I have rediscovered a stamp collection

I have recently been going through our library of old books and have come accross four full stamp albums which my wife was given as a child.

Now I know absolutely nothing at all whatsoever about stamps, but there are thousands of them here ranging in date from the 1800s to about 1985. there are lots of collections, like about a hundred from the Munich Olympics in 1972 from all the various countries that took part, commemorative things for opening of U bahns in Munich, royal visits, lots of moon landing ones, loads of early 20th century ones from poland and Czecheslovakia, some pretty ones from Paraquay, third reich / deutsches reich with Kaiser bill and Adolf on them and a few British ones, some red and one black one penny stamps with some queens head on it, looks like a young Victoria but could easily also be someone else, I'm not up on my monarchs, so it might be quite old, I dont imagine any of them are particularly valuable, but liking old things, I am curious about them.

My favourite is an apollo 8 one with a picture of the earth from space and a saturn one that was franked on the day of my birth in 1969.

Now I dont want to go to a stamp shop, where I'm going to be told theyre worthless and get tuppence ha'penny for them, in fact I really dont want to sell them, but I would like to know more about them as a lot of them must have some history.

Can anyone help, or suggest where I could go to look them up, a book that I could get to research them, or a reputable dealer who would be happy to look at and tell me about them without trying to rip me off, I'm quite happy to pay for their services.

Michel Katalog ...

I am in a similar situation. I just checked the Michel-Website, which is obviously only available for a subscription fee of 70 Euro.

I once heard that the Stamp collectors shop at the Schwanthalerstr. / Passage of the City Cinema has an international reputation. But I haven´t been there ever. If I ever take my albums there, I´ll let you know.

They are worth €5. I will take them all.

Have a look on ebay for a rough guide to what others are asking. I was surprised how litte folk were asking for mint examples of Victorian stamps as I have a few, and thought about trying to flog em'.

Cool, thanks everyone, I will have a look at the catalogue and the shop and post how it goes.

A better idea would be for you to scan a sheet of them and post for the rest of us hermits could enjoy them. Bitte?

I cant throw a stamp away and have been putting them in boxes for the past 40 years. If only I knew a really keen stamp collecter, I might be tempted to give them away, but children dont save them any more. Does anyone know a charity that sells stamps?

check out delcampe.net...its a site for collectables...and they do stamps.
could sell them and give the money to charity.

Well if they are stamped already with the post mark I might be interested. I love using stamps in collages.

In my hometown of Bielefeld there is a cluster of hospitals and homes for mentally
handicapped people that uses stamps as part of their therapy. Have a look at
http://www.bethel.de/bethel_de/ueber_uns/b...lakat/index.php
Best wishes, Stefan