Stamp expert advice needed

Does anyone have a considerable amount of knowledge about stamps? especially South America stamps.

Recently found a cool old school book of these and have no idea what Im looking at. I need valuations or advice to keep/trash, and conversation on all of this.
a few example pix

Hi Mike I really do not know anything. But let me know if you need to move it. I use to be a stamp collector, and startimg to get back in to it.

Interesting lot , but that doesn't mean necessarily that you'll get many money from it cause stamps are less and less collected by young generations.
It's interesting to see that NMH stamps are protected by plastic.
If you want to sell it I would recommend not to try to unglue stamps cause you don't know how to perform it accurately :
- If there are less than 10 sheets, you take 20 pictures or scans (one of each page) and put the entire book on ebay at 20$ +minimum shipping fees.
- If there are more than 10 sheets, you cut each page, take 2 pictures (one of each page) and put each week 10 pages on ebay at 1$ each +minimum shipping fees.

To give you an idea how cheap pages go for, have a look at these results from eBay (via picclick). Sellers remove the more valuable stamps from the pages and sell the rest for very little. Note that in many cases there are two or more pages being sold.

I agree with all the above.

Sadly, all of Latin America had very few valuable stamp issues. From the 1860s onwards these places had a reputation for issuing excessive stamp issues, and even printing deliberate errors.

In the 1890s were nototrious Seebeck issues, which were done for Guatemala, Salvador (Before the El was added), Colombia, Bolivia and Paraguay in which an issue came out each year with UPU and the year on it - unsolds went to Seebeck (An American) who flooded the philatelic market with them and you can get these for nothing, each set went usually from 1 centavo to 10 pesos.

Through the 1940s it continued heaps of issues and lots of overprints and realistically has not changed much. Some places are better than others (Argentina and Uruguay along Mexico have followings) but most are really for kiddies and these stamps are very common and viewed in low regard.

Before all the communist wallpaper from Romania, Russia, Hungary, Cuba and Poland came out - these countries were notorious.

Strange, and new for me. This particularity od South America
I don't get any CTO from South America so far,
but U say that it was before the flood from Magyar posta, then from other continent as Cambidia, Equatorial guinea, etc...
The main thing is that stamp collection is decreasing dramatically and so prices follow the tendency.
That's good for me I like to collect worldwide stamps without geopardizing my wallet !
And now, we must admit that stamp issues lead to rubbish, the latest trend in France is to issue collection stamps without gum it changes from stickers that are the plague of collectors

Yes, stamps are so cheap that I receive all the time envelopes with old stamps on them. While 51 year-old stamps are a pleasant surprise (received about two weeks ago):



what about this:



Can you read the dates on the red stamps?

lol this is exaggerated, they still worth more than 3 cents

Not all stamps are rubbish though.

I collect a lot of classic British Commonwealth (1840 - 1952) and these are generally held in high regard. Stamps of the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Malta, Cyprus, Ireland, Ascension Island, Aden, Hong Kong, Malaya, Sarawak and the British Caribbean before Independence (Pre 1970, when as soon as independence started, some countries like St Vincent and Grenada went nuts).

Errors (Real ones), botched overprints and stamps with really high face value (BC - 10/- and over) are always collectible along with 1920s/1930s Aerophilately (Early airmail flown covers). Postal history has a great following.

Some European countries also have followings - however many places like Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany went through periods of chaos and crazy stamp issuing. Also many 19th century stamps of German and Italian states are contemporary or old forgeries and you must be careful. Western Europe between 1870 and 1915 and then 1945 to 1990 is quite nice, but I find in the Euro era, stamps have gone crazy again - some of the weird graphic art rubbish from the Netherlands and French sticker (Letter verte) stuff is pure garbage. Any form of peel and stick (Self adhesive stamps) are generally to be avoided to as they are hard to soak and aimed at common usage.

