What Is Your Collection "Time Frame"?

USA to 1988. 1988 is just the point where continuing, became cost prohibitive compared to what I was getting out of the hobby. At that time my supplement pages did not have Scott numbers for the Transportation Series, and Great American Series stamps. Just dotted squares to put them in. Only in recent years did I surrender to the task of fixing this. The USPS were issuing more stamps, higher denominations, and when I added that to the cost of the mounts and supplement pages, I decided to start working in the "classic era", which I fell in love with.


-IBFS

U.S. Postage Stamps 1847 - 2000
U.S. Postal History 1851 - 194?
U.S. RM Revenues 1751 - 180? (Slave Bill of Sale)
U.S. RN Revenues 1862 - 187?
U.S. Reference Library -
U.S. Exposition Tickets -
C.S.A Stamps -

The "Time Frame" varies with the subject matter. I stopped with the 2000 baby New Year stamp as the last new stamp collected in my collections.

Art

I have a main collection of worldwide mint airmail issues which started out to be through 1940.... then it slipped to 1950... then I came across the beautiful stamps of the French Antarctic Territories and extend my reach through mid 1960. Time became such an issue that I started collections of countries that stopped issuing stamps, like the Ryukyu Islands, French Indochina, Italian Colonies, etc. And finally, I have begun topical collecting with Red Cross, UPU, ITU, etc. So time is not really an issue for me anymore. I just enjoy the scenery along the journey.

Worldwide 1840 to 2013... soon to be 2014! I prefer used when I can get them, it gets harder the more modern the stamps.

My worldwide collection is based on the Scott International album, Parts I through V (1840 - 1965). Exceptions are Canada, Mexico, the Portuguese colonies, which go through the early 1970s (I stopped Macau also in 1974 after the Revolution of the Carnations in Lisbon that year).

US goes into the mid-2000s, but only because, several years ago, I inherited the US collection of the late father of an ex-girlfriend.

There are fascinating series of stamps from all decades in my collection, but I think my favorites are GB Protectorates up through mid 1950s - that's a pretty good century :) . I don't collect anything after 1980 except Machins.

I actively collect from 1847 to about 1940. I was fairly complete from the 1920's to the 1940's as a boy in the late 50's. When I started collecting again about 20 years ago I sought to complete the commemoratives mint. Now I pretty much look for 1890 on mint, and prior to that in used. I've reached a point where it's difficult to find a stamp I need for less than $300, and most are above that. Every once in a while a relative bargain comes along and I'll buy that but I'm probably lucky if I add more than 7-8 stamps a year to my album. I'll be retired in a couple of years and I've actually thought of collecting worldwide which I haven't done since I was a boy. I think the most fun I had with stamps was during that period.

Though I collect worldwide from 1840 to present, the stamps I most actively seek and cherish are from the period between about 1890 and 1950. Stamps reached a certain level as an art form during the 1890s and 1900s (think cattle in a storm, think Bosnian pictorials, think Tasmanian landscapes).

In the early twentieth century, designs also more starkly represented the nations that issued them. Afterwards, topical demands and lobbying firms took over. The stamps as a whole tell the story of the world wars and of colonization.

Greaden- like your thoughts. I agree.

For me The National Park Series have always been a favorite.
Tom

Mine is dictated by my topic... so I can only have items that were from the period that motorcycle makers in Italy have been in business. Say 1898 to today.... having said that I DO have one item from a company in 1893 that went on to build motorcycles later!
Regards
Gavin

Mine is from the 1940's to the 1940's. Although I do have it mostly complete up to 1959.

My worldwide collection runs from the initial issues in the mid-to-late 1800s to the present. However I no longer collect stamps from very small countries like Kiribati. I never run across their stamps, and their pages take up a lot of space.

Lebanon, the era is since it was a french colony till now. (1845-Present)

More specifically, I collect the area of French, Ottoman,German, Austrian,Egyptian post offices in Beirut and Tripoli (1845-1914).

I collect also Germany from 1933-1945

My U.S. collection goes from 1847 to the first half of 1993 because that's where my album stopped at the time I decided that modern U.S. stamps sucked. I have since added pages through the end of 1993 but I have no interest whatsoever in going beyond that.

For my foreign collections, I don't have any limits at the moment, I haven't found that they are getting especially ugly or obnoxious, or that the governments are putting out hundreds of stamps a year for the sole purpose of extracting money from collectors like the U.S. does. Who knows, I might put caps on those someday too.