New Collector Advice/Direction

When I returned to the hobby about ten years ago after an absence of 30 years, I started by specializing in one country, New Zealand. I quickly found this too confining, i.e I found it harder and harder to find new items. The fun wanes when you are only adding one or two pieces a month. So, I started adding countries and am now up to about 25 countries or so. Not sure I will ever become a WW collector, but admit to having recently considered bidding on a couple of large WW collections. Haven't plunged so far and am finding that the range of countries I've picked keeps me quite busy. A couple more might get added soon.

As far as albums are concerned, since I was very young, I've had a preference for arranging my own displays on grilled album paper using Lighthouse mounts and Lighthouse 3-ring binders. I use Vario sheets for some countries and also for larger items. I also like illustrated album pages but, again, I think I would find them too confining or controlling. I am not striving for completeness as some items in my countries are just too expensive and I would hate looking at the blank spots.

dwsand - don't know if you are even reading all of this since you haven't responded after your initial post, but...

I would hold off a bit on buying an album or albums until you are sure you are committed. Too many times I have seen cases where someone has gone out and bought some expensive albums and then put very few stamps into them.

As others have said, collect what and how you like. you could specialize in the year you wee born in or the country your family originally came from or any topic(s) you like, or just whatever strikes your fancy at the moment. World wide collectors tend to collect 1840 to 1940 or pergaps end with WWII (and many end the Brit Commonwealth part with 1953 with e coronation of QEII). If you choose to go that route, you will have lots of company (but will also have more competition for the stamps you are tying to buy).

Thank you all for your suggestions. Several suggestions have given me some direction.

I would like to get a stock book and fill it with Christmas stamps and put that out for the holidays.

I never thought about collecting one color of stamp, and since my favorite color is blue, I think having a book of blue stamps would be fun.

I would like to have at least one stamp from every country. That is realistic.

I liked the idea of collecting from my birth year. Since my birth year was an Olympic year, that would make a nice sub topic.

I did think about collecting Franco stamps from Spain, since that seems to be in every stamp packet or collection that I have ever bought. But that is more of a cheap attempt of stamp collecting humor.

The pro of using an album is it a good starting place to see where I want my collecting to go, but the Steiner pages do the same thing at a fraction of the cost. The con of an album is that right now I have one stamp from Uganda, do I need several pages of Uganda just to house my lone Ugandan stamp.

The bulk of what I have now are stamps from Poland, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, India, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Canada, United States and Australia. Getting the Steiner pages for those countries would make sense in have a place to house/display a collection and then adding to once I get more stamps from specific countries.

"I would like to have at least one stamp from every country."

Consider whether you only want to include countries that exist today, or also include "Dead" countries - countries that used to exit but no longer do.