Basically if something was common rubbish 50 or 100 years ago, it still is now - also you get some nicely designed new issues, but these suffer from high face values and limited usage. UK is notorious with its £2.53 stamps every month. Some issue topics are also aimed at collectors and not for postage use (Just like those Niuean colourised coins on Hello Kitty and gold plated TDC crowns that the Bradford exchange sells for $100 each). You have gimmick coins, you have gimmick stamps.

It's your choice what you collect as stamps are a great hobby, but unless you collect pre 1900s high face value BC and European classics, it is not a money making one.

Equatorial guinea was by far the worst wallpaper nation in the 1970s - the leader was bats@#t crazy and issued mountains of brightly coloured junk in ukuleles and none of it had any postal use. It was printed in Spain and sold to packet makers around the world for cheap kiddie packs.
Most of it came out between 1972 and 1979.

It was a raft of appendix stamps - issued by agencies rather than the nations - 99% of the nations are 3rd world and poor and often an American or European agency issued wallpaper stamps for them, keeping and printing many for private sales and packet makers.

Others to avoid include

Paraguay 1962 -1990

"Sand Dunes" - 1965 - 1972, these were brightly coloured thematic stamps issued by places like Ras al Khaima, Dhufar, Khor Fakkan, Manama, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm al Qawain and featured paintings, olympics, animals, flowers, nude paintings(!!!) and were all illegal issues of no vailidity - in 1973 the area became the UAE and issued legit stamps.

State of Oman - Illegal wallpaper issued by non official authority - real Omani stamps will say "Sultanate of Oman"

Hungary (Magyar Posta), Romania, USSR (Noyta CCCP), Bulgaria, Poland, - mountains of commie wallpaper issued 1950 - 1990 - stamps before and after this era are okay though.

Mongolia, China (1950s - 1970s), North Korea - Communist propaganda wallpaper that is worthless and thematic. Some Chinese cultural revolution stuff is very collectible but 99% are fake and/or reprints - The Chinese sadly are the kings of counterfeiting.

Cuba - Since 1959 mountains of low value propaganda laden crap.

Most Hispanic countries 1890s - 1970s - heaps of interesting and colourful issues - mostly legit but have little or no collecting value.

In the 1900s many stamps were issued for local use and were printed in the billions. People sent letters like we send emails now. It was common for 4 or 5 deliveries of mail a day. In 1905, men would send their sweethearts a postcard at 9am proposing lunch, and by lunchtime she would be there as the card was posted at 9.30am and arrived at her house by 11am.

A lot of stamp collections will have stamps in the value of 5 or 10 centimes, centimos, pfennigs etc and these were standard postage at the time and will never be worth anything unless its a one of the kind error or colour/paper change.

Today we still have wallpaper agencies exploiting 3rd world nations. The worst is Stamperija a Lithuanian/Russian outfit that issues thematic sheets of 4 stamps and a sheetlet of one large stamp for themes like British Royals, Elvis, Animals, Flowers, Historic Events (Some tasteless like death camps/Zika/Ebola/Diana's dead body/Porno actresses and even Popular American singers and actors for places like Solomon Islands, Benin, Maldives, Sierra Leone etc). They are all illegal not paying for copyrights and thus are drawn in images.

Here is an example of a blog that lambasts Stamperija crap.

http://commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.com/2020/02/1597-maldives-rejoins-commonwealth.html

This blog also shows sticker fad stamps that are overpriced collectibles with no use designed labels and generic stamps.

http://commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.com/2020/02/1606-australia-turns-to-disney.html

If you buy either of these types of things, they will never gain value and just be a waste of money.

Also you have IGPC based in New York and run by a Jewish family and they are rich and have all the licenses to Disney material, dead stars estates, sports franchises and various forms of USA pop culture. Imagine all these stamps with Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, New York baseball, Mickey Mouse etc - all from countries like Carriacou, Grenadines, Dominica, Ghana, Guyana and Tuvalu!!!

