I came into the hobby at age 8 or 9 as a worldwide collector, and never left
Though, I limit myself to pre-1940 (or 1945 or so) to remain sane.
I'm with Chris! I started at age 8 as a worldwide collector. I have the most fun there! Worldwide, Pre-1945 or so - this is the direction in which I'm headed.
An Aside:
I've been spending WAAAY too much time trying to make the perfect album pages - stressing over fonts, paper weight, binders and software programs. Not to mention all of the past failed attempts at arriving at a nice uniform collection style, I recently spent over 200 hours on my modified Steiner pages for just four countries, and several hundred dollars on mounts and paper. To what end? My hard drive crashes mid project before I saved all of my work, and before I printed. Shame on me for not doing incremental saves...
I think it is a sign. I've been focusing on the wrong things.
Anyway, I'm going back to basics. It's stamps, stockpages, perf. gauge and tongs. I'm going to simplify my favorite hobby. My day job is already too stressful as it is.
Maybe this should have been posted in the Steamroom. Thanks for listening!
Don,
You think your day job is stressful, just wait until you retire and still can't find enough time to work on your hobbies. How on earth do you find time to do the hobbies now?????
Mike
Don,
I know exactly how you feel. I had spent the last year and a half playing around with modifiying my Steiner pages and trying to find the "right" fonts, paper, binders, etc., etc. It is a lot of effort when you are doing a WW collection. Plus, I don't really want to end up with 50+ binders to house my collection.
Still not sure what I will do in the long run. Right now, I'm just sticking with my Scott International Vol 1., but have thought about Minkus SG or just using stockpages. Not sure
Hi Chris,
I'm right there with you! I really wish I had kept my Vintage Reproductions Brown album, but I sold that, thinking I was getting into something better!
I know that this is supposed to be a lovely, breezy thread about the pleasures of worldwide collecting. Why do I make it so hard? haha. I didn't mean to hijack with my latest woes.
@CapeStampMan - haha - I hope I CAN retire one day! I gotta quit having kids
Ok Everybody. I had a good night's sleep and now I'm ready to tackle the DIY album pages again. I leafed through the ones I had prepared, and cannot let this project go.
Onward!
Boy, you must have had a very good night's sleep
YES INDEED!!!
I've started to get my template together and the process begins again.
In the meantime, I see some Finland Serpentines that need a new home.
The age old problem of how we mount/store our collections. I started out as a boy using an album, then a second album, then outgrew those and started buying album pages. After awhile I found I had stamps that didn't have spaces on album pages or there were no pages for the country I had so I started putting them on blank stamp album pages, in 3 ring binders. After more time I realized that was the way to go for everything so I began accumulating binders and did not worry about buying album pages.
I eventually cleaned out the collection and have done this several times, eliminating countries I am no longer interested in. I still have many binders of stamps but now I am converting everything to Vario or related brand stock pages for stamps, booklets, souvenier sheets and covers. Large items go in page protectors purchased at the office supply store. However, I now need to take some of those collections and rearrange the stamps in date order - another long task.
We can spend more time arranging and storing our stamps than we do hunting for them. It's just part of the allure of being a philatelist.
And another problem - with age comes memory slowdown/loss and I can't readily remember where I put something in a collection so I end up going through all the binders trying to find what I need.
Right now I can't locate my most recent album of US postal cards: I easily found the 2 other albums but just don't remember where the current one is. So I will spend the weekend going through every album until I find it.
Now one would think that all the binders are labeled? Not necessarily - I'll do it later means it may not happen for months. Procrastination is my middle name.
"I'm right there with you! I really wish I had kept my Vintage Reproductions Brown album, but I sold that, thinking I was getting into something better!"
My Big blues are not in good shape..the stamps are..but binders becoming unhinged, pages in the back of he album starting to loosen..i can replace the binders and i suppose there are ways to repair the pages ..but the thought of rehousing all those thousands of stamps..i doubt it would be worth the time and effort !
The Vintage Reproduction album pages are the old Scott Specialty pages.
One thing I found regarding the pages coming loose in the binders is that you can't let there be much room for the pages to slide around on the posts, especially the rectangular-style holes. I use the Scott filler strips to resolve this problem. I place a stack of the strips after the last page in the binder. The number of strips to use depends on how much space there is between the last album page and the top of the binder posts. Only use as many strips to the point where the posts fit easily (without forcing) into the slots where the binder rod will be able to go through the holes at the end of the posts. That way the pages are kept snug together along the edge where the punched holes are. Without the pages sliding about along the posts, you won't tear the pages out of the binders.
