Newbie From New York State

Hi, I'm Steve and am excited to start stamp collecting as a hobby. Now retired I have the time to learn what to do with all those stamps I've been accumulating over the years as well as a couple of albums along the way. Now I have it, I'm over whelmed, how do I make sense of it all? I have a wide mix of US and world wide stamps. I'm not interested in any particular countries except Mauritius and I have several favorite topics. How do I approach this?
Any help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

The hardest issue for a beginning and advanced collector is the same: scope management. It is not unreasonable to settle on one country, and one stamp series - many Canadian collectors like the second world war issue for example - others go further back to collect the large and small queens. If you want to collect ALL new world issue starting today you are looking at $000s annually.

Hi! I miss the 4 years I lived in New York in the early 80's- nice having seasons especially the snow even though I had to shovel my car out of it after snow plows buried our cars each morning.
I suggest you may start by using the search engine on this site and go to the American Philatelic Society (APS) page:
http://stamps.org/Starting-a-Collection

Steve to SCF

Hi stevestamp ... I have been collecting for more than 50 years and still haven't figured out how to pare it down and specialize! (though I am making progress!)