Does anyone know anything about rare stamps?

[Ferral]

My mother in law has a charity auction up on a book of rare stamps she is selling but no one will tell her why the interest is peaking. There is something there that we are assuming extremely valuable or rare.

Has anyone any knowledge on this at all and could point me in he right direction so she doesn't get ripped off completely.

Images :

http://uk.four.ebid.net/perl/auction...8-1&mo=auction

[grayg1]

Did a quick google and http://www.stamp-valuations.co.uk/ seem like they could be useful?
Best thing might be to withdraw the sale and find out whether any of them are worth a decent amount.

[Whiternoise]

You can buy a book called Gibbons' Almanac or something like that - my grandad collects stamps and it's got all the valuations in there. Might only be UK though..

http://shop.stanleygibbons.com/index...ing=catalogues

The top one is the one you want, costs a tenner, but if you can nab an old one from a charity shop or something. In any case, the most valuable ones will probably the UK ones, since it's a uk bid site.

To be honest, 8 quid isn't especially loads for a stamp book i don't think, eBay auctions can easily go over £50 for a valuable UK set.

[Ferral]

Thing is with getting a book its the delivery time. If anyone knows someoe that wouldn't mind taking a look it would be a great help. As you can see from the listing it is for a local charity which is a good ting and the more my mother in law can make the better.

[Clunk]

Have you tried being frank with them?

[sammyc]

^

Try the online Stanley Gibbons as an alternative to the catalogue...?
http://www.stanleygibbons.com/

(though as Whiternoise says, £8 bid wouldn't make me think people were going into a frenzy over the album, it's not much for that amount of stamps..)

[Whiternoise]

What you want to look out for, if you can, is the ones from the UK from the 1800s, the classic ones (if i remember old grandpa right) are the penny black, penny red and the tuppenny blue ones - they'll fetch the most generally.

The older the better basically.

[mmh]

What you want to look out for, if you can, is the ones from the UK from the 1800s, the classic ones (if i remember old grandpa right) are the penny black, penny red and the tuppenny blue ones - they'll fetch the most generally.

The older the better basically.

not quite true...

the penny black isnt that valuable and was the first ever stamp...

penny red... dime a dozen... except for certain plate numbers... tuppenny blue... a good condition specimen will fetch a fair bit, but generally they will be around the same prices as the blacks.

Nothing in that album looks particularly valuable... as others have said £9 isnt really alot... it might just be people trying to stat a collection as theres a few there...

generally, the foreign stamps arent worth a great deal, the british ones on stanley gibbons i could tell you if i could find a guide book, but my dads seems to have gone walkies.... but i can tell you from a quick look theres nothing exceedingly valuable there.

[GoNz0]

pull the book, get them valued, if its worth a lot more you can still donate some to charity, but you wont be lining some greedy collectors pocket who spotted something worth a hundred plus quid, instead you will be amking them pay for it