I used to be constantly repairing the torn holes. Once I added the filler strips to my almost 100 specialty binders, the holes on the pages no longer get pulled, and the pages stay put in the binder.
C-Line® Clear Self-Adhesive Reinforcing Strips (Item: 624221; Model: 64112)
These are the best things I have found to reinforce or repair the holes of my album pages.
By the way, do they make the filler strips for the Scott Internationals? Only see ones for the Speciality pages at Subway.
The" Big Blues" — a complete set of four volumes — were my first serious stamp albums. I was probably about 14, which would have been around 1957. I manfully started mounting stamps, and almost immediately began finding that the albums didn't have spaces for some of my stamps. And, of course, my chances of filling even a tiny percentage of all of those pages was nil (and still would be!). Then I discovered that a whole year's worth of pages was missing. I didn't realize that I could have ordered that missing set, and became completely discouraged. The albums languished, unopened, for the next several years, and when my wife and I became refugees from the U.S. and settled in Ottawa, I sold my entire collection to a dealer near Sparks Street, I think, for $25. I recall too that the albums, even though they had not been heavily used, were beginning to suffer wear.
Bob
Bob, i am not usually an envious person...but you had 4 volumes of the scott internationals at 14 ! I think you can turn those two digits around before i had 4 of the Internationals. My Dad actually bought me a 1949 Scott Modern..they had changed from Red To Blue by then and i inherited the girl next doors "Geographic" stamp album if anyone remembers them with the green cover. In 1966 i purchased a purhased a Netherlands album and filled that almost to completion. After that i became fairly serious.
As one who has worked at a stamp shop for the past five and one-half years; I must say the quality of the pages and the binders of the Scott "Blues" are not very good.
They come in, beaten and battered up.
David
I started out at age 20 when I went in the service with the old Statesman album from Harris and moved to Scott specialty albums. I had all of them at one point and then it dawned on me the amount of money I had put out and was still putting out. About that time, I needed money for some schooling and I sold the whole works. I got more for the albums than for the stamps. I started up again after school and simplified by going to 1 inch black notebooks and 25 space approval sheets. I buy a large batch of the notebooks every year when stores sell school supplies and I have the pages printed a 1000 at a time. It has worked great. I am up to about 180,000 in 240 notebooks which takes up one whole wall in my stamp room. This time I put the money in the stamps and not the albums.
Jack
Guys, this is really therapeutic for me... like a 12 step program. I realized finally that I was not alone. I have encountered all these problems and followed the same attempted solutions!
Started out in 7th grade with basic HE Harris Pioneer Album, moved up to the HEH Ambassador album and then the old one volume HEH Statesman... finally graduated to what I thought was the ultimate... the HEH Citation album by high school. Then I began to specialize in Germany and Area using the Scott's Specialty albums plus US in the Scott National. Over the years I gravitated by to more worldwide, especially Central and Southeast Europe in Scott Specialty albums. Then about 15 years ago I succumbed to a set of three Minkus Supreme Globals at a local show but shortly went with new Big Blues up through around 1972 but encounted the old stamps without spaces or country page problems.
I flirted with Stiener for a while and then last year bought a 6 volume set of Minkus Global Supremes up through 1972 in near mint condition. Now I'm buying used Minkus Specialty albums for countries I'm into and substituting those pages for the Global pages. Also bought a large Latin American collection in Scott Specialty albums for Central, South, and Latin West Indies plus Mexico.
I think I'm loosing my mind. I'm retiring later this year and have deluded myself into thinking I'll get this all sorted out during my "golden years"! Nome of this even considers my first day covers, US plate blocks, US Zip Blocks, post mark collections, or precancels! I have discovered that I am powerless over my stamp collections. It's good to know I'm not alone!!
I thought this was a 12 step program...i must lead a dull life..but i do not know what i would do without stamps and covers. My wife has been a fellow collector for the past 20 some years as the Paypal account will testify !
I have tried many times over the years to specialize and abandoned my worldwide fetish. The closest I've come is to limit my WW fanaticism to pre-1940 issues. I believe this is due to my fascination with world history, and it feels that limiting my collecting to a specific area somehow robs me of the full scope of the experience. I will never have a "world class collection," but I will always have my fantasy adventures to all those places and times.
" I'm retiring later this year and have deluded myself into thinking I'll get this all sorted out during my "golden years" ... I have discovered that I am powerless over my stamp collections."
"i believe we are all from the same mold..MORE OR LESS !"
It's not that hard to amass a world-wide collection for the 1840-1980s. It gets difficult from the 1990s onward. The supplies of those stamps are not easy to find.
