World Collection Dillema

Just starting a new worldwide collection in a common, popular, two-album set. Right away I realized that there will be TONS of stamps not pictured in the albums.

So what are the opinions about how to handle the extras? Do the pictured stamps tend to be the more common, or the more collectible? Do you prefer to insert extra pages, and purchase expansion binders, or put the extras in stockbooks? And how to organize the extras? It seems like it will be difficult to hinge stamps on blank pages in an organized way without access to a current catalog, which is beyond my current hobby-spending-limits.

Arrgh. Stressing about stamp collecting!

I diagnose Worldwide Overwhelming... a common complaint. Don't stress, sit back, relax...
Repeat the mantra - "I'm in control of the stamps. The stamps are not in control of me".
It doesn't work, but will fill the time while you get some useful answers from friendly SCF members. (Not from me, I know nothing and am a fellow sufferer of WWO).

I collect World Wide, I use Scott International they too suffer from the occasional non listed stamp however they span over 44+ albums for 1840-2010. I only have 9 of them to ruffly mid 1970's
I find spaces near similar stamps or at ends of sections, I also have about 80 blank pages waiting ready to plug any major holes I may find. so far things are going well, 98% of what I have finds the correct home.

What years do your 2 albums cover, how much extra space is provided at the ends of those sections, is your album loose leaf or bound? and do they make blank pages that can be inserted into your albums if it is loose leaf. are good starting questions to ask yourself.

keep in mind if your albums only spans from 1840-1940 you'll have to get creative for later years or store them till you have additional album.

in the end dont stress over it, if you had a COMPLETE every stamp album it would remain mostly blank for your life time and would probably cover your entire wall...
its always easier to insert 1 or 2 pages every few months for misc stamps then to hunt thru 30 albums to find that 1 spot you need to fill with that 1 stamp.

Edwin

In my opinion, there is no right or wrong answer. The simple response is: Whatever way makes you happy! It's supposed to be an enjoyable hobby and the only one you need to please is yourself.

As a practical matter, though, most worldwide stamp albums have blank pages or annual inserts you can buy, but that can get very expensive. Likewise, there are stamp albums exclusive to a particular country or region of the world, but again, some are outrageously expensive.

For those who prefer to commit their resources to acquiring stamps rather than albums, a good stock book or Vario pages in a loose leaf binder or similar type of storage means is probably the most economical. Or you can make your own pages on your computer, as there are a number of web sites where you can get do-it-yourself album pages at low or no cost.

If you don't know it already, there are literally millions of stamps worldwide, so it is virtually impossible for a worldwide album to provide spaces for all of the material from a given country.

Most collectors will find that they will evenutally choose to specialize on a specific topic or region of the world to narrow down the field.

In my opinion, you do need access to a catalog to help identify and categorize your stamps. If that is not affordable for you, your local public library often has these catalogs available in their reference section.

Hope you find this to be helpful.

Good Day and welcome to stamp collecting.

When I had two Statesman H.E.Harris albums (one with pages, one blank expansion) I used quadrilled pages, which I came to like more than the ones with photos on them.

I could arrange how I liked with what I had and didn't worry about what I didn't have until I got it. Then I would just do some cursing (to myself) and rearrange everything to the new order.

I ended up, because I was buying so many at once, just hinging them in rows by shape and size and ignoring mostly the years. Still lots of fun.

Some of the country's stamp photos were not showing the complete sets, just the ones that (I thought) would interest someone, or give a representative example of what that era's stamps were like.

Never meant to be comprehensive at all. That is best left for a large multi-binder album set or just a free arrangement on blank or quadrille pages.

Quadrille pages are pages that have a grid of different sizes already printed on them very lightly so you can use the grid lines a s guides for mounting the stamps in straight lines and to have regular spacing.

I think you can find templates where you can print your own quad pages but you have to watch out for the ink migrating to the stamps. Haven't done that myself, others have printed pages here, might not be as super dangerous as I am making it seem.

scanned a corner of a quadrilled page as a sample in case you were unfamiliar like me when I started...

you have to look really hard to see the lines in the scan they are slightly darker in person but wont really stand out when stamps are on the page.

We are all victims of two serious diseases in philately: chronologistics and country-specifistics. They are not terminal but they can cause a truly annoying itch.

Get blank sheets. Set your stamps up the way you want. Move em around after awhile and arrange em differently. Arrange them by subject. By colour. By size. Or in no particular order at all. The Queen is not looking over your shoulder. Enjoy! It's a hobby, not a factory

If I had it to do over..i would avoid the printed page and probably use plastic stockpages to display my stamps..that way it would be I that was in CONTROL !!

That's why I like being able to print my own pages. I decide what pages to include.

baddbishop,
I am returning back to stamp collecting and I am discovering the same thing as you. A World Wide collection can be daunting. I am redirecting my collection now before there is no return.

