Worldwide Collecting - Point Of Diminishing Returns On Mixes

Just wondering - For those of you that collect worldwide and have sorted through large off-paper mixes... At what point, in your opinions/experience, did you reach some level of diminishing returns in finding new stamps for your collection?

And then, at that point, what strategy did you take?

Thanks,
Eric

That's a good question... !
I'm not sure I am quite there yet - but I can see it coming.
It does depend on the quality of the kiloware. I was lucky to find a good source for a while, an ebay seller who put together great kiloware packets which were always bid up as others also found out they were worth buying. Unfortunately he no longer does them. When I do occasionally buy kiloware online I am usually a little disappointed.
I found the Round Robin on SCF a really great way to swap dupes.
I think at some point you have to pick a country/countries and target the less common stamps or you will just continue to gather a mass of duplicates. I like the ebay lots where you can see all the stamps on offer, or which are concentrated on a single country or countries and have a little more depth.

Good question.

My collection is currently at about 73,000 different items and I'd say that I can still find about 40-60% new stuff from most mixtures I lay my hands upon.

I think the most drastic drop was when I reached a certain completion level (> 50%) for common countries (US, Australia, UK and Germany).

But I'm not that much worried on adding up my collection, as coming up with new items is still VERY easy.

Do you mean to say you are trying to collect every stamp issued in every country in the world?
How do you afford it?
I am trying to collect English only and I cannot afford every stamp.
Do you gents have all the English overprints for example, because that would come to thousands of Dollars?
I am intrigued,
Muriel-YSC.

While I don't collect all world stamps I collect world overprints, all African stamps and various other sets, so it is at least part of the world.

One dealer whom I have dealt with for over 10 years lets me take home kiloware and buy the stamps at 5c each, returning what I don't want. Occasionally I get part way though a kiloware lot and abandon it due to a lack of returns.

Buying collections can be an inexpensive way to supplement the collection too. Often I end up with doubles but if they average out to 10 to 20 cents each that is not a great problem.

I've found that specialising (I chose overprints) or diversifying (I chose overprint varieties) can also be another option. I think the main thing is to make sure that stamp collecting is still fun. When it stops being fun getting stamps from kiloware it is time to stop with that kiloware lot. If this is a regular occurrence, try something else that looks like fun.

I've sorted through about 5,000 stamps in the last 2 weeks - I must say, I enjoy it.

I also really don't mind all the duplicates - One problem I have is that my interests change often, and the duplicates allow me to start weird collections, or topical collections or maybe sets of cancels, etc. etc.

I have about 50,000+ stamps to still go through, so I figure this will take me a year or 2.

But I notice for instance, I only have 1 stamp from Estonia ( as an example) - I wonder where that count will end up after finishing the full sort.

I know I can't collect every world stamp - But, it sure is fun to see how far you can get.

That is encouraging scb! Out of curiosity - How/where do you go after mixes from - Do you use an criteria as you are looking for mixes to buy?

Peter,
Is England part of the world then, surely you do not have the full set of Admiralty overprints?

Eric,
How much is a kilogram of stamps then?

Muriel-YSC.

Yorkshire - It depends I guess, but for the current set of lots I have, it's about 60,000 off-paper stamps and the total cost for $463. So about $0.007 per stamp... As far as weight, one of the boxes was 5.5 Pounds and cost $135. - So, I guess about 2.5 Kilograms for that box?, 54 bucks per Kilogram?

Interesting subject,you can continue buying mixture lots up to about 80,000 to 100,000 different stamps.After that your cost per stamp will go higher as you become more selective on your purchases to reduce your duplicates.
As your collection expands you need to start looking at purchasing country collections and dealer inventory cards .Again this will take a worldwide collector up to a high level,the big wall of 150,000 different stamps.This is the big wall were most serious collectors stop.
Once a worldwide collector get to 200,000 stamps they are now looking for gems or specilized collections and get involued in sub-numbers for their collection........just my 2 cents worth.

As for how/where... It varies a lot. I've bought mixtures from ebay and DelCampe, from stamp auctions, from stamp dealers, and even straight from estates/other collectors. As I play by a somewhat strict budget (I try to keep my total stampp budget in less than $400/year), I buy 1-2 larger boxes (of 10-20K stamps) per year and occasional smaller lots.

As for criterias... Yes. I can be picky. With my budget I can't afford to be anything else, LOL. With great interest I read your comment "about 60,000 off-paper stamps and the total cost for $463". That's about 3-4x more per stamp than I'm accustomed to paying when buying large unsorted worldwide mixtures. So price of the lot is one criteria that I'm very strict (if I notice/believe there's anything of high value/interest, then I can go notably higher price per stamp. But even with single stamps I very rarely go higher than 10% of cv)

Another criteria of mine, that if there's no proper description and "real" images of the lot for sale, then I'm not interested. This is mainly to avoid possible issues with contents / quality of the lot. For example if I see several stamps with foxing/mold spots, then I don't buy. Or if there's lots of US/Germany etc. common countries but very little nothing else.... So it's mostly about using common sense.

Interesting points scb.

I am on a similar budget and have avoided buying much kiloware. Putting 20% of my yearly budget in a single lot spooks me. I prefer country collection where I can see all or most of the stamps. Even if the price is a little higher (still at or less than 0.15 a stamp), I'd rather spend my budget on stamps I know I want.

The problem with kiloware is (1) it requires an immense amount of labor (time that could be spent working on your album); (2) it contains mountains of duplicates that in today's market, are hard to dispose of; and (3) it contains a substantial percent of damaged stamps.

Plus, you have to convince me, that the average charity-source doesn't rumble through the mixture first and remove the high values.

And, kiloware used to be cheap to send. Now the postage costs a small fortune, and it's going higher.

I have stopped buying kiloware for a couple of years now. Too much duplication and no outlet.

I am still sorting through a large accumulation of 250,000 stamps, all of paper, except for maybe a dozen <G>, and now grouping into sections I will be trading off. I was able to add a lot to my collection and the price was ok and with the dupes I have from this buy, there will be a lot of trade for other material I want.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Yes - seems high, but, this figure includes 6 hard-bound stockbooks filled with old commonwealth, plus an a few other albums containing blocks, sheets, covers, and miscellaneous. Also, the lot included a bunch of foreign/old US currency - However, I am not sure all of it is real... Not sure how to figure that out..

The majority of the "loose mix" cost me about $290...

Hey - I'm over 50 posts! - (do I get a prize or anything?) - just kidding..