Of course the cost of the good world-wide albums is high, but there are Steiner pages that are just as good. In 1969 I got my first Scott International for Christmas. I then starting getting one volume on Christmases and my birthday. Yes, the price for the pages AND binder for each part was just $19.99.
I started collecting the world in 1962, and never turned back from it. When starting, buy in bulk as often as possible. Plenty of large packets are available for most countries. That will add stamps to a good number of pages very quickly. Buy collections in the better grade albums like Scott International and Specialty, Palo, Minkus Supreme Global, and others like that. Collections in cheaper quality albums like Harris and Minkus are often full of damaged stamps. Buy former dealer stock in box lots. Send for mystery box lots like Kenmore, Mystic and Champion sell. Also, Mystic advertises special offers on the back page of almost every issue of Linns. For just a few dollars, you get some 21st Century stamps. They'll send a packet of stamps that you can either buy or send back in a postage paid envelope. Buy from the approval books and auction lots on SOR. As someone recently stated, the stamps selling on SOR sell for very little, but many have higher catalog value than one might think. Buy stamps through the APS Sales Division. You help other collectors get a little money for their unwanted stamps, and you help our national stamp club as well. There are many other ways to get alot of stamps at bulk/wholesale prices, or even by trading with collector friends. Just be careful that you don't go overboard and get too much at one time. You don't want to be in a position where you overspend your allowance.
Then, sell your unwanted material. You can do that easily on SOR, and through the APS Sales Division (if you're an APS member). That way you'll get more money to buy more stamps.
That's how I've been building my collection since 1962.
A worthy effort Michael.....my 9 Scott Internationals run to 1969..all purchased second hand at our club or on ebay...at the club i purchased them for as little as 5 dollars and on ebay i have paid as much as $40.00 for ones with "hundreds of stamps". I started purchasing box lots in the late 1980's but it dawned on me that many of these stamps were from the 1970's and 1980's and of little use to me except for swapping. Ambition is made of sterner stuff..i can not imagine collecting worldwide up to the present (ouch !)
While i restrict my "serious" stamp purhasing to areas i am actively collecting at the time..i came into the hobby at age 9 as a worldwide collector. I still have 9 Scott International albums to year 1969 staring at me behind my back. So, when i get a chance to fill a space in them...i feel kind of obligated .
re: The worldwide game
I came into the hobby at age 8 or 9 as a worldwide collector, and never left
Though, I limit myself to pre-1940 (or 1945 or so) to remain sane.
re: The worldwide game
I'm with Chris! I started at age 8 as a worldwide collector. I have the most fun there! Worldwide, Pre-1945 or so - this is the direction in which I'm headed.
An Aside:
I've been spending WAAAY too much time trying to make the perfect album pages - stressing over fonts, paper weight, binders and software programs. Not to mention all of the past failed attempts at arriving at a nice uniform collection style, I recently spent over 200 hours on my modified Steiner pages for just four countries, and several hundred dollars on mounts and paper. To what end? My hard drive crashes mid project before I saved all of my work, and before I printed. Shame on me for not doing incremental saves...
I think it is a sign. I've been focusing on the wrong things.
Anyway, I'm going back to basics. It's stamps, stockpages, perf. gauge and tongs. I'm going to simplify my favorite hobby. My day job is already too stressful as it is.
Maybe this should have been posted in the Steamroom. Thanks for listening!
re: The worldwide game
Don,
You think your day job is stressful, just wait until you retire and still can't find enough time to work on your hobbies. How on earth do you find time to do the hobbies now?????
Mike
re: The worldwide game
Don,
I know exactly how you feel. I had spent the last year and a half playing around with modifiying my Steiner pages and trying to find the "right" fonts, paper, binders, etc., etc. It is a lot of effort when you are doing a WW collection. Plus, I don't really want to end up with 50+ binders to house my collection.
Still not sure what I will do in the long run. Right now, I'm just sticking with my Scott International Vol 1., but have thought about Minkus SG or just using stockpages. Not sure
re: The worldwide game
Hi Chris,
I'm right there with you! I really wish I had kept my Vintage Reproductions Brown album, but I sold that, thinking I was getting into something better!
I know that this is supposed to be a lovely, breezy thread about the pleasures of worldwide collecting. Why do I make it so hard? haha. I didn't mean to hijack with my latest woes.
@CapeStampMan - haha - I hope I CAN retire one day! I gotta quit having kids
re: The worldwide game
Ok Everybody. I had a good night's sleep and now I'm ready to tackle the DIY album pages again. I leafed through the ones I had prepared, and cannot let this project go.
Onward!
re: The worldwide game
Boy, you must have had a very good night's sleep
re: The worldwide game
YES INDEED!!!
I've started to get my template together and the process begins again.
