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At least stamps retain their face value. Not really. You can buy unused sheets of stamps at many stamp auctions for less than face value. I get a lot of calls about stamp collections. If someone put some decent money into them 40 or 50 years ago then they are probably worth some money now. If they built their collection from stamps cut off of envelopes or bought in 100 for 25 cents packets, they are worthless.

Not always. Several decades ago I did a review of a stamp collection that'd been gathered from castoff envelopes ~ from the 1800s.

The collector had been an ambassador from a South American country. He was posted to Washington DC.

MY GAWD~~~~~~!!!!!! You know that stuff in the first few pages of just about every catalog book ever published? This collection had ALL THE LISTED variations in every type.

Many of them have no mint condition copies ~ this didn't either, but they'd been gathered fresh off the dispatches and were still crisp and fresh.

They'd been kept in some fairly plain stamp collecting catalogs with low acid paper ~ great stuff. I had the lady who owned them (one of the descendants) lock them in a safety deposit box while getting insurance on them ~ and also advised her to put some of them up for sale so she could retire ~ which she did.

Otherwise you might sometimes encounter collections like that in museums.

I tried to unload some from 40 years ago-—practically worthless. If you have pristine blocks from pre-1950, you might be okay.

I have sent out packages with ten or fifteen stamps on them. My mailman just laughs.

I figure that because I am causing scarcity, someone else’s will go up later.