 1920 and never issued but found their way onto the collectors market in the 1960s.

SWK

PS also dragged out my old albums to have a look at (first time in probably 30 years). The red 15 value Polish one, upper right and repeat below (guy with mustache). I have about 10 of them all different colours and values (including the same red 15).

Thanks Christos,
And everyone else for your comments.
Mush appreciate.
I will hunt out a dealer and get there view on what I have inherited.
But a view more average shots
At a ruff guess as I really haven't had the time to sit down and go through them thoroughly
I would say there's 150 odd pages
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...05d2d566d5.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...efd78ede51.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...b491ec0c11.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...098079f050.jpghttp://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...e121ddbc75.jpg

Some more Europe ones

Cheers Matt