In the meantime, I see some Finland Serpentines that need a new home.
re: The worldwide game
The age old problem of how we mount/store our collections. I started out as a boy using an album, then a second album, then outgrew those and started buying album pages. After awhile I found I had stamps that didn't have spaces on album pages or there were no pages for the country I had so I started putting them on blank stamp album pages, in 3 ring binders. After more time I realized that was the way to go for everything so I began accumulating binders and did not worry about buying album pages.
I eventually cleaned out the collection and have done this several times, eliminating countries I am no longer interested in. I still have many binders of stamps but now I am converting everything to Vario or related brand stock pages for stamps, booklets, souvenier sheets and covers. Large items go in page protectors purchased at the office supply store. However, I now need to take some of those collections and rearrange the stamps in date order - another long task.
We can spend more time arranging and storing our stamps than we do hunting for them. It's just part of the allure of being a philatelist.
re: The worldwide game
And another problem - with age comes memory slowdown/loss and I can't readily remember where I put something in a collection so I end up going through all the binders trying to find what I need.
Right now I can't locate my most recent album of US postal cards: I easily found the 2 other albums but just don't remember where the current one is. So I will spend the weekend going through every album until I find it.
Now one would think that all the binders are labeled? Not necessarily - I'll do it later means it may not happen for months. Procrastination is my middle name.
re: The worldwide game
"I'm right there with you! I really wish I had kept my Vintage Reproductions Brown album, but I sold that, thinking I was getting into something better!"
re: The worldwide game
My Big blues are not in good shape..the stamps are..but binders becoming unhinged, pages in the back of he album starting to loosen..i can replace the binders and i suppose there are ways to repair the pages ..but the thought of rehousing all those thousands of stamps..i doubt it would be worth the time and effort !
re: The worldwide game
The Vintage Reproduction album pages are the old Scott Specialty pages.
One thing I found regarding the pages coming loose in the binders is that you can't let there be much room for the pages to slide around on the posts, especially the rectangular-style holes. I use the Scott filler strips to resolve this problem. I place a stack of the strips after the last page in the binder. The number of strips to use depends on how much space there is between the last album page and the top of the binder posts. Only use as many strips to the point where the posts fit easily (without forcing) into the slots where the binder rod will be able to go through the holes at the end of the posts. That way the pages are kept snug together along the edge where the punched holes are. Without the pages sliding about along the posts, you won't tear the pages out of the binders.
I used to be constantly repairing the torn holes. Once I added the filler strips to my almost 100 specialty binders, the holes on the pages no longer get pulled, and the pages stay put in the binder.
re: The worldwide game
C-Line® Clear Self-Adhesive Reinforcing Strips (Item: 624221; Model: 64112)
These are the best things I have found to reinforce or repair the holes of my album pages.
By the way, do they make the filler strips for the Scott Internationals? Only see ones for the Speciality pages at Subway.
re: The worldwide game
The" Big Blues" — a complete set of four volumes — were my first serious stamp albums. I was probably about 14, which would have been around 1957. I manfully started mounting stamps, and almost immediately began finding that the albums didn't have spaces for some of my stamps. And, of course, my chances of filling even a tiny percentage of all of those pages was nil (and still would be!). Then I discovered that a whole year's worth of pages was missing. I didn't realize that I could have ordered that missing set, and became completely discouraged. The albums languished, unopened, for the next several years, and when my wife and I became refugees from the U.S. and settled in Ottawa, I sold my entire collection to a dealer near Sparks Street, I think, for $25. I recall too that the albums, even though they had not been heavily used, were beginning to suffer wear.
Bob
re: The worldwide game
Bob, i am not usually an envious person...but you had 4 volumes of the scott internationals at 14 ! I think you can turn those two digits around before i had 4 of the Internationals. My Dad actually bought me a 1949 Scott Modern..they had changed from Red To Blue by then and i inherited the girl next doors "Geographic" stamp album if anyone remembers them with the green cover. In 1966 i purchased a purhased a Netherlands album and filled that almost to completion. After that i became fairly serious.
re: The worldwide game
As one who has worked at a stamp shop for the past five and one-half years; I must say the quality of the pages and the binders of the Scott "Blues" are not very good.
They come in, beaten and battered up.
David
re: The worldwide game
I started out at age 20 when I went in the service with the old Statesman album from Harris and moved to Scott specialty albums. I had all of them at one point and then it dawned on me the amount of money I had put out and was still putting out. About that time, I needed money for some schooling and I sold the whole works. I got more for the albums than for the stamps. I started up again after school and simplified by going to 1 inch black notebooks and 25 space approval sheets. I buy a large batch of the notebooks every year when stores sell school supplies and I have the pages printed a 1000 at a time. It has worked great. I am up to about 180,000 in 240 notebooks which takes up one whole wall in my stamp room. This time I put the money in the stamps and not the albums.