Then you have Philatelic Collector, another New York Jewish concern - these issues are based solely in the South Pacific namely Cook Islands (4 entities), Tonga (2 entities and formely Samoa - who booted them out). They issue colourful photo stamps with crazy face values (Like $100 tala and $90 Cook Island dollars for an obscure postage rate). They issue heaps of stamps at crazy face values and then minisheets. The resulting islands have no stamps for local use.

Well these islands all have super cheap texting so letter mail is basically non existent. Samoa got rid of them in 2017 and it was so bad they overprinted stamps from the responsible issuing in the 70s and 80s.
http://commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.com/2019/12/1572-christmas-and-year-of-rat-stamps.html

Also IGPC has gone very pro China lately with Chinese themed stamps and some communist propaganda from Karaganda being printed for PNG

http://commonwealthstampsopinion.blogspot.com/2020/02/1601-new-items-inscribed-papua-new.html

And also you have the Topnimarka, a group of Russian gangsters who issue communist themed rubbish illegally for Benin, Botswana and other countries with a dubious philatelic reputation. However in 2017 they issued some Communist labels for Botswana at crazy face values (60 - 100 pula, when Botswana's high face value stamps are about 10Pula). unlike the other countries, Botswana reacted and had the junk pulled. Topnimarka also issue cheap themed sheets with printed on postmarks for African basket cases like Togo, Burkina Faso and others.

Quote: "Camerinvs"​Yes, stamps are so cheap that I receive all the time envelopes with old stamps on them. While 51 year-old stamps are a pleasant surprise (received about two weeks ago):
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​what about this:
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​Can you read the dates on the red stamps?
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​Age is NEVER a determination of value, there are stamps from the 1850s that are entirely worthless, amny 1 penny, 10 cents type stuff of 1900 and even 1870s can be worthless as ferret cage liners.

It is the worst mistake of an amateur, they think a collection of 100 year old stamps, will bhelp them retire, 99% of the time, they will be lucky to get a baguette with the proceeds.

Post 1932 America seldom has any value at all. 3 cents is quite generous for that crud.

I have 25 years dealing experience and write 3 philatelic newsletters and run 6 stamp clubs, so I know what I am saying.

I know that age is not a criterion to determine the value of individual stamps. But to have a 1928 stamp used in 2020 is still quite impressive.

That 1928 Aeronautics 2¢ mint is worth about US $1.35 if well centered. I suppose this one is worth no more than half of that value, but still more than 2¢. The seller probably assumes he will never be able to liquidate all his stocks, so he uses them.

I have 175 Canadian "Small Queens" (1870─1893), almost all 1¢─3¢. I'm not sure yet whether I'll look for varieties or just swap them. I'm aware they are worth little individually, though the unrealistic catalogue prices (Unitrade "Canadian Stamps" 2019) would suggest I have CDN $350 worth at least.

Moneytane: thank you for sharing your knowledge about the subject.
You repeatedly mention values of stamps. But why the collecting can't be a leisure activity done just for fun? And when seen in this way, it is not wrong to collect stamps which are not valuable.
On the other hand (and as far as I can tell from my experience), commercial stamps frequently feature quite ugly designs, thus collecting them is less fun.

Quote: "Moneytane"Not all stamps are rubbish though ...

what a tremendous knowledge about worldwide stamp issues, thanks for sharing, I might need to read you more than once !
You can also mention Clive Feigenbaum bogus issues as Staffa and Eynhallow.

Quote: "numinis"​... But why the collecting can't be a leisure activity done just for fun? And when seen in this way, it is not wrong to collect stamps which are not valuable.

Sure I like to get as many different nations and political regimes as I can get at low price. I've discovered so many vanished countries that issued stamps but were not able to issue coins and notes by lack of time or by lack of political power.
And sometimes I find by chance impressive stamps in flea markets


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Other interesting postal items can also be obtained for very little. I was in Berlin two summers ago and got more interested in coins of the Second World War period, but also stamps. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was the only bidder on this post-War (1947) item:



which means that I got it for US $1. For me, the historical value is much higher than the actual price I paid for it.