I had purchased a H.E. Harris Statesman Deluxe album. It was 2 volumes. I was really disappointed in the fact that the album had more blank spaces than images and if there was an image it wasn't the 1st image in a set. So I decided to use the album just for canceled stamps, not bothering to fill in the blank spaces, but matching the images to what I have.

For other kinds of stamps, I have stock pages. I will be setting them up by topic. I will be setting it up like Moonbird suggested. I'm setting the pages up so I have the freedom to move stamps around without feeling like I am causing a rift in the universe. For the last 6 months I have been stressing over how to do this, but then realized that I am not keeping up with the Jones. It is supposed to be something that is fun and that's all I'm going for.

Donna

Unless you purchased an older set, the only popular two volume album currently available that I'm aware of it the Harris Statesman, recently expanded from a single volume.

I've played around with the single volume Statesman, with duplicates and with issues that fall outside my seven part Scott International collection that runs to 1973. One of these Statesman albums must hold 30,000 to 40,000 stamps, which is quite a collection without worrying about more room. What I do is simply use the illustrations as suggestions, and use those spaces for any issues as long as they fit into the date range on that page. Whenever I need additional space, I will add a blank page, but rather than just line stamps up, try to arrange sets of stamps into appealing groups as Scott does with modern sets in the Internationals.

Hi, I collect worldwide too. I want to have at least one stamp from every country which issued any stamp. I wrote a topic on SCF few months ago. There is a link https://goscf.com/t/9580&SearchTerm...,collecting. You can find tgere some ideas how to collect WW or how to organize it. I make my own pages and it brings a lot of fun

Thanks for all the responses. I like Donna's idea of limiting the WW collection to the pages I have, and organizing the others in stockbooks by topic. Trying to save everything in albums sounds like a boundless task. Yes, its the new Harris Statesman albums, which with space for over 30,000 stamps covers less than 1/10 of what is out there.

Thanks again.

You could go the blank page route. If you have enough of the blank pages, you are probably going to need a third binder.

Oh, where are my manners? Welcome to SCF. Great place to be.

try stampalbums.com this guy has just about every stamp listed in the country collections. and you can print what you want.

Hi. I understand your predicament. I have always liked the world issues 1840-1940+/-. I am currently using two volumes of the Scott International, and I have the same problem. The advice that has been posted to collect what you like has much merit. But that needs some clarification. I myself collect scenics, art and architecture on stamps. To add interest to the albumed collection I mount an occasional cover, interesting cancels, and blocks of 4. Now my blocks of 4 are in the Saudia Arabia and Turkey section, but this also includes vertical pairs and multiples all of which are used, are interesting as such as used multiples, and the cancels add another perspecitve. But now blocks of 4 do very well in Canada, especially MNH blocks of 4 of certain Canadian stamps which are striking in blocks of 4 and there are not many of them, which I mount in Showgard. Imperforate issues such as India and India States, early Germany, France, Greece, are best collected in attached multiples, pairs, trios, blocks of 4. You will also no doubt run across or wish to acquire an used stamp "on piece" which is of itnerest to you or to the collection. It might be small enough to put on a regular illustrated album page. All of these will need blank quadrilled pages. So you see, blank pages will be at a minimum because the stamps that are not provided for in the album are at a minimum. But I have also bought incomplete unused or clean and still usable used Scott Album pages and have integrated them into my original album for expansion of stamps that are not shown. This gives me more space, but many times the imprinted date is not synchronized. It can be close, but not on the money.

I am not too interested in coats of arms and state symbols and monarchial heads, except where the color of the stamp, or the presentation of the portrait or the nature of the cancel is concerned. In some cases, such as early Albania Scott 27-35, state symbols are excusable. I try to collect what images are shown in the album and what I like from the Scott catalog. Choices from the Scott catalog are not always shown in the album. So for stamps not shown, I mount them nearest where they should go in a space for a stamp that I have no interest in. Now where this is a pictorial, many times I will mount that in two spaces meant for the smaller definitive stamps which usually are monarchial heads or some symbol of state.
I also enter in #2 pencil at the bottom on the back of the stamp the Scott number, and on the page under the stamp the Scott Number on the left and on the right the month and year (8-95) I acquired the stamp.

Over the years, Scott editted and changed around the layout of the International pages. So the odd used but still clean and usable pages I acquire for expansion are not perfect matches, are not in sync with original page order. Abyssinia/Ethiopia is one of those devils, because Scott issued it as both ways. I prefer Ethiopia rather than it being the first country in the album.

Well, I hope this is of help to you. The restaurant across the street is having Italian roast pork and provolone sandwich as the special today, and that is one of my favorite meals, so I am off to lunch. Let us know how you do with stamps that you haven't any spaces provided for. Mystery Packet.