Maybe Starting A US Collection, Advice Please.

I am maybe thinking of starting a USA collection but have a very limited budget, (I collect GB on a budget as well). Any advice would be much appreciated,

Start with a collection that includes a nice album, hopefully one not too marked up or with pages missing (ask the seller!). That deals with the bulk of the costs of getting a foothold into the collection. Then you can focus on the stamps. If you have a choice between a hard to find stamp offered by a reputable dealer or a whole big batch of common material, go for the better item... Your heirs will thank you :)

I have a spare stockbook now, which is itching for another collection (even though I have just started as a beginner with GB)

Do many of you guys have more than one collection?

What kind of advice do you seek? It seems you already are a collector. By now, from your GB collection, you likely know how feel about certain aspects - mint, canceled, new, old, high quality, mass quantity, regular postage stamps vs. other (stationery, revenues, errors). Do you have any specific questions?

If I were started - and knew I had a limited budget - I honestly would NOT go for the highest price item. What is more fun - buying one $100 stamp and storing it away in a mount for a year until you can be a second one? Or buying a whole bunch of smaller price items and filling and learning a country and its stamps through a lot of inexpensive material. The second choice will help build on your own future as a collector. The first choice might gain 10 percent value in 20 years.

Geordie

As with stamps from anywhere else, the great bulk of US material can be picked up cheaply - don't be deterred by the high prices on the early stuff or the complexity of some of the definitive issues. As with GB issues, you don't have to go there, at least initially.

The current Somerset Stamp Auctions sale has a lot (1165 in the link below) with a box of US in nine (yes) Schaubeck albums and four stockbooks with an estimate of £80. That's a lot of albums for your £, even if the stamps are average.

http://www.somersetstampauctions.co...rent-auction

Geoff

If I was starting a US collection, I would cut it off at 1980 and work backwards from there.... if you are just collecting US without any specifics. Post 1980 is mostly the USPS trying to get collectors to spend money on items that have little actual use, but generate collector $$ for the USPS.

Otherwise, and overall, collecting US stamps can be a very wide ranging and challenging effort.

Collecting pre-1980 used can be penny cheap and a lot of fun.

Stick to a range of later years say 1980 to current and bid on ebay for set by set till you can complete then go back before 1980 ten years at a time. You can find most stamps but as you get earlier back some like the inverted jenny maybe impossible to get. Decide also if you want all mint or a mixture of mint and used. I'd be going for all mint stamps. Stay away from any early stamps with faults. Avoid ebay auctions that don't show a clear picture or a pic of the back of the older stamps. Get a nice set of albums where the album pages show a picture of each stamp you need, such as a davo album.

If you want to get a lot of stamps cheap, the years 1945 to 1970 would be a good place to start.

What is your limited budget?

Why stay away from early stamps with faults?

Thanks again for all the advice.

Stamps with faults are often offered at deep discounts. They may not hold value in the future; investment grade stamps, or those which will command the best prices, are often without faults.
Don

Geordie

If you want something to kick off with, I'm happy to send you a few hundred. Let me know and I'll send you a PM.

Geoff

May I suggest that if you are just starting out collecting US as a foreign country, then one of your earliest purchases should be a catalog of US stamps. If you are already generally familiar with stamp catalogs, then ge a copy of a specialized catalog that gives you more information on stamp varieties.

If you want to learn more about American popular culture, then material after 1980 is the sort of thing you ought to focus on. If you want to learn about how the country became what it is, then material prior to 1980 will give you the broad sweep with fewer decisions about what to buy. Eventually you will discover what interests you the most about these stamps and can go your own way.

Collecting to fill spaces in an album is a fairly painless but brainless way to approach the challenge of building a collection, unless you get caught up in mastering production varieties. Nonetheless, studying catalogs is not as much fun as handling material, and to fast track that a cheap album and unsorted mixtures will get you into the thick of it at that level.

You decide what you want, and go for it.

essayk

Filling spaces can be "painless but brainless" (I'd argue that filling spaces in a pre-prepared hingeless album is the most mind-numbingly brainless philatelic activity of all), but it doesn't have to be. My worldwide collecting has led me to investigate countries whose histories I knew little or nothing about. And Jim's Big Blue blog is an excellent example of how collecting to the album can lead to all manner of interesting ramifications.

Not sure I'd use the stamps themselves as a means of finding out what any country is, however. For that, you need to need to look beneath the surface.

Geoff

Hi Geoff, here's another twist.....

I've mentioned to a few new collectors at our local club, that if I started again, I wouldn't collect any newer material from the post office, or plate blocks from the 40's and 50's. Stuff is not worth even half of the $0.12 that was paid back then for a 3c plate block.

There are a lot of interesting US classic stamps that can be purchased very reasonably-- you've seen a lot of us talking about shades of the 3c 1861 stamp. #65 has a Scott value of about $3, and they're very common and very available everywhere in bulk and on cover. And with all of the varieties and history, you could collect that stamp, reasonably for a lifetime.

Then, there is the 3c 1851 and 3c 1857, and they are probably the most studied stamps in all of American philately. Again, reasonable, and variety enough to last a lifetime.

I guess what I'm saying is that one can get an album, and fill spaces, or there are a lot of other options.....either way, enjoy!

Ray