Beginner with some basic stamp questions

[OxS759]

Hello there,

I'm new here and I'm curious about how does the postage stamp collecting works. I came across some old postage stamps and I would like to understand how should I evaluate them? Is there any methods or some jury, certifications or something that says "yeah this is worthy and this is not".

The image I've added consists of one of my postage stamps that I have and I would like to know how should I evaluate it's worth. What are the proceedings to do it? How would you evaluate it.

This is some new experience that I've never tried, but I like history and the way postage stamps allows to memorise the events of the past.

Sincerely

Ox

[Waffle]

A very Common Norwegian 20 Ore stamp, at best worth a few cents.

To get rid of the irritating attachment fringe, Before clicking on the submit section, please ensure when your image first appears, click ob the place in line section. The attachment fringe round your image will then not be posted.

[bazza4338]

You need to do an introduction post here as per the email sent to you....

Roll Call -- This Thread MUST be your *FIRST* Port Of Call here!

https://www.stampboards.com/viewforum.php?f=1


Then visit this topic....


Free internet stamp catalogues


https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=60568


Page 1 has this type of alphabetical listing....

The catalogues will give you an indication of what might be the full retail price of your stamps.


In reality, the value of your stamps will be quite a bit less than those shown in the catalogue.


But - it's a start to work out comparative values.

Good Luck!

[kuikka]

This is not based on any statistics but should help you to get the idea.

Assume that about 1 stamp out of 1 000 000 stamps has the level of value that makes it worth to get excited. That is for a fully random batch of stamps. If you collect stamps for a while you would notice that some stamps would come up often, even relatively old ones. That is because even small countries printed their common stamps in millions and big countries even in billions (thousand million). Even if 99 out of 100 of those stamps have been destroyed, there are still more those stamps around than the collectors interested in them.

The valuable ones are valuable because there are much fewer of them around than collectors who want them. That make collectors to try to keep them, which means a random batch of stamps is seldom truly random. It has less valuable stamps than random batch, because usually someone sometime has given a look to it and picked away any stamp of serious value.

However, stamp collecting is a nice hobby that can teach you a lot on almost anything. That is priceless.

[xanthorrea]

Ox,
Further to the great comments made above I should also add a few comments of my own. Something is only worth what someone will pay for it. In some cases that is a large sum and in others only a few cents as illustrated by your Norwegian stamp. It is a common stamp, easily obtainable and printed in millions and so not worth that much. That is not to say that other stamps of Norway are not worth a lot - try some of the early issues and rarer varieties and that is where the money starts showing up.

A stamp however what its monetary value can mean a lot more to the individual as it captures a moment in history when someone went to the post office, bought the stamp and put it on an envelope and posted it to someone. You can build up a collection of stamps based on money and investment - and it will cost you as you pay for what you get - or you could build a collection of cheaper stamps that just appeal to you. They will cost you less but may offer the same amount of satisfaction.

Stamp collecting is what you make of it and as you may read through some of the comments on this and other pages on Stampboards it offers however much you want of it. I personally get a lot from it and would recommend that you keep going with your collection and build it up.

[OxS759]

Hello again,

Well, I'm very surprised by the response time of this forum. It's fascinating! Thank you all!

@Waffle I'll keep that in mind (about attachments) and thank you for information

@bazza4338 There was nothing mentioned about it (the introducing), but I did it few mins ago and thank you for the links, I 'll look into them.

@kuikka You see, before posting here, I was doing some research already and stumbled upon similar looking stamp from 1922 which was quite worthy. It looked really similar. After that I started to dig in to figure it out what I actually have. Up to this point, I know more about Norway than I did before and I know that deep purple have many shades.

@xanthorrea Yes, there is always two values for an item, personal and material. Right now I have difficult life decisions to make and I want to know what I have on me, to make a better decision. To cut to the chase, I am thinking of liquidating my collections to invest into my own business/hobby. I'm not very keen to let my collection go, but I have a chance and I don't want to miss it.

Now in general. Is it okay to post here my collection (well not all of it), but the part that I am most interested in to let you value it. Is there any subgroup for it? I want to see how you value things. So, I could fight my ego/arrogance, not overprice it.

After looking through some stamps and information that I found here, I've already managed to better get a grasp of how evaluation works.

Maybe is it possible to let's say play a game where I take one of my stamp and try to evaluate it and maybe you guys tell me whether I evaluated it right or not?

Cheers

Ox

[kuikka]

You can post stamps here and see what kind of response you get. You can use this tread for it or you can start a new one. For asking advice on price try to make as large picture of the stamp as possible and show the reverse, too. You can look an example of thread where I did exactly the same. And make sure you identify your scans well. Otherwise it is difficult to comment them.

My thread is here: https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=93663

After being a member here for some time, you will have also an option to sell your stamps here, if you wish to do so.

[bazza4338]

This site seems to well worth a visit....


http://lithuanianphilately.com/links/

Lithuania Philatelic Resources

[Brit-Col]

Is there any methods or some jury, certifications or something that says "yeah this is worthy and this is not".

First of all, welcome to Stampboards. You will find much helpful information here. You will also find some differences of opinion. That’s ok. It all helps YOU become more informed and knowledgeable as time goes by.

As to the question above, which the excellent replies above have not specifically addressed, the answer is “yes and no.”

