Lurker No More

Hi everyone,

The idea of stamp collecting was pitched to me by an antique dealer but I can't say it grasped me at the time. It wasn't until when I explored the idea on my own that it grew on me. My main collecting focus was sports cards but the extent of my being a sports fan stops at professional wrestling, where the trading card quality is poor. With recent scandalous activity on behalf of the manufacturers putting a proverbial black eye on the hobby I decided to take the plunge into stamps. A nearby chain retailer recently offered a 3 for 2 deal on bags of approx. 1,000 assorted small world stamps, so 3,000 stamps are on their way to me. I'm currently based in the United Kingdom but will soon be making a move back to my home country of Canada so won't be opening these mystery bags just yet!

I suppose I'm sort of a "dabbler" right now but do see some interesting topics that I would be interested in pursing. Wrestling, of course, is "up there" but I'm also interested in oppressive regimes such as Hitler's Germany and Hussein's Iraq. I find myself fascinated by what must have been felt when seeing such brutal individuals on every day items such as postage and currency, and indeed the mystery surrounding who handled the article itself.

I have done some wider reading to skill myself up on the basics of stamp collecting but still haven't found the answer to one lingering question: How does one store souvenir sheets and coiled stamps to archival safe standards? Is there some sort of acid free holder?

Looking forward to chatting with everyone.

Welcome! I'm using acid free paper. How large our the SS & coil strips
you have? I'm sure another here at this site will have an answer.

Welcome Knudson:

You'll find friendly people and good discussion here.

Hi, and welcome to the forum! I am a newbie to stamp collecting myself. This board is a great help to any collector.

You can find just about any type of album or holder you would like acid-free. I don't know myself about the coil stamps, I'm sure someone on here does, but there are lots of options for the souvenir sheets.

You can order some free catalogs from places like www.mysticstamp.com,www.subwaystamp.com, or www.kenmorestamp.com among others and get some ideas of how you would like to store your things.

Hi Knudson,

Welcome to the SCF.

There are a few Germany collectors here, so you should fit right in.

Steve

Welcome Knudson

Glad you decided to join us.

Where in Canada will you settling?

Dianne

Welcome! Wrestling would be an interesting topic. I invision Greek stamps depicting the original Olympians sparring.

As for coil strips, most are collected and stored in strips of 5 or more. Most collectors have a strip with the coil number in it. These should fit easily into a mount or stock page. Also, for souvineer sheets there are precut mounts or various size stock pages that they can be stored in. There are even mounts, pages, & albums for panes of stamps. I like Vario pages there are many sizes and they fit almost any type of album.

I hope this helps your lingering question.

Welcome Knudson!

Welcome to stamp collecting, Knudson!

There are wide variety of archival-quality display/storage options: these include mounts, hingless albums, stockbooks, stockpages, display cards... There are advantages and disadvantages to each one, and as your collection grows, you will eventually select the one or more that is most suitable for what you collect. I'll leave it to the others regarding their preferences, and why.

I would just like to point out to things:

1. The same type storage item from a different manufacturer is not necessarily archival. So before you buy, ask the seller to confirm.

2. Regardless of what storage system you use, always remember to store the stamps vertically (i.e., do not have them laying flat or have things stacked on top). The long-term affect of pressure over time is that stamp gum may get disturbed or even stuck down. It's been heartbreaking over the years to thumb through many a great collection being sold for pennies on the dollar because most of the stamps were stuck down due to improper storage.

Enjoy your stamps!

Kim

Welcome K. When you get enough posts shoot me an email and I can help you with some German stamps.

Thanks for the welcome everyone, and thanks for the tip re: storing albums upright khj. I wouldn't have considered that and would likely have kept albums flat.

I'm not quite sure where I'll be settling Dianne Earl. Right now I'm after live in work arrangements and most of the listings for that crop up out west. If I were to have a guess right now I would say Calgary is a likely spot but my search is Canada wide. I'll know more towards June or July when I'm financially ready to come back home.

Anyway, on to the good stuff now, I received my order today and here's the bounty..










Looking forward to sorting through that .

G'Day Knudson and to the forum

Welcome, Knudson!

I'm pretty much a dabbler myself. There's quite a wide range of collecting styles here, so I think you'll fit right in.

Welcome to the forum Knudson.

That looks like a great start knudson A good mix to start with good variety.

Some of my albums have spaces for souvenir sheets so I that's where I place mine. I collect used and for enjoyment only and I do hinge all my stamps.

Dianne

Hi Diane, I am sure I am violating some kind of game etiquette but my albums are a mix of hinged stamps and better stamps in mounts..some I just can not bear to hinge !