Determining An "End Date" For A Collection

Hi - I'm curious how some of you have determined "end dates" for your collections. Is there something special about the date or did you simply get tired of chasing new issues? Additionally, is it consistent across your collection?

I spend the most time and money with pre-decimal Australia. The dates are easy for this collection: 1913-1965. But I also have a more general Australia collection that I can't figure where to cut off - 2000 is where the collection drops off significantly, or should I continue with the 45 cent issues and stop there?

My Scott International Albums stop at 1965 - simply because I got tired of rearranging the albums in "country" order each time I purchased a new album. There is nothing special about the date and I do have some blank pages with stamps well beyond that date.

My US collection essentially stops after 2008 - I looked at the prices of new issues and figured out I could use that same money for some higher priced classic issues.

Finally - do you make a "hard" stop and essentially sell off any stamps you obtain beyond the "end" date?

I'm interested in how some of you have approached this dilemma.

Thanks,
Paul

Many Canadian philatelists stop with WW II or George VI. Others focus almost entirely on a particular series such as the early Victorias. That's two choices. I would imagine the % of collectors who seek to collect ALL of a country is reducing to nil over time - for reasons of cost and storage requirement.

Hi,
Good question - one that I had worked pretty hard a few years ago..........

Originally, my USA collection was to go to 1973 or so - when that section of the Scott National album cut off. But later I realized I was missing out on some really nice stamps, and now I go to 1999. I'm not sorry I did that, but I do think stopping at 1960 might have served my needs just as well.

For the world wide collection, I originally went thru to 1940, but realized the WWII years were of major importance and interest to me, so expanded to 1949. Since then, I raised the bar to 1960. I do believe I will stop here so I can concentrate on those earlier years.

I've approached this several different ways. There are a handful of countries that I attempt to collect to the present day (the German area and Scandinavia). I collect most of the countries in Europe, and for most of the others I stop when the currency switched over to Euros. I use Steiner pages, and for some countries, I stopped when I had enough pages printed to fill a 2" binder (usually to at least the early 1990's or later). For others (e.g. Czechoslovakia and Russia), I stop when the country disintegrates or there are major political changes. And for a few others, I kind of half-way collect after a certain date. I stop printing complete Steiner pages and just start printing quad pages. I am not actively working toward completion of those areas, but I'll still save the stamps if I happen to get them in a mixture and put them on the quad pages.

My preference is to have the cutoff make some sort of logical/historical sense, such as political changes, currency changes, etc, but that's not always practical. In some cases, the lack of a logical cutoff date has actually contributed to my decision to continue collecting. The Scandinavian countries, for example, have been remarkably stable politically and economically and largely haven't converted to the Euro, so there's not really a clean, logical cutoff date. I also happen to like the stamps of those countries, so as a result I'm still actively collecting those until the present.

My approach, because I collect Australia, is to have several different collections. One for the States prior to Federation. One for Australian Roos, one for George V issues, and one for everything else to Decimal Currency. I am not really interested in the Decimal issues as this is when Australia began to print stamps for collectors, so I put them aside in albums for my children.
Horamakhet

Interesting question