How To Fill In The Blanks?

Hello everyone!

I was just wondering, what is the best way to fill in the blank spots of you collection? Do you just keep buying every lot in sight and hope to come across stamps that are missing from you collection or do you buy individual stamps. It seems that buying many lots results in many repeats and many stamps available for swapping, etc. But there are those that are ever so elusive...

Regarding cost, if you buy individual stamps you´ll surely pay more on a stamp for stam basis but you avoid the "shoe box effect", having a shoebox full of doubles.

I would like to hear your thoughts.

Once you have 50 posts, let us know what you are looking and we will be glad to help you fill in. Take is slowly and start with the ones that you are most interested in. All of use here would be glad to trade or sell you something once you have your 50 posts. - Jeff

I've found it's come to the point were it's not always profitable to buy lots in hopes of getting what you need. Fun once in a while, sure, but doesn't seem to be a good way to make progress, unless you're into the flyspecking thing.
Jeff is right. There's lots of folks on here who would be more than happy to help you fill those gaps. Though, admittedly it's sometimes fun to check out a lot here or on ebay and figure out what you need and what you can sell or trade. Kind of like a perpetual motion machine. Once you can get it going, you're in business.
Welcome, and enjoy.

Welcome to the group. I would suggest that if you are new to the hobby, and have a large interest window, buying lots can't hurt. If you are intermediate to advanced level of collector, you can join a local stamp club, join a national stamp group and get approvals, or purchase smaller select grouping on ebay, Bidstart, etc. (or individual stamps). There are other ways, but they would cost more than those mentioned above. I would personally reccomend a national stamp organization and do the approvals. Why? You are purchasing a stamp at (usually) a reduced price, (you get to look at it and others and pick the best one) and you are helping out a fellow stamp collector who is selling the item, and the organization by it's seller sales fees. 3 win in this method.
Just my 2 cents.

I think it depends on the situation. For the areas I concentrate on (Turkey,Germany)and sets that I am missing a few of, I'll buy individual stamps or try to trade with people. For my worldwide collection, I
enjoy buying lots and kiloware. There's nothing like kiloware to fill a few holes and provide trading/selling material!

You didn't mention whether you are looking to fill in gaps in US, Canada or Worldwide collections. Whatever the answer, the search or the "hunt" is half the fun of stamp collecting. Unless you have an unlimited budget, it's unlikely you'll ever fill in every gap in your album. On the other hand, the earlier posts certainly provide recommended ways to acquire specific stamps at reasonable prices.

There was a recent thread on this forum about an ebay auction for a stamp collection that was virtually complete from 1940 through 1980 at a very reasonable price. I suppose it's a great way to acquire all of those stamps at once, but in my opinion it kind of loses something in not having the "thrill of the hunt" to acquire stamps slowly as they become available. I know from my US collection, I built it up gradually as a kid and filled in gaps as I grew older. I can look through that album today and actually recall where and when I acquired some of those stamps and it brings back fond memories.

Of course, if you acquire a major amount of stamps all at once, sometimes it can become overwhelming. If you acquire stamps either by piece or by set or by year at a time, you take the extra step to carefully look at the stamps, learn about the history of the subjects depicted on them, and study the cancellations, etc. If you acquire thousands of stamps all at once, you wind up missing some of that detail.

If you complete sets of stamps based on one topic or one country or one period of time, there are always other topics or countries or periods of time to collect. Then when you get tired of those stamps, there are always postmarks, and precancels, and covers and Poster Stamps/Cinderellas ... and the list goes on and on.

Bottom line is that stamp collectors are never "finished" with collecting stamps, which is why the hobby is so addictive!

