UKH

So I collected stamps when I was a wee boy, got hundreds of the bloomin things in biscuit tins, envelopes, stuck to albums....

No interest in them but always hung onto them for that rainy day...

Rainy day is here (son bust his back ) so a windfall might come in handy...

I'm pretty sure there was a handfull of really valuable ones in amongst the thousands so my question to the knowledgeable is are stamps still worth anything?

And if so how do i go about getting a value without somebody offering me a pittance for the lot ?

Or do i just compost/feed them to my goats?

Goats, every time.

Amusingly, I was once sent a letter on which the correspondent had used about twenty old (but unused) stamps from his collection to make up the postage. It gave me a good laugh.

You could try Robert Murray in Edinburgh. Not too far from Alien rock so you could combine the trip.  Whenever I pass it always looks exactly how you'd expect a stamp collector's shop to look - a bit like the wand shop in Harry Potter. 

Thanks definitely have a look in next time I'm down

I climb but I never ate a list. 

Slow day?

Very!

Thanks ☺️

Knew i could rely on ukc for some helpful replies

I had a load that were valued once, was told the Dick Barton special edition album was worth more than all stamps in it added together! 

if you are talking about simply keeping whatever came to hand with no attempt to study and set them in order in albums they are probably worthless and you are no philatelist. What makes you think there must be some stamps of value amongst the dross? I am sorry to learn of the reasons for your hopes, and I suggest the least you can do is to sort them by countries and face values before making any approach to specialists. Presumably they are all used stamps and none mint so check their  ondition too.

. 

My father collected stamps, he worked for a bank and they received many overseas letters. When he died in 1987 my mother sold them to Stanley Gibbons. She got about £25.

Stamps were a hot thing in the 80s. My childhood collection had some reasonable stuff in it, but there was no interest in anyone buying it recently. There's little market other than the high end.

I inherited my Dad's GB mint stamp collection which must be worth something. There's this classic in it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Union_Congress_%C2%A31_stamp

Probably best selling high worth ones individually, then rest as job lot?

I hear the best way to sell about 5000 stamps is to find the most valuable one, take some nice photos of it, make an ebay listing for "100 random stamps from the collection, chance it could have the [named expensive stamp]!!!" with a price that's about 10% of the cost of the valuable one. Sell 50 lots and laugh all the way to the bank.

People are gambling addicts (even stamp collectors).

Also, as everyone else and their dog does this, you might have to dress it up a bit more and put a bit more effort in.

Sneaky. Raises the moral dilemma as to whether you truly sell them in random batches, or retain the valuable ones to sell in isolation a few weeks later under a different account. 

Try these folks

https://www.stanleygibbons.com/visit-us/valuations

So they were right when they said philately would get me nowhere?

That's really lovely, lucky you. It seems from that online auction site we're talking a touch over Extreme Rock sort of value?

in thew 1970 s sold mine to an auction house in bristol ,£350 bought a fiat 125

would use an auction house,plenty specia

list stamp ones about

Yes. I assume all lotteries are lies and scams. Even if it's not a zero effort fraud like keeping the prizes, it's still far too easy to just funnel the prizes to your friends/fake alternate versions of yourself.

It's a business structure which just absolutely begs to be abused.