Out with the old

I’ve started 2014 with a renewed determination to clear out some of the older material I’ve accumulated over the years—in particular, a bunch of old covers ranging from the 1870s on up through the 1940s. As a lot of collectors do with excess material, I’ve been listing them on eBay. I figure that those that sell, even for the starting bid of around $1, are going on to good homes, whereas the more common material that can’t even be sold for that is ready to be chopped up for the stamps, and the bulk of the covers discarded.

I realize certain purists might object to this course of action, and certainly, I would love to find a home for every single envelope that I don’t need for my collection. In reality, however, the most common stamps on cover have virtually no value to anyone, and it seems best to clear out the “junk.”

How do you approach covers that may be 70 or 80 years old, but have the most common stamps and no markings or other attributes to particularly distinguish them? Do you, like me, chop them up, or does the very idea of doing such a thing make your skin crawl?

Published 2014-01-12