What Area To Collect?

RIKDE -------Don't be lead astray by all these lost souls who are wandering in the philatelic wasteland .You need to find something that is a challenge and is afforable .Let me explain it this way,find a area that nobody else is looking at and the prices have not jumped up in the past few years. Find that subject were over time you will become the known expert . You need that collecting subject were you are picking up the items from dealers and off e-bay that nobody has a real interest in .For example collect something like Netherland occupation postal history or the history of a small islands off the English coast but you need to find a area not a lot of research has been done on and whats floating around the philatelic market place is undiscovered . Hope this gives you some ideas of you becomeing the go- to- guy on that philatelic subject even getting to the place you can write a article or monograph on the subject,basicly you become the expert on the subject .

Has anyone let Kirk out of his garage? You know he has to come up for air every few days...

My cat must have hit the key board, my most sincere apologies to all who read this the wrong way.

Art

Thank you both for your replies.
I have a heavy form of Autism, and so I am very bad in miking decisions.
So that's why I created this topic.

More replies are welcome!

Ouch! That is kind of a harsh indictment of his collection...



Back to the topic at hand...

Rik, I suggest looking at everything you can see, visiting a club or two, flipping through catalogues, checking out the exhibits at shows, and just generally seeing what interests you. There is no substitute for looking at many, many stamps. You might find yourself coming back to the same things over and over.

There is nothing wrong with being a bit of a generalist. Eventually, some things will rise to the surface. Or not.

Trying to decide what to collect must be a personal choice. If not, you're going to be building someone else's collection, rather than your own.

There are some obvious choices, such as a country that interests you, or an issue that interests you (Great Britain-related themes would have both. Likewise, you could look at the Commonwealth countries and maybe collect examples from current or former British colonies.

For me, I like to think about subjects that interest me. While not moving completely into "Thematic" collecting, I personally collect postal history around different themes or ideas. If you start thinking about such themes, you can come up with another long list of possibilities. I am aware of collectors who collect:
- Green stamps
- Triangular stamps
- World-wide stamps from the year of their birth
- Covers that were postmarked on their birthday
- Great Britain stamps with the collectors' initials (I'm guilty of that one)

There are a few other things you should probably also think about before diving in too deep:
- Is there enough material in this area to keep me amused for a while?
- Is this area within my budget? or am I willing to realize I can't have everything. For example, collectors of Triangular stamps would likely have to settle for not having the Cape of Good Hope woodblock prints.
- Is there any reference material available? at what cost? If you picked a year to collect, it is likely that a set of catalogs that were a few years old would give you everything you would need and would be available at a reasonable price.

Last points:
- There are no wrong choices. It's your collection, therefore, the choice of what to collect is yours and is "right"
- Have fun

Chip

I assume art meant the GARAGE not the garBage

Amongst the humor, there are some good suggestions and insight from experienced collectors.

I always learn something at SCF

KirkS

Thanks all for the replies.
I gonna think and look around!

--Rik

Lots of good advice, I agree with Cjd, look at lots of stamps to see what appeals to you, be it an era, topic or country. Reading the threads on SCF is also great as it introduces all sorts of areas that you might never have thought of before.
But then I am a "lost soul wandering in the philatelic wasteground".(I love that description, floortrader!) and floortrader's advice had a lot of appeal.
Hope you will let us know what you decide!

Thank you for your advice, stampgal.
And of course I will let you all know if I made a decision.

Greetings, Rik
EDIT: I'm looking for a contry that has some kiloware, so that I can "finish" it.

Collect anything that makes You happy and is fun.

That said, I'm a worldwide collector. I hoarde anything from classics to modern used, and I find it extremely rewarding. If I'm tired to looking at some specific era or country, I can always pick something totally different from my albums.

True, I might not ever get my collection complete but so what. I'll have one fun, happy stamp filled life, And to me only that matters.

That is true scb.
But I still cannot make a decision...
Do you guys know one or more websites where I can find a kind of catalog, because buying all the "paper" catalogs is way too expensive.

Rik - here's a list of some free alternatives: http://www.stampcollectingblog.com/...catalogs.php
All these are extremely basic compared to having real stamp catalogs.

If you want a bit more, then most catalog publishers (SG, Michel,Yvert) have created various online catalogs. These are based on annual subscriptions, and prices range from $50 (Stanley Gibbons MyCollectoin) up to 150$ (Michel) pear year.

And of course a lot of collectors rely and use slightly outdated editions of catalogs. If you can live with say 5-10 years old catalog, you can usually grab them for peanuts on any stamp related auction website. Usually you end up paying more on postage than the actual catalog itself, LOL.

Thank you very much, scb.
I gonna look on that website!

Greetings Rik