Hi everyone,

I recently inherited my grandfather's collection. It is a really long list from all over the world, and flipping through everything has sparked a genuine interest in picking up the hobby myself. My immediate priority is proper preservation.

I am a complete novice trying to figure out how to even begin processing a global collection of this scale. If you look at the attached photos, which specific page or region would you recommend I study first? I would love to know what catches your eye so I have a clear starting point for my research.

Thanks

Looking for opinions : I am coming back to philately for the first time since age 8 (thrilled about it actually) and I just inherited my uncle’s collection which features Newfoundland prominently. I have a couple of boxes of Newfie stamps that are still on paper. My question : is there anything that should be stopping me from soaking tho whole lot? I’d love to take the time and go through the boxes but I’m afraid that I am approaching this naively and destroying something important. All stamps are late (WWII era) and torn from enveloppes. Some cancellation are clear. Others are note. Thanks!

Yesterday, India Post released a special issue commemorating the Platinum Anniversary of Dinamalar Tamil Daily (Regional Newspaper of India).

If you are new into Philately world and have any question, feel free to ask in comments/pm. love to support the community in whatever I can

My Permanent Pictorial Cancellation(PPC) of NAL so post office with ISRO rocket theme stamp dated 05 Sep 2026.

Cost for getting this is ₹0.50 INR ( Indian Rupee)
which equals to
$0.00529 USD (US Dollar)
€0.00456 EUR (Euro)
£0.00389 GBP (British Pound)
¥0.82907 JPY (Japanese Yen)
$0.00735 AUD (Australian Dollar)
$0.00732 CAD (Canadian Dollar

Love the detail of the Engraiving.

Photo is on Zanzibar Scott 62, Gibbons 188, 1/2 Anna denomination of 1899. Photo shows the red portion printed on the reverse of the stamp as well as the front. At first I thought it had bled through on the flag portion, but as the 2nd photo clearly shows the red printing is also on the edges of the perforations.

Has anyone seen this variety before? Unsure if I should get it expertised? Thanks for your time reading this post.

I’m not a world stamp person but was given these. I’ve tried to figure out date and plate position on these. I’m wondering if there’s a smarter person than I and could give me more information about them. Thanks for your time and knowledge!

Was going to buy this. What are all the "Forever" stamps for set amounts? I do like the idea of a comprehensive guide to Forever stamps including an explanation and history as to why they're necessary.

Every winter, people in Japan send millions of New Year's cards (Nengajō) printed with a lottery number. In January, the Japanese postal service draws the winning numbers.

This small sheets of four stamps was not, and still is not, a regular product that one could simply buy at the post office. Instead, this pad was traditionally the consolation prize (third place) in the New Year's lottery. Anyone who received a ticket with the correct last number went to the post office and received this very pad as a gift.

Because the sheets had to be won, it was extremely popular with collectors.

Also showing the coins in question lol

The United States Postal Service (USPS) plans to release Forever Stamps on September 25, 2026, honoring acclaimed photographer and humanitarian Linda McCartney (the first wife of The Beatles singer Paul McCartney). At the time of my original post, USPS had not provided any information about pre-ordering the stamps, first day covers, or other collectibles. Those details have since emerged.

Available in sheets of 20, the stamps include five different “photographs from Linda McCartney’s iconic portfolio.” The sheet’s selvage “features a black-and-white self-portrait of McCartney behind her camera.” Each sheet costs $16.40 (the standard fee for 20 $0.82 stamps).

USPS is offering a set of five different covers with Official First Day of Issue postmarks for $7.00. A set of five covers with Digital Color Postmarks — which include a replica of Linda McCartney’s signature — cost $11.25.

Collectors may also buy a set of five Field Notes(®) notebooks for $24.95. Each notebook’s cover includes a stamp and the Official First Day of Issue postmark. These are very attractive items, which I think would make a thoughtful gift for photographers who like to write down details of their photo shoots.

The USPS website also has a ready-to-be-framed matted set of stamps available for pre-order. This is a nice addition, one I think photographers will especially appreciate. The cost is a relatively affordable $18.95.

I have pre-ordered a sheet of stamps and the covers with Official First Day of Issue postmarks. I think the other items are worthy additions to any photo philately collection, but I’m trying not to spend too much money.
Do you plan to buy the Linda McCartney stamps or merchandise for your collection? Let me know by commenting.

I picked this up earlier but I don’t really know what it is I think it’s a postal order?

It’s written in German but is dated prior to the unification (1863/65/67) I can’t really tell.

If this doesn’t fit the sub I apologise.

Part of this question is rhetorical, I'm pretty sure I taped 6 and 7 to preserve them!

I know that I did not use any sort of solvent to dissolve glue on self adhesive stamps and yet I have some that don't have paper attached. I have a vague memory of steaming them in the top of a kettle. Is it possible I managed to wrangle the gum off by brute force after it was heated? You can see in #4 that there is still paper in the center but the edges are clean (must have given up). The backs of all of these (self adhesive and not) feel rough.

Some that you can't see feel extremely thin. Is it possible that I was separating the different layers of paper? Envelope-glue-paper-(picture) and I just have the part in parentheses?

