Topicals Vs General Collection?

Does anyone else out there struggle with whether to organize a stamp in your topical collection vs your general collection for a country. For example, I collect topically Air Mails and Classic Era Aviation. Often those same stamps could/should be housed in my country collection (say my Newfoundland collection). Often they are too expensive to be collected for both places - so what is a guy to do??

Good question Scouter

I get faced with the same problem when I get stamps with the topic of the martial arts. Do I put them in my martial arts collects, or strive to get two stamps and or sets so that I can have one in each. Luckily, most martial arts stamps are not that expensive, so, I can get one for each, but so far not too succesful <G>.

I am also faced with the same dilemma with covers of the 1939 Royal Visit to North America. The royal couple also visited the 1939 New York World's Fair and when I get covers from those, it is a toss-up whether to put them in my 1939 NYWF collection or the 1939 RV collection.

Oh, the choices we philatelists have

Cheers

Bujutsu

I seem to be leaning toward my topical collections lately, so I would probaly put it in my topical album. You could make a notation in your country collection on that page to were the stamp is mounted or vice-versa. Then again if this is the last stamp to be placed on a page in the country album to complete the page I would place it there. I have a page for each country for my topical collection, that way it is still organized and each stamp is at my fingertips. Good luck with your dilema.

My country collections have the priority if I have only one stamp. The reason is in a country album there is a space for all the stamps so it show when one is missing. For the topical collection I make my pages so there is no blank space. But it's a good thing when you make a list of your topical collection to include those in your country album. For me getting double is the best thing to do in the long run. Anyway it's not something you have to smash your head on the wall. Thank you bringing this question.

Yes the dilemma of where to put that stamp!

The Australian 1914 to 1938 King George V side face stamps are my true love in stamping and even as a bulk stamp buyer I find myself with one stamp that will fit in many of my collecting themes. Where ever I put the said stamp I can always change where I place it! I have decided that the complete sets are the most important. I have many postmark themes which I enjoy to the max and they come 2nd but they compete with my unusual shade collection. And so it goes on. To me it is the best part to stamping and I will think on a placement of a stamp for months, at times! It just highlights what a great hobby we all share! KGV

Only solution:
The virtual stamp album.
When you have an image database, you can swap, change, move
copy, organise, design, test, investigate, sub-set,
fly-speck, perf guage, rotate, watermark, recall,illustrate,
at will.........

As others have said, good question.

I focus on airmails (ha ha) and so if it relates to airmail, it goes in that collection first and then the rest filters down.

Philb just sold me some great Belgium Railway Parcel Post stamps. Let's say I collect both Belgium and Railway. In this case, I would put the stamps in Railway because it's more "meaningful" in that collection. After all, Belgium has issued more than a couple of thousand stamps - if I like rail stuff, I don't wan't them to get lost in the waves and waves of other Belgian stamps.

My topicals tend (not a hard and fast rule) to go in my topical album while I notate my general collection to show where the missing stamp is and when it gets down to the wire such as one to complete a page or a short set, I fill the space a picture and annotate the facing page. Stamp collectors can be very practical or very anal. I suppose we could also be anally practical.

And with me..its do I put the Argentine penquin covers in my penquin albums or in my Argentine cover albums...so far Argentina is ahead !!

Yes, there's no single answer - do what you want to do. Just depends where a stamp feels most at home . . . What I sometimes do is make a colour photocopy and then put this in the secondary collection, with a note on the back on where the original is.