Looking For A Good Country To Collect

I like the suggestion of Newfoundland, altho a lot of the complete sets or earlies are expensive.

My suggestion is Portuguese colonies. All colonies, except Macau, became independent by 1975. So, you have a good ending date. Many of the issues, including sets, are relatively inexpensive. You can find lots of misprints, errors, etc. on issues through the 1930s. Be advised that some of these can get pricy and may require expert review to make sure your items are genuine. Still, I've collected the colonies for almost 25 years and am always highly entertained.

I`d suggest one of the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).

What about Ceylon / Sri Lanka?

Steve

I collect Newfoundland and I would also recommend it. Issued about 350 or so stamps and only a couple of dozen are out of reach for most collectors. Lots of varieties and plenty of supply of both mint and used. It is one of those places where eventually used stamps are going to be more valuable than the mint ones. Great country to collect postmarks, covers, postal stationary and revenues. Partial and full sheets and nice multiples are available and lots of dealers to work with. The stamps are attractive. Bidding on ebay for the better stamps is often aggressive but you can always find bargains if you are patient.

Vatican City

You could try something like postal history. I started collecting postal history by trying to find covers from my hometown which has not had an independent post office for almost 80 years. In my search I ended going after cancellations from every active post office in my state. After that I went after the closed post offices,(DPO's). Over the years I have since expanded into way to many categories to list. Almost all stamp collectors I know are history buffs and you can really dive into history in just about any topic or place.

Wow-20 replies already in 10 hours!

If you are interested in the classical era- at least to start the collection- check out my country by country analysis of their classical stamps.

So far, I've posted Aden-Iceland.

(The analysis is a bit more detailed beginning with the Falkland Island post.)

http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.com/

I couldn't even begin to tell you what you would be interested in-check out for yourself.

How about a country with a relatively short history ... Estonia? Does this mean the modern Ukraine is complete?

... Cal

Estonia is an interesting case. It issued its first designated ("Eesti") stamps in 1918, and before then, was part of Russia. This throws the doors wide open for a collection of postal history 1840-1918, and Russian-equivalent postmarks of Estonian cities, trains, and ships (if any). Of course, in the Russian era, you have the language and alphabet problem again. But you will also have little competition, in the U.S., at least.

Why would you say that?

like Climber Steve says, Portugal and Portuguese colonies (before Independence are great), but you will have lot of work, because like france and GB, you have lots of colonies etc. I´m half Canadian(French), half Portuguese. don´t know why but I love the pré independence colonies só much.

If I would have to choose, would go for a small country, like Portugal, Holland, Switzerland or Scandinavian Countries. As long as you don´t go for pseudo countries that just make stamps for a living.
The reason is that they have small populations and small emissions, só on the long run you might get more return for you investment, but you should alway be in for the fun of it!

I just read the Linn's yearly stamp voting ballot. To my astonishment I saw there were 188 postal items released in 2012. Of course that includes stationary, but still................. That is over one item every two days; ridiculous!

Peter

Here's a left field idea. Try collecting 'lickable' superb postally used of the world from 2001 (excluding those peel and stick excuses for stamps).

If you're into a challenge then this is going to be at the top of the list.

Many collectors stopped at 2000, so there's not much very good quality superb used around in collections after that.

Postal administrations worldwide adopted the peel and stick labels disguised as stamps around then, and the bulk use out of businesses is either these or actual postage labels.

Email took over then too, so usage of real stamps has plummeted the world over. Postal administrations have tried to claw back lost revenues in postage by issuing more and more different stamps each year, leading to more angry collectors and less and less numbers used per stamp.

Superb quality postally used stamps of any era have always been difficult to collect, (I'm yet to see a complete collection of such,) but from 2001 these are becoming scarcer than hen's teeth.