This purchase was actually from 5 weekends ago. Was in the southeast section of the Catskills and stopping at some garage sales for my wife. Down an unpaved road found an antique dealer wannabe who converted her shed into a small antique shop with a few dozens tables outside. She had some FDC's I was looking thru and she asked me I collected stamps. I answered in the affirmative and she said she was also and had more material back in the house. Her son came back with a storage tub filled to the brim with stamps on paper. I started looking thru and she said she usually fills a gallon baggie at a time and charges $10 at her sale. She quoted $100 but I balked, I was worried that the tub would just be full of the usual 50's to 90's stamps that are in every mixture and I would end up doing a lot of work with little reward. Behind me my wife pulls out $60 and the seller takes it but says she wants to keep her tub. So, sold, I get some reusable shopping bags out of the car and fill them with the stamps. Got home and weighed them, total 30.2 lbs including the bags.
So far went thru the red bag and starting on the first green one, working 30-60 minutes at a time as my back has issues. Just separating by country at this point with the plan to empty all 3 bags and then organize the individual countries to check against my current collection. Of course if anything looks too good to toss into the piles I pick it out. Once done I plan to put the remainder out on ebay. Of course much of the mixture is that usual 50's to 90's common stamps but some surprises so far.
- mixture is worldwide, all 7 continents represented. Almost a shoebox full of Australia so far was a surprise
- glad to see all time periods included, oldest stamp found is a penny red.
- there are a ton of loose US and WW stamps not on paper mixed in here. already overflowed a 3x6x3in container. most are common. There have also been some mint US stamps mixed in, though almost all the mint stamps were stuck together. Picked out a couple of 80's plate blocks, the rest is getting tossed back into the pile.
- already have set aside a pile of 40+ W/F and 1890's US definitives to look over later.
- have pulled out over a 100 US pre-cancels, though many duplicates will end up back in the pile
- similar total of perfins, though most are WW
- surprised to see a good showing of Russian zone Germany including some multiples.
Of course as with every large pile of mixtures there is some number of damaged stamps. Tossing some. Frustrating example of some of the damaged stamps, found a Mint USSR 1941 The 25th Anniversary of the Death of Vasily Surikov (don't have the catalog number), stampworld lists at $54 but the top right corner is torn off. Probably why it was tossed into the mixture to begin with.
The bottom 2-3 inches of the tub was all 1970's Germany definitives with massive duplication, though they do contain tons of great cancellations. That is all now at the top of the green bags, I will probably separate and sell that material off separately.
I'll probably be digging out the last two bags for the next month before starting in on the individual countries. A complete run thru may take me the entire fall and winter. This purchase is going to force me to get more organized in some areas and I will need to think about additional stockbooks and/or albums for some of the WW material I may keep from this haul. If I find anything good will let you know.
Posted 09/02/2023 01:30 am