Jack
re: The worldwide game
Guys, this is really therapeutic for me... like a 12 step program. I realized finally that I was not alone. I have encountered all these problems and followed the same attempted solutions!
Started out in 7th grade with basic HE Harris Pioneer Album, moved up to the HEH Ambassador album and then the old one volume HEH Statesman... finally graduated to what I thought was the ultimate... the HEH Citation album by high school. Then I began to specialize in Germany and Area using the Scott's Specialty albums plus US in the Scott National. Over the years I gravitated by to more worldwide, especially Central and Southeast Europe in Scott Specialty albums. Then about 15 years ago I succumbed to a set of three Minkus Supreme Globals at a local show but shortly went with new Big Blues up through around 1972 but encounted the old stamps without spaces or country page problems.
I flirted with Stiener for a while and then last year bought a 6 volume set of Minkus Global Supremes up through 1972 in near mint condition. Now I'm buying used Minkus Specialty albums for countries I'm into and substituting those pages for the Global pages. Also bought a large Latin American collection in Scott Specialty albums for Central, South, and Latin West Indies plus Mexico.
I think I'm loosing my mind. I'm retiring later this year and have deluded myself into thinking I'll get this all sorted out during my "golden years"! Nome of this even considers my first day covers, US plate blocks, US Zip Blocks, post mark collections, or precancels! I have discovered that I am powerless over my stamp collections. It's good to know I'm not alone!!
re: The worldwide game
I thought this was a 12 step program...i must lead a dull life..but i do not know what i would do without stamps and covers. My wife has been a fellow collector for the past 20 some years as the Paypal account will testify !
re: The worldwide game
I have tried many times over the years to specialize and abandoned my worldwide fetish. The closest I've come is to limit my WW fanaticism to pre-1940 issues. I believe this is due to my fascination with world history, and it feels that limiting my collecting to a specific area somehow robs me of the full scope of the experience. I will never have a "world class collection," but I will always have my fantasy adventures to all those places and times.
re: The worldwide game
" I'm retiring later this year and have deluded myself into thinking I'll get this all sorted out during my "golden years" ... I have discovered that I am powerless over my stamp collections."
re: The worldwide game
"i believe we are all from the same mold..MORE OR LESS !"
re: The worldwide game
It's not that hard to amass a world-wide collection for the 1840-1980s. It gets difficult from the 1990s onward. The supplies of those stamps are not easy to find.
Of course the cost of the good world-wide albums is high, but there are Steiner pages that are just as good. In 1969 I got my first Scott International for Christmas. I then starting getting one volume on Christmases and my birthday. Yes, the price for the pages AND binder for each part was just $19.99.
I started collecting the world in 1962, and never turned back from it. When starting, buy in bulk as often as possible. Plenty of large packets are available for most countries. That will add stamps to a good number of pages very quickly. Buy collections in the better grade albums like Scott International and Specialty, Palo, Minkus Supreme Global, and others like that. Collections in cheaper quality albums like Harris and Minkus are often full of damaged stamps. Buy former dealer stock in box lots. Send for mystery box lots like Kenmore, Mystic and Champion sell. Also, Mystic advertises special offers on the back page of almost every issue of Linns. For just a few dollars, you get some 21st Century stamps. They'll send a packet of stamps that you can either buy or send back in a postage paid envelope. Buy from the approval books and auction lots on SOR. As someone recently stated, the stamps selling on SOR sell for very little, but many have higher catalog value than one might think. Buy stamps through the APS Sales Division. You help other collectors get a little money for their unwanted stamps, and you help our national stamp club as well. There are many other ways to get alot of stamps at bulk/wholesale prices, or even by trading with collector friends. Just be careful that you don't go overboard and get too much at one time. You don't want to be in a position where you overspend your allowance.
Then, sell your unwanted material. You can do that easily on SOR, and through the APS Sales Division (if you're an APS member). That way you'll get more money to buy more stamps.
That's how I've been building my collection since 1962.
re: The worldwide game
A worthy effort Michael.....my 9 Scott Internationals run to 1969..all purchased second hand at our club or on ebay...at the club i purchased them for as little as 5 dollars and on ebay i have paid as much as $40.00 for ones with "hundreds of stamps". I started purchasing box lots in the late 1980's but it dawned on me that many of these stamps were from the 1970's and 1980's and of little use to me except for swapping. Ambition is made of sterner stuff..i can not imagine collecting worldwide up to the present (ouch !)