As I write all this, I'm starting to wonder whether governments (as well as the kind of quick-profit-seekers mentioned by Moneytane and FrenchLover) are not largely responsible ─thanks to their flooding of the market with collectors' issues─ for the current low level of interest for the philatelic hobby. My Unitrade catalogue for Canada is 766 pages. Of this, about 25% covers the period 1851─1970 (120 years) while the rest covers the last 50 years. Every year, dozens of new issues in all kinds of formats are issued: individuals, panes with special margin, booklets, adhesives... This is enough to discourage any collector that aims at some level of completeness. In addition, the Post produces stamps aimed at non-collectors ─ just like the Royal Canadian Mint (like so many others now) does with coins. For example, they have released at least a couple of Star Treck related issues, including thick, plastic, hologram-like high value stamps (I got a pair of them on a registered envelope!). New stamp issues are displayed at their postal counters all over the country, alongside the RCM NCLTs of the moment.

In addition, much artistic achievement was lost when engraving was pretty much abandoned in the 1960s─1970s. A glossy stamp will grab your attention... but for how long?

Quote: "numinis"​Moneytane: thank you for sharing your knowledge about the subject.
​You repeatedly mention values of stamps. But why the collecting can't be a leisure activity done just for fun? And when seen in this way, it is not wrong to collect stamps which are not valuable.
​On the other hand (and as far as I can tell from my experience), commercial stamps frequently feature quite ugly designs, thus collecting them is less fun.

​Sorry to be so brusque, just as a dealer so used to people saying "I got these old stamps from all over the world and some are really old like World War 2". Being old is the cliche amongst 99% of the non collectors (Inheritors) and I have to explain numerous times about how piles of world stamps from packets and torn off mail, seldom have value and nearly every child between 1935 and 1985 collected stamps as a child and shops were full of cheap stamp packets.

But I can get it wrong and under estimate people's knowledge and for that I humbly apologise.

Quote: "Moneytane"... ​But I can get it wrong and under estimate people's knowledge and for that I humbly apologise.

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Never underestimate the people's lack of knowledge on stamps and history !
How many people in the United States believe that God somehow influenced the appearance and development of Man? 20%? 40%? No no, 78% ... This is what emerged from a poll released by Gallup, showing the latest trends in beliefs about theories of evolution in the United States. Among these 78%, we find 46% of pure and hard creationists (that is to say who think that God created Man and the Earth as we see them today less than 10 000 years ago), with some of’em visiting the creation museum, and 32% of people who subscribe to the idea of ​​evolution guided by God in one way or another.
Yes I know it's just a digression, not related to the subject of the thread …

Mike Pence is in charge of dealing with the Covid-19 aka Coronavirus. His first "action" has been prayer. Yeah, that should fix it!

I agree with everyone. Stamps are near worthless unless you have a few key ones or errors. I’ve bought so many stamps from a website ( stamps2go.com ) from the late 1800’s for just a cent or two each. I am a teen collector of stamps and coins. I don’t do it for the money or because I think they are worth a lot. They are just worth a lot more to me because I first of all love history and doing this gives me a glimpse into history. I just enjoy knowing that this coin or stamp was made during this historical time period and in this certain country. That is why I enjoy collecting.

Quote: "Moneytane"Western Europe between 1870 and 1915 and then 1945 to 1990 is quite nice, but I find in the Euro era, stamps have gone crazy again - some of the weird graphic art rubbish from the Netherlands and French sticker (Letter verte) stuff is pure garbage. Any form of peel and stick (Self adhesive stamps) are generally to be avoided to as they are hard to soak and aimed at common usage.

​Can you elaborate your claim about Western Europe between 1915-1945? Do you mean that the stamps from this period are not valuable?
I believed that at this time stamps were still issued mostly for postal needs and not for stamp collectors (I mean worldwide). Correct me if I'm wrong.