The 100,000 Stamp Club

Just reduced my count to reflect the shoddy condition of the 1c magenta.

Of course all this talk raises the humbling question "what is a damaged stamp and what is not, and where to draw a line on what to keep and what to bin?".

For example how many of you would keep the below:



The stamp is missing one full perf and has 9 more or less blunt perfs. And there's that 'charming' killer postmark on top of all.But it is otherwise a solid and sound specimen with no faults.

Personally I grade this stamp as "fair" (on grading scale that goes spacefiller > fair > good > catalogue grade), and as such it is still a keeper (of lowest possible grade). This is the kind of stamp which you might pay 1-2% of catalog value (if even that).

-k-

My world-wide collection has been my 'fun' collection since the 1970s. Unlike my specialized collections, I fill any blank space I can regardless of condition. When a better example comes along, I replace the stamp. As such, I have many ummm...'less than ideal' stamps in my 12 Big Blue albums.

I am trying to convince my wife to count these stamps but she is negotiating some significant favors from me!
Don

My oldest daughter did my count ,she counted the number of binders and albums ,then counted the numbers of pages in a random group of binders . Then she did another random count of stamps per page . Then she came up with the results with a 5% accuracy to the total . She took about two hours and it was all random because she didn't know which albums had more popular countries or which binders had more stamps than others .

The International albums push the numbers much higher but some of the specialized binders had a lot fewer stamps but had much more value than the Albums . The total numbers don't mean a lot after a few years . At some point I started looking at the WOW factor of the collection don't mistake the appeal factor with High Catalog stamps if there is no organization and study to those high value stamps then it doesn't impress anybody . So my direction started going to getting the stuff you don't have and rarely see .This would be the material a stamp auction firm would fight to get .

So over the next 10 or 15 years I will be looking for those collections that rarely come up for auction ,I recently spend my whole year stamp budget on Stanley Richard German Colonies inventory which was sold at Kelleher Stamp Auctions .

It took me three years to find the stamps that make up International or Big Blues pages of Cape Juby ,I finally found them and won them at auction .Places like Cape of Good Hope come up 5 or 6 times each year . So looking for those difficult to find collections makes the hunt than much more fun .

Thanks Blaaamand for telling me about the related "storage" thread--it is a long one, but well worth reading through!

"Deep Blue" in Vario F & G Binders, and the occasional Palo Binder

I collect primarily WW 1840-1940 & British Commonwealth 1840-1952, and so far, after seven years, have ~49,000 different Scott major number stamps (out of ~83,000 possibilities). As one can see it is impossible to "join" the 100,000 stamp club with this criteria.

Now, the 50,000 "classic era" club, yes, sometime next year.

What would a 100,000+ stamp collection sell for ?

Even if they were basic stamps having well over 100K and ALL different thats got to add some value to the collection.

I collect British commonwealth 1840 - 1901 so I have no chance of getting to 100K

Even with revenues/fiscals/telegraphs/duties ect i'm only going to get to maybe 7 - 8 thousand..

No worries Seigaku - that's a fascinating thread



I've arrived at kind of related conclusion. When looking at typical 'perfect' collections that are simply pages up and down 'completed' to the pre-printed pages, but with no further in-depth study, varieties, write-ups etc etc - that does not give me much sensation of wow! I find it much more interesting looking at collections where each emission have been studied for varieties and properly identified, even if the pages are only partially filled - yet even if the key values are missing. The difficult bits are not necessarily those key stamp,s which mostly can be found on ebay in a second, but the curious varieties outside of mainstream

The concept of "wow factor" has entered into the discussion a couple of times. I feel lucky that the only impressions I ever want to make are the enjoyment I get viewing my own collection and the sense of accomplishment I feel about putting together something that meets my personal standards.

For most of my collection it would be safe to say I am a "stamp collector." For KGVI Commonwealth perhaps I might consider myself a "philatelist" although I have never caught the bug to collect plate flaws or seek every separable printing made for each value. Collecting perfs, shades (with some sub-shades), papers and dies may not quite get to Blaamand's definition of specialization but it's a happy medium.

Wish there was more out there regarding basic shades and papers for French Dom-Tom. Between Yvert and Scott Specialized there is some info, but there doesn't seem to be a cohesive group of philatelists discussing this material as there is for KGVI. Perhaps I need to dig harder.

Depends on what's in it! I've seen worldwide collections that size sell at auction from around $3K to over $300K, depending on the quality of the material included.

IMTCHO (In My Two Cents Humble Opinion):
This elite club is meant for your enjoyment, so you should agree on loose guidelines. Why loose? Because you're here for the joy of collecting, not to make up more restrictions.
I'm under 50k, so I might never join your club, but I like to see fun ideas come to life, so here's what I suggest:
1) Start with 90-100k stamps. Those that reached 90k will most likely reach 100k.
2) Sit together and decide if you want to go by whole catalog number, that is, consider Scott 12a, 12b, 12c and so on as one stamp.
3) Sit together and decide if you want to consider the different phosphorous effect of the same stamp as different stamps.
4) Sit together and decide if you want to consider perfins as different stamps.
5) Sit together and decide if you want to accept revenue, post-due, cinderellas and so on as acceptable different stamps.
6) Stand up and stretch - it's not good to sit so much.
7) Use the experience of others that tried to measure stamp quantity: Check out how StampWorld and the forbidden other catalog chose to count their stamps; See how a country's postal authority is counting its stamps.
8) Name me an honorary member. No no joking

If you include the stamps I still have to sort I have about 250,000 stamps: but are grocery sacks full of machins part of a collection? Iv'e done a preliminary sort about half a kilo and early signs are that there might be 50 different stamps in the sacks. Perhaps I should have gone to the stamp shop and bought them. I have got over 600 penny reds, some are arguably duplicates, but they are in different parts of the collection depending on cancellation plate number, shade etc.

@Noocassel:

FWIW, I do not think that stamps in grocery sacks are part of a collection. But do think that your Penny Reds collection is a collection. Hence its stamps would be included in the total number of stamps across all of your collections. YMMV.

JKBLUE --Nice photo. Can you tell me what you did ? Did you remove the pages from the International [the Big Blues] and repunch the holes to fit those binders ,did you trim the pages down or are they for Steiner pages ? Which binders do you like working with ? Did you modify any pages like I did to make the pages easier to follow {I used two different sets of International to correct some of their goofy double printed pages to give it a better flow from section to section in the back pages of a country .