To Theme Or Not To Theme . .

Hi Everyone,
I am having troubles making up my mind on whether to split up a country so I can start a fwe theme albums.

I think it would be great to have all my Olympics, Animals, Christmas, etc. in their own album, but if I do that, how will I be able to keep track of which country is in those themes.

For instance if someone only wants a certain country to trade, well then I would have to look in the country album and then in the all the other themed albums too to search for that country?

I think I am making this too difficult, lolol... Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
SueStamps

First, what kind of dog is that in your avatar? I have a multipoo with a cute face. But back to the question at hand - I was fretting on this same topic earlier today - I believe organize in a manner that is most enjoyable to you. I personally think more enjoyment will come from a thematic approach whenever it presents itself - but that is your call. If you can't duplicate a stamp for both places then leave a note in your country list that a certain stamp can be found in a theme collection. And I think it goes without saying only select themes you enjoy. Just because a stamp could be put in another theme(s) doesn't mean it has any value to you there. I may post again on this topic sometime - it's therapy for me to keep from being overpowered by too much organization.

Maintain an image thematic,

scan the stamps you want for your thematic, say dogs,
keep the dog scans under "Dogs" image folder, and place the stamp
in the country album.

...or you could get extra copies of the stamps you want to use in your thematic, unless your thematic is going to have very rare stamps, which would be unusual.

I collect British Commonwealth and I collect Birds, quite a few Commonwealth countries have bird stamps but most of these are not extremely dear so I have 2 copies. The more expensive items, where I can only afford one copy, I leave in the country collection as it would be incomplete without them. Whereas a thematic does not suffer, IMO, from in-completion issues.

alex

Hi Scouter,
The dog in my avitar was originally an animated gif and his eyes twinkled. Anyway, I just the dog in a Yahoo group, and saved it, lol.

Multi/Malti Poos are adorable!

I think I will not worry about separating my stamps from their country and go ahead and add them to a themed album. I do worry too much and this is supposed to be fun, lol.

Thank you so much for your reply.
SueStamps

Hi rod222,
That is a GREAT idea! I would have never thought of that. I am going to separate my stamps from their country and put them in themes, but I am also still going to do what you suggest. Fantastic!
Thank you so much,
SueStamps

Hi Alex,
What are British Commonwealth stamps? Can you let me see what some of them look like? I would LOVE to have extras of each to keep in both country and themed albums! Great idea.
Thank you,
SueStamps

If you build your own album pages, you could design them so that your country albums keep just the theme set items on their own pages. Then, make a copy of that page with a note referring to the country album. It could work.

I've just started a WWI theme album, but decided to collect a second set of the key stamps from my US definitives album. The overlap is relatively small, and completeness is more important in my US album than the WWI theme album.

Best,
Ken