The 100,000 Stamp Club

SCB--------I think you and me have bump heads on this before,without trying to cut each others heads off.But let me post my opinion and you can do what you want with it and see how others understand it.I would be interested in your view point.
I belive there are very few collectors who ever reach the level of 200,000 different stamps in one collection.Now that doesn;t mean someone can't go out and purchase enought country collections and fill up a room and make that claim of over 200,000 .Four or five people have told me of collections over 200K but when I pressed for details ,then they walk away or look at the floor.It seems everybody knows somebody that has a huge collection of worldwide but when discussing the collection ,they don't know the numbers .I have been so bold as to offer $2,000 to go and see the collection and take the owner out for supper to see the collection.But no takers yet.
I don't think a collection has ever been created by one person that has over 250,000 different stamps,I know there are many claims but to build a collection going up to that number, first the cost is very high and time is beyond what is reasonable.When you talk of 450,000 that number is beyond what is possible as a hobby ,at that level your buying $1,500.00 country collections about 20 X a year for 20 years ,then that number can be hit but then is that stamp collecting ....

If you collect world-wide, 100.000 different is fairly easy to obtain. It only takes time...

When I was a kid, I used to do a yearly count. Last count I did was when I was 12 years old. I had 27943 different stamps then. It's funny to look back and see how the numbers accumulated across different countries during the years. Recommended for world-wide collectors

finches, my goal has been accomplished, to start more conversation on worldwide collecting! I wound up making 25 buttons. I am going to wear one when I work the Minnesota Stamp Expo in July... I hope and expect to get comments :) If I could redo them I would have said on the button "Save the World!"

Does anyone get Mekeels? In the feb 2011 issue was a photo of a collection in Arizona that was quite impressive... In at least 70 Harris Binders no less! I would love to hear the background there. It's a husband and wife team David and Dianne.

I agree. And this comes back to what Londonbus1 (and few others have stated): a lot of collectors consider their time too valuable for counting up how many different items they have.

I'm aware of two Finland-based w/w collections that are notably larger than my "small" accumulation. Only the other collector keeps record of counts , and he's around 175K different (all postally used) items. But I do "know" the other collection is WAY larger (it's been collected by several generations of worldwide collectors in single family).



What about the "famous" Dr. Cheng Chang's collection (used by Amos/Scott for catalog images)?
http://worldstampalbum.com/main.aspx?MenuId=1

I'm not sure if there are any precise numbers of his collection besides the goal of collecting 90% complete.





I agree it takes a lots of time & devotion. But not necessary the funds.

My personal goal is to add at least 5-10K stamps per year (and stick with the pocket money budget). So by the time I get to retire around year 2040, I've hopefully gone far beyond the 200K mark (and in best case would be close to 400K). But I'm not taking any pressure over reaching those numbers. In every occasion I've had great time building up the collection & knowledge.

Landoquakes, yes, 9 pages of discussion of all types is good for our hobby. You have done WELL activating interesting and educational discussion for us all.

In support of the topic; If a collectors right to wear something showing topic preference, stamp numbers or similar was genuinely removed, I like other members would be there fighting to have that right restored.

Surely no one can stop you from wearing a badge ?? Is this what you were referring to? I cannot see it catching on at stamp shows...or any other show come to that. But stranger things have happened.

SCB------I agree with your long term goal of adding stamps to your collection and watching it ever expanding size.This web page will be interesting to watch and see how different collectors handle all the different problems that come up while we all try to expand our goal of worldwide stamp collecting.
My biggest problem now is now to process stamps so that im not opening binders /albums to check and see if its a duplicate or not........so im developeing a feeder album that can be checked and feed into my main collection once a year.

How would a feeder album work? I've tried setting up Vario pages with stamps and that seems to help. Quite a bit of work though/ I ran into another collector at my stamp club that counts his stamps once a year in November. He mentioned that he reached 165,000. I told him I need a more exact number :)

How to process my stamps is also an issue I face, and I know my collection is not as big as some of yours. I have a pretty good memory, but I can't remember everything I have. I usually try to get a big group of stamps from the same country or near each other in the alphabet together before I go through my stockbooks to see if I have the stamp or not.

If you maintain an inventory of your collection in a database or spreadsheet, determining duplication is quite simple.

If the inventory also notes condition, you can easily determine if your new acquisition should replace a mounted stamp of lesser quality.

TOMISEKSJ-----any kind of inventory would be too time consuming,because im not just collecting to a standard catalog number system .Inventory would decrease my stamp time by 50%,which is not acceptable.
KM41566----As your collection grows you find that sometimes you haven't worked on a country for years ,so a memory of what you
have or don't have starts to fade.
LANDOQUAKES------I use a seperate album set to mount single stamps and sets ,so that I not taking down and opening my main collection albums and over handling those binders that often.Over the years I used H.E.Harris and Internationals as feeder albums ,after they are checked to my main collection then they are consigned to a stamp auction house . As most of you know they realise a better price than a box of glassines or a stockbook full of duplicates ,so that way I get the best return .

SCB-----I like what Dr.Cheng Chang has done and to post the whole collection on line is neat .Someday will try to make a count of his collection but you may be right that its over 200,000.

I have a question: do you count different varieties of one stamp as different stamps or do you consider all the different varieties of the one stamp as one set of the stamp?

@William - my counts include items that have received major catalogue number. So in most cases varieties are not included.

WILLIAM----I think it is up to each collector how extensive and in which depth they want their collection to be .
Over the past two weeks I have finally sat down to mount my HELIGOLAND stamps ,I have the stamps mounted into shades, reprints{three different},fake cancels,fake cancels on reprints,fake perforations and various shades in the reprints, so as you can see ,where other collectors have 20 or 30 stamps ,I have hundreds.So you be the judge how they should be counted.
I should post a page later today ,I hope someday to donate that part of my collection to the APS[ American Philatelic Society },so it will be part of a major reference collection for fakes,reprints ,and as a reference source.