FERNMATO-------I have to agree with the others who posted here ,it is all good advice.As a worldwide collector who has collected for over 55 years and having open credit at all the major firms in the U.S. ,there are still thousands of cheap stamps that never come up in huge stock lots,collections,and dealer inventory lots . This is what keeps one interested and on ones toes always looking . I truely believe there are cheap stamps in the catalog that once you start serching for them you will find many that are rarer than some of the more high price listed stamps .<p>Just to give you a example ----Lets say a stamp dealer in 1955 gets ten of a stamp from a overseas wholesaler for $5.00 each ,well this dealers makes a price list and sets a price of $10.00 .Then the catalog people to update their catalog receives the dealers pricelist so they place the stamp in the catalog at $10.00.......now 60 years later there is no more of that stamp and it has been updated by the catalog now at $20.00 ,but try to find it and if nobody got it ,what is it worth ?

Fernmato, I think wt1 says it all.
My mother bought a set of GB Queen Elizabeth Coronation stamps when I was six months old, which she kept for me until I could understand the idea of stamp collecting, and it became a hobby through my school days and on and off over the years and recently it has become more defined and specialised.
I belong to two local clubs, I occasionally go to local auctions, I use ebay, I get more modern stamps through friends, family and from work. If I do buy a collection it has to be for something special as I don't want all the duplicates.
I always work on the premise that thousands if not millions of any particular stamp were printed, and that sooner or later one will come along to fill in the space. Like last year I bought a 'junk' lot in a local auction, I had seen a few GB Victorian stamps in it and thought it might be worth a look.
In it was a Victorian one penny red, plate number 225, the rarest one, which filled the last gap in my penny plate collection. It had a small perforation fault, but I had never seen one before, and I do not know of anyone locally who has one either!
So I say buy what you need, but sometimes its fun to take a small risk.

Thanks everyone for your comments and advice. I can that I am not the only one with ths dilema. I have just a couple of questions though:




jamesw, what do you mean by flyspecking? It is a term that I have never heard of before.




PoStat4evR, what is an aproval?

To answer wt1, I recently got interested in the hobby. I started collecting only portuguese and canadian stamps but because I had so many repeats I started trading for WW. There are just so many beautifull stamps out there that I just couldnt say no! I am afraid that not having a specific area to collect might disperse me too much but I just love recieve stamps in the mail!

Seriously, when I find an era that I need a bunch of stamps, I'll get on Delcampe, do a search for one of the stamps I need, pick a seller, then go through their store and buy everything I need that they have. It fills in holes quite nicely.

Hello Fernmato!
I just can say how I made: when I decided to start collecting one country in the beginning I bought lots/kiloware. Then I start exchanging with other collectors. And yes, as already said, that's a lot of fun.
But when I'm at 70-80% complete both buying and exchanging doesn't work so easy and then I used the method well described by Cephus and filled my gaps from Delcampe.
Hope it helped.

Fernmato
Flyspecking is a term I've just learned recently myself. Basically I believe it means looking for every minute difference and detail possible in stamps. If you had a couple of dozen examples of a single stamp (which can happen when you by big lots of stamps) you can go through them and separate them by postmark, or printing flaws or errors or what ever you care to look for.

Aprrovals are stamps sent to you in the mail that you choose from and buy the ones you want, or sets you want, depending on how that particular organization does it, and then send the stamps back along with payment for the ones you've kept.

The back of stamp magazines and newspapers used to be full of small dealers (and large) who existed on this kind of business, and had ads there saying something like ask for our approvals and recieve 50 free stamps etc just to lure in the beginner.

I remember as a kid asking for them all and then cancelling the approval services I didn't like so much and just sticking with the ones I liked. Got some free stamps out of it but just the ones they want to give you.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I allready do what Cephus sugests. I found that it is a good way to save on postage for low value stamps. I guess that I will just keep treading allong with my collection.

Ill have to give the aprovals a try too. Dos anyone know of aprovals that can bem mail internationally? There must be lots in the US and Canada, but how about Europe?

Delcampe. Nice site.

All great advice above! I prefer to buy individuals to complete sets but as stated it really depends on what your collection focuses on.