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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.

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.

Yeah, those are the finds that keep the treasure hunt interesting ...the stories I could tell of finds I have made! Collections of Civil War letters, diaries, etc. saved from attics, some of which were about to go in the trash.