Sorting Your Stamps

I am sorry for yet another stupid question, but if I want to do it, I want to do it right.

Last week I bought myself a batch of 150 US stamps on ebay.
Today I recieved them in the mail.

Lots of 50's, 60's and 70's and some modern stamps.
Not one in the batch is a double wich is nice offcourse.

About sorting them:
What is the best way to sort them.
-By year
-By topic
-By topic and then by year
-By facevalue
-....

My tought is to sort them by topic and then by year, only downside I see in that way is I am going to need lots of books to place them in :p (one book per topic)

How do you guys sort them?

There is no right or wrong way to do it, whatever makes you happy! :)

i tought so, but I was hoping that there was a good method for beginners :p

what ever works for your colllecting intersts koen - and as they say there is no right or wrong way

koen
Usually a topical collector don't do many topics. And there is a great number of topics. For now a suggest to arrange your stamps by years. When you are decided on few topics and you have more stamps you can pick in your collection to build topical collections. Topical collections can be very huge. I use to have an Olympic Games collection in 8 binders. Enjoy your stamps. Daniel

What I (try to) do is arrange the stamps in on stock pages by Scott catalog number. For commemoratives, this is fairly easy and straightforward; it can get a little tricky with definitives issued over long periods. (I have lately started to move definitives to a separate stockbook, and keep the several series together: all the Prexies, Libertys, the Americanas, Transportation Coils, etc. in their own sections. The 1908-1921 Washington-Franklins are about to get their own stockbook.) I try to leave a little extra space so I have room to make adjustments.

As a worldwide collector, I generally organise mine by cat number.

I do all of mine by year/scott's catalog number.

OK-------There is only one way to sort stamps and thats my way .----------O

Seriously there are many ways to keep stamps but keep in mind a few major points -------First, what ever way you keep them do it in a way that you only have to sort them only once . A second point is to have them sorted and organized in such a way that it is expandable to add more stamps ,it never fails that after I sort and organize a group of stamps a few weeks later I get more of the same.
For me as a worldwide collector I need a method to easily go and find a certain stamp and be able to know were to look .
Another point is that its organized in such a manor that someone {like a future buyer of your collection} can look thru it and arrive at a value .Many of you would be surprised how many large collections that I have purchased are a total mess and im the first viewer of the lot before it was put up for viewing at the auction house.
MY ADVICE ----WANT TO INCREASE THE VALUE OF YOUR COLLECTION ?---------ORGANIZE IT ,SO SOMEONE CAN MAKE SENSE OF IT .....end of rant time for my third coffee this morning ....

Thank you all.
Organising by scott number actualy makes sence by the way.
Think that will be my aproach

Some threads already posted about organizing and sorting your stamps (more exist):
https://goscf.com/t/19030&SearchTerms=a5

https://goscf.com/t/20459&SearchTerms=a5

What about covers? What do people do with them? Do you put them in with the stamps according to catalog numbers, or do you put them in the back of the book? or do you have a separate album for them? I prefer to put them in chronological order (year).

I have a few cover collections, but any other one-off covers go in with the stamps.
It breaks up the monotony of page after page of stamps and gives a feeling of what the world was like when the stamps were in use.

For stamps, I always sort by Country/Scott #. If there is a topical stamp, I will see it when I come to it.

Being a cover lover (I have about 3,000 covers), I sort by several methods.
The first thing I do with every cover I get is give it a unique IN (inventory number). This is the unique id I use for the item regardless of inventory method.
Then I check each one for type of cover, stamp and country, does it fit any of my cover topicals. If so, I catlog that info with the unique inventory number. Duplicate covers or covers I do not wish to place in a particular collection goes into box based on country/Scott #. I do keep covers separate from stamps. FDC's are also keep separate as are my FFC's. While awaiting my scrutiny, each cover is palced in an 8-1/2x10 protective sleeve and placed in a 3-ring binder. Once examined in detail, the cover goes to its final location.
For the FFC's, my sorting is a little different. Once I have assigned inventory number, I sort by year and originating state/country with year. I next determine if cover is part of an FFC cover set. Next, I determine if I want to keep the cover as part of my cover collection or does it go into my duplicate boxes - sorted by year and contry/state of the first flight.
A recent experience (like last week) caused me to realize that I did not keep good track of my boxes - I found one in the back of a closet that has probably been there untouched for at least 4-5 years.
So label and keep track of where you put things!

In August of 2010, I had to opportunity to buy two medium sized plastic bins full of loose stamps all off paper in them and all WW issues. There were literally a quarter of a million stamps plus - yes, 250,000 at least. Of course I did not bother with a lot of them because they were 'run of the mill' types, but, there were some very nice surprises in there.

What I did since there were so many stamps was A - sort them by country and place alphabetically in separate envelopes, then B - Once the countries are separated I go by older to more modern issues. C - then by face value because that would, in most cases anyway, represent postal rates for certain years in those countries.

Just my way of doing it anyway and I got real good at it

Chimo

Bujutsu