It mentions the punched hole cancels on Stanley Gibbons catalogues but I also have a Spanish one which gives more detail. I didn't know they did it in Australia too.

Thanks for your comments. The auction house was Catawiki. It often has some good quality stuff for sale. www.catawiki.com/en/

Thanks Pete, I will check them out.

That's disappointing. Did you contact the vendor? Or Catawiki. I must admit this was only the third time I'd bought from them but it always looks good quality

The first lot that I bought still had many nice stamps, even if I had to throw a lot of stamps away, so ultimately I decided it was fine, even if I felt like I paid a bit too much money for what I got. ( In the item description it had also said that some stamps were in varying conditions, so I was at least aware that the pictures were maybe not very indicative of the condition of the album itself) The second lot though I was a bit disappointed with, but the seller only spoke French so I wasn’t sure what to do. Ultimately I saved the few nice/still okay stamps in the album and threw the rest away. (Once I discovered it also had insects.... later) Anyways, I’ve had a better experience with Catawiki recently. Guess it just comes down to luck when you buy a big lot of stamps, instead of buying something like a specific set of stamps on there.

The stamps with foxing would still have some value and possibly be of interest to some other collectors, even if only as gap fillers, so why throw them out?

I actually didn’t. Well, not exactly at least. Some I’ve used for mail art/stamp art/collage projects. Others I’ve put in bags and sold for 50 cents.