What do I do with the remnants of my mother’s stamp collection from many years ago?

This consists of:

• Perhaps a shoebox of various loose stamps, cancelled. I haven’t gone back to look, but I expect these mostly date to the 1950s and maybe into the 60s. See the story below.

• Several “first day of issue” covers, both US and a few from elsewhere in the Pacific, again 50s and 60s.

• Two albums of stamps from countries in the Pacific and Asia, collected by UH Professor Carey D. Miller. These are beautiful to look at, but I don’t know whether they have any value.

When I was growing up, my mother used stamps to introduce us to other parts of the world. I’m guessing this is still very common, and perhaps there’s somewhere I could donate at least all those loose stamps so they could be used in this way.

Any advice would be most welcome!

Meanwhile, last week I found a small envelope, yellowed with age. Inside, two handwritten letters written in 1954 by 10-year old George Hobby, with a return address at the Namwianga Mission, Kalomo, Northern Rhodesia, now part of Zambia.

One was addressed to my mother, thanking her for sending some stamps to him, and saying a bit about himself. This letter is shown below. The second letter was addressed to my sister, Bonnie.

“I am a stamp collecter, and have 421 stamps. I am sending you some stamps of N.R.,” he wrote to Bonnie.

Click on the letter for a larger version.

This being the digital age, I sat down and did a Google search for George Hobby. It seems he died in Arkansas in 2004 at age 60.