The value in the catalogue is the minimum a dealer could sell you a stamp and remain in business for his time, materials, and so forth. So stamps worth 20 cents may not really be worth more than a penny or two or maybe not even that, but it certainly gives relative indicators. Many dealers will sell for a slight discount, may be80-90% of the catalogue value.
If you are a stamp collector, you need to realize that the condition of postage stamps is very important to many collectors. It is certainly going to be important in determining the price if you want to try to sell them or if you want to buy them. A small tear in a stamp or a heavy postage mark that obstructs the design of the stamp can greatly affect the value. You want to see all the perforations, the rough edges along the stamps where holes were punched in the paper so you could tear the stamps apart, all those should be there. The design should be well centered and have four equal margins or nearly equal margins. There is a lot that goes into determining the value, but the catalogues give you a good sense of the value.
There is also software that will help you keep track of your collection. They also allow you to design and print your own album pages. The inventory programs are a sort of online catalogue and each of them has different features. The Philatelic Computing study group is another affiliate of our society and they have a website (www.pcsg.org) where they keep track of all the currently available software and provide contact information for ordering it. They also provide some basic reviews of the features and the strength and weaknesses of each program.
