A local gentleman called me. He had a few sheets of mint stamps. I started explaining about discount postage. He stopped me in my tracks.

“These sheets are rare,” he said. “They’ve been autographed by the people who designed these stamps!” In short, he thought he was sitting on a small goldmine of stamps because they were signed in the margin by various people.

Sheets of stamps with autographs are uncommon, but not rare. When I’ve seen these sheets of stamps sold at auction, they usually realize a few hundred dollars per sheet at the most. Many times sheets like these sell for under $100. If they’re been signed by a Postmaster General or some famous artist, those sheets sell for the most. If they were signed by, say, the engraver, or someone less famous, those sheets generally don’t sell for as much, usually in the tens of dollars.

In general, people who are involved with a stamp issue are not famous folks. No one in the general public is very interested in their autograph. Even within the stamp collecting community, there is some interest for this kind of material, but it’s not huge. This means prices are relatively low because demand is low.

Autographs of people involved with a stamp issue will not put your children through college. It could buy a nice dinner or two.