What you must realize is that stamp collecting is dependent on catalogues, whether Scott, Stanley
Gibbons, Michel, Yvert, or another, which is your choice.

For values, the catalogue editors rely on the input of people who are familiar with the prices that stamps sell for. These will be dealers, auctioneers, etc. So you could consider this a “jury” if you like.

Then you enter the “real world” of day-to-day buying and selling. Almost all sellers will price their stock at a discount to the catalogue price to make you think you are getting a good deal. Because obviously they want to move their stock. Discounts of 70-80% of catalogue values are the norm. Savvy buyers will hunt out prices even lower than that. It is not hard to find common material selling for 20-30% of catalogue.

Looking at sources like eBay you get the sellers who list prices at “this is what I hope some uninformed buyer will pay me.” Which may have nothing at all to do with what a given stamp normally sells for. So totally useless for deciding what you should offer your stamps for.

Catalogue values are a universally accepted basis for pricing but as I always say, they are simply an agreed starting point for negotiation.

BC

[Tomane1]

Is there any methods or some jury, certifications or something that says "yeah this is worthy and this is not".

Looking at sources like eBay you get the sellers who list prices at “this is what I hope some uninformed buyer will pay me.” Which may have nothing at all to do with what a given stamp normally sells for. So totally useless for deciding what you should offer your stamps for.

If you want to see the outrageous prices asked by some uninformed sellers, just go to the following link on "eBay and Other On-Line Dreamers - A Photo Lot Compendium" - https://www.stampboards.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=379

To get an idea of what your stamps are worth, you can go to the following website which shows you the actual sales prices of all stamps sold on eBay since 2004 - https://www.stampmarketindex.com/ You just put in the details of your stamps and then search for any similar sales.

[norvic]

Is there any methods or some jury, certifications or something that says "yeah this is worthy and this is not".

First of all, welcome to Stampboards. You will find much helpful information here. You will also find some differences of opinion. That’s ok. It all helps YOU become more informed and knowledgeable as time goes by.

As to the question above, which the excellent replies above have not specifically addressed, the answer is “yes and no.”

What you must realize is that stamp collecting is dependent on catalogues, whether Scott, Stanley
Gibbons, Michel, Yvert, or another, which is your choice.


BC

I agree with BC's points about price, and it answered your question, but I would also say that stamp collecting is NOT dependent on a catalogue.

By this I mean that you will find stamps which are not included in your chosen catalogue, or not specifically. Some catalogues are very general and you will find that whichever publisher you use, there will be some genuine stamps not included in one that are in another.

Some catalogues are very simplified and do not mention watermarks. Some list a stamp in one colour when it actually exists in several easy-to-identify shades from different printings. Some do not make any distinction on perforation. All assume the stamp is in good condition - your Norwegian stamp is missing a perforation tooth on the right.

So how you collect depends on how general or how detailed you want to be. And that will often depend on whether you collect one or a few countries or everything that comes your way.

Lastly, if you are only concerned about value you should bear in mind that the most common stamps found today are the ones which served the appropriate letter and postcard rates at the time. In most cases they were printed in millions - and still exist in millions, and in collections all round the world.

As it happens, Lion stamps similar to yours exist in several types.

- original as shown with line between ØRE and POST.
- similar with SVALBARD in white at the top (smaller lion)
- similar without the line and with the wording in sans-serif letters.

Of the first 280 million were printed; of the second - a commemorative - only 5 million were printed.

Of the third, only 80 million were printed in that red-violet colour (these are highly priced unused*), but 500 million were printed in red.

Some of the red ones were sold in booklets with the outer edges imperforate. These are more difficult to find and have a reasonable value, but less than £10/€10.

* The reason this stamp is so valuable (at least £20, and if unmounted closer to £100) is probably because it was a basic letter rate and few collectors had actually saved many. When exactly a year after issue the colour was changed to red, there was probably some difficulty in finding the original. So it is today.

Edit: I would add that only the specialist catalogues will tell you the printing numbers or actually issue dates. Others may only tell you which year the stamp was issued.

[Brit-Col]

I agree with BC's points about price, and it answered your question, but I would also say that stamp collecting is NOT dependent on a catalogue.

I said there are differences in opinion!

I quite agree that catalogues are imperfect and every catalogue is not suitable for every purpose. But it is difficult to conceive how stamp collectors could communicate among themselves without some commonly agreed method of organization and identification. And catalogues go a fair distance toward addressing this need.

Not that I wish to get in an argument with norvic, whose knowledge and experience I greatly respect.

BC

[norvic]

NO argument, BC, I thought my comments complimented yours. In fact, I would go further even for a basic collector who may come across stamps which are not in the catalogue.

While catalogues are indispensible in aiding the collector to find out just what he has, and (access to) a variety of catalogues is even more useful, collectors should not be bound by the catalogue in determining what to collect, nor by pre-printed albums, although I concede that gaps in the latter are a problem.

Catalogues are a guide: collectors should collect the stamps they like, and what they want to collect. it's all a personal choice.

Continuing with Norway, one should not discard the Tromsø local post stamps simply because they are not in Gibbons or Scott. They are not in Facit, nor the NorgesKatalogen, although they may feature in articles in some years. (Here's an article in WIkipedia about local posts, or Bypost.)

The areas 'beyond (even the back of) the catalogue' can be most interesting.