Biermann's "The World's Greatest Stamp Collectors"

Spending a holiday in South Carolina and, in a Beaufort second hand book store, just bought a copy of Stanley Bierman's two volume "The World's greatest Stamp Collectors" published by Linn's. Have read two or three chapters and it is already starting to cause me to rethink my collecting strategies. It is looking like a great read and I'm wondering what other books like this people would recommend?

NBstamper I have the Bierman books..can you imagine having the kind of money those guys had to send agents all over the world..money no object and it was no object..to obtain a certain stamp ?

Phil will be in the upcoming Volume 3 -- "The Greatest Stamp Collector of Them All".

It's just a matter of time...

I really like any of the Hearst Books, Nassau Street, etc. I love the stories in them.

I wonder if this guy went to philatelic heaven?..perhaps he had it on earth..how much time could a man have to create a collection like this..assuming he had a life besides stamps !

look at his eyes, I wonder if he ever left the room ?

As I read through the books, will keep you posted about what I'm thinking. Obviously, couldn't keep up to those guys but may learn some useful things!
Landoquakes, will look for those books, but doubt I will find them on Amazon! Will try the online 2nd hand book stores!

OMG; philb; how did this guy ever do this? I know how much work goes into my modest collection! How many people did he have on his philatelic staff? And what is in those albums???

KHJ I want to be like Colonel Green, his mother never spent a nickel..put it all in a mattress,when he inherited he spent it on stamps !

If I had what he spent on binders I would fill my frontiers gas tank all the way to the top !!

I'm a great fan of the Bierman books, too. For worldwide collectors, volume one is like catnip. (Volume 2, if I remember correctly, is primarily devoted to collectors of US.)

Ironically, I was looking at Herst's Nassau Street earlier today. My copy is autographed and it has a notation that I bought it in 1960 when I was twelve. Yikes.

Some other "general" books that I would recommend:

Helen Morgan's Blue Mauritius: The Hunt for the World's Most Valuable Stamp. In addition to the history of the stamp, it includes interesting information about some notable collectors.

Simon Garfield's The Error World: An Affair with Stamps. Even though the author was a collector of EFO stamps, there is much that capture what makes our hobby so fascinating, regardless of specialty.

Nicholas Courtney's The Queen's Stamps: The Authorised (Authorized) History of the Royal Philatelic Collection. The materials described are incredible and the book gives a good idea of how such a collection was assembled over time.

Donna O'Keefe's Linn's Philatelic Gems. This multi-volume series has brief chapters on many rare or famous stamps. I didn't recheck, but in the past you could often pick up the volumes in this series for a song.

1840to1940
Thanks for the referrals; I'll start looking for them. If I have trouble finding them, I'll ask for help.

Reflecting on Dr. Ming's collection as pictured above - looks entirely too neat and organized; I prefer a bit of a mess but still wonder what wonders are in those albums.

The BEST website for finding ANY genre of books: www.bookfinder.com

At the moment, there are 153 of Bierman's books available, in a wide variety of prices and conditions (note, this only represents 4 different titles).

NBstamper as to what was in his books..he loaned his collection to Scotts one year for use in their catalogs...i wonder if he had all the low value stamps !

Those look like Lighthouse binders in the picture, if so did he have his collection in hingeless pages? Good grief how much did he spend just on the albums?

So, is this a contemporary book? Does it mention Bill Gross (of the inverted Jenny trade for the Z grill stamp)?