Stamp Collection Doldrums

i need to move on and step my collecting up a notch..but its difficult to change..still I know I have to start acquiring better sets and singles to keep my interest alive..i have been playing in the kiddie pool too long !!

Phil:

When you come to Ottawa, you can sit at the table with the adults.

David
(... manning the Youth Booth at ORAPEX)

Phil,
I don't agree ! You said yourself it is difficult to change, so why not start a new collection ?? I don't believe the addition of a few High Values will satisfy you.

Some years back I was collecting only countries, no topicals or Cinderellas. I was probably in the same situation as yourself, scouring the tables for those illusive and expensive sets that always seemed out of reach.....and yet not really.
One day I was given a pack of Cinderellas and I was hooked. No more searching for high values, no more frustration about which way the collecting was going. Then I found an interest in US Flag definitives and so the expanding topical took equal billing.

I think your answer should be change, but not necessarily a few expensive sets. And I reckon 95% of collectors, who are also playing in the 'Kiddie Pool' would not liked to be classed as such.Given the choice of a $300 stamp or a few months of happy collecting, most of them would probably choose the latter.

Change collections is the answer.

Londonbus1

Good luck with the new direction of your collection. I will always be at the kiddie table, it's not as stuffy. LOL I have to be an adult at work, play is better suited to kids.

Londonb I agee..my Guatemala collecting was great and I was able to almost complete the country ..my problem is I am running around in too many directions..i need one topic to focus and stick to and it will turn out nicely !!

Phil.....


My answer is to collect........"only things I like".

Phil - I was in kind of that same position and that's why I started the Israel collection. It's gotten me excited again. I think Michael might be right - start a new collection or take a different direction with one you already have.

G'Day Phil and yes I do agree with you,but what your talking about also is cost,to get out of the kiddies end and upgrade all depend on how deep your pockets are and how much your willing to part with.
Been there and done that so thanks to the help of friends here on SCF,APS store,eBay and Bidstart I have slowly began to upgrade my collection and it hasn't cost me an arm or a leg,but there are still those expensive stamps that elude me.
So again I find myself at the kiddies end usually buying a kiddies end space filler,and that's just to fill that one hole which normally turns into many ,so move over I bags the kiddies end steps .

Foot note
Both Tom and Greg have good ideas Phil
just have to stir your self in the right direction.

I guess I am in the toddler section here making my own personalized stamps (at times).

But, it's fun and it's lots of topics all rolled into one area, and all kinds of different countries issue them in different ways.

I am being attracted to the Spanish machine labels also now, an offshoot of personal stamps.

I started off just with the personal stamps but now I am interested in lots of different stamps (again) and different aspects of the hobby (cancels, covers) than I ever was before.

I think pick something seemingly small in scope and then, when you think you have mastered it, there will appear tons of other ideas that are somehow attached to the original idea and that digress into areas you never would have thought of before.

yeah after seeing the 1000$ stamps I was thinking maybe I should quit too :)

I have been thinking lately that I need to step up as well but then I started thinking of what I have accomplished the last two years and what I have yet to accomplish.

In short: Albums done Canada; US Australia, Poland, Great Britain and 3/4's done Germany. I still have some of more tricky stamps to Identify in the Great Britain and Australia and have to figure out the Small and Large Queens for Canada.

I also have albums printed for Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Netherlands and have lots of stamps for these countries. As well I have Tons of stamps from France, Japan, China, Russia, New Zealand and Spain. Oh yeh I think at last count I had stamps from over 300 countries past and present.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'll be playing in the kiddy pool til I'm in my 70's at least.

Dianne

Dianne, here is a nice site on the Small Queens. A good intro to them.

(From the Royal Philatelic Society of Canada)
http://www.rpsc.org/Library/SmallQu...l_Queens.htm

Thanks a bunch Puzzler I'll check it out

Dianne

Phil-

Maybe you could find a few little, manageable subthemes that you could knock out six months at a crack. You must already be half way through a complete quetzals-on-stamps topical collection. Your stockbooks may already contain postmarks from all 366 days just waiting to be identified as such. Something that by definition doesn't require waiting for three items to appear at auction.

Serious collecting does not always have to equal serious dollars. Look at a Scott Classic to see all of the twenty-cent stamps that you may never run across more than once in your life. (I suppose the Internet has changed that a bit, but you get my point...)

As an aside, I don't recall noticing a February 29 postmark on anything other than modern covers. (I can't say that I note the date on every cds I see.)

We're just starting to come into show season in my neck of the woods. And just in time, I might add.

C.

CJD I still look for Guatemala internal airmail covers, revenues and socked on nose quetzals..but they are few and far between...Greg is fortunate he is excited about a new country Israel which is not hard to complete except for scott 7 to 9 with tabs..of which many fakes and counterfeits abound as a friend of mine found out !! with me a lot of it is attitude..if my wife wants an item to complete her Europa collection she just buys it...perhaps thats why her collections have passed mine like a shot !!