In some senses, I know it doesn't matter, keep what I want and toss what I don't (while learning from my childhood mistakes). I am curious though if there is any salvaging. If I soaked them again would that help those with the rough back or is that permanent damage? I'm guessing there was a lot of impatience and pulling things off instead of waiting for them to float off.

The whole process made me appreciate how much information is packed into something so small. A torn postmark and a watermark you can only see against light told me more about where that letter had traveled than I expected from a box that cost less than lunch.

I still have about thirty pieces I haven't identified yet, mostly because the cancellation marks are too faded to read clearly. Planning to look at them under a lamp this week before deciding whether they're worth mounting or just filing away as space fillers.

Anyone else find that estate sale mixed lots end up being more rewarding than buying sets that are already sorted and priced? There's something about not knowing what you're going to find in a random handful that makes the sorting part feel less like work and more like actual discovery.

Forgive me if this is better suited for a stamp collecting reddit, just let me know and I can move it.

TL;DR - How to choose what to collect and how to store it

I collected stamps as a kid but stopped in early high school due to limited time and preferring coin collecting. I have recently been given the option of taking the collection of my uncle who passed away several years ago. This has sent me back into the world of philately which, 30 years later, looks completely different. My original collecting experience of cutting stamps off the envelopes that came in the mail is so narrow compared to what now seems infinite possibilities, especially with the Internet.

I have spent the last few weeks reading, watching, etc. to get an idea of what is actually out there and to freshen up on what I now realize were terrible habits I made as a kid. I have gone back through my own collection which consists of a bunch of duplicate 90s stamps that I didn't treat well. Conversely, my uncle has a huge collection of highly organized stamps that my aunt would like me to take all of if I could but that is overwhelming to me. There is a 4'x6' bookcase full of binders.

It seems that you can't collect it all and therefore need to choose some sort of niche (topic, country, cancellations, etc). He has a gorgeous binder of almost complete Mexico Exports with notes from a presentation he gave to his local stamp club on the topic, but these don't interest me beyond the history of how interested in them HE was. This leads me to my first area that I would like feedback: if given access to a huge collection, how would you go about deciding what you wanted? I like the Marie Kondo idea of "does it spark joy" but feel that without really knowing what I'm looking at, I wouldn't be able to quickly decide while looking through. Part of what is so cool about stamps is the history but you don't know that just glancing at things and I wouldn't have the time to do all that research on the spot. It would take weeks. Any suggestions?

My second area I am looking for feedback on is storage. It is clear to me that trends in stamp collecting have changed over time. What was once considered fine is later found to be undesirable or even damaging and people do things that even then would have been frowned upon. Most of his stamps are hinged onto paper in binders. Is there a way to check if this paper is acidic? Is there anything else I should be worried about or check for? The one piece that I have told my aunt I will definitely take is an International Junior Album that is really cool and has a lot of stamps in it. The album is actually torn in two down the middle so that it is like two books. This leaves those middle pages now exposed. I like the idea of keeping the stamps in there because I feel like the book itself is part of the history of how the stamps were collected but am worried about damage. The books must be laid flat because one side has a cover and the other doesnt. I vaguely recall I read recently laying flat is bad. Also, this exposes those two pages of stamps to light, dust, abrasion, etc. Any thoughts on how to limit that? I also was watching a video from Ted Talks Stamps which mentions the pages in those old albums being acidic.... Do I need to pull all the stamps out because of that?

A similar question about storage. If you were starting completely fresh, how would you store your stamps? (Album, binder, stockbook, etc) My go to as a kid was loose in a box and this clearly isn't going to work here! I would like to start putting my own stamps together as well as deciding potentially for some of my uncle's. Is there a good, better, best when it comes to storage or is that largely personal preference/cost? My final storage question: is there consensus or at least some good recent resources I could look at on whether you should use hinges?

Thanks in advance for the help. I only had space on the airplane to bring back two magazines and one Scott catalogue. I've been looking through those with joy. I'm sure once I have some of his stamps in hand I will have more questions and hopefully some things to contribute as well.

Edit: thank you all for the welcome and good advice!

6 copies of the "Postcard Receipt" design.

Part of the "Postcards Worldwide" denomination, i.e. the Hellenic Post's 9th commemorative set for World Postcard Day

I'm going through my grandfather's old stamp collection and thought I'd start sharing some of the more interesting ones I find.

These two are from Tannu Tuva, 1934. Tannu Tuva (or Tuvan People's Republic, according to Wikipedia) was a partially recognized socialist republic that existed from 1921 to 1944.

I don't know much about stamp collecting, so I'm mostly sharing these because I think they're really cool, and people who appreciate stamps would enjoy it. If anyone knows more about the stamps, the artwork, the airplanes, Tannu Tuva, or anything else interesting about them, I'd love to hear it.

I'm not particularly interested in selling the collection, but if I happen to have something that's unusually valuable, I'd definitely appreciate someone pointing it out so I can take proper care of it.

I'll probably post more from my grandfather's collection as I go through it. There are some pretty strange and beautiful ones in here. (Or point me towards a better sub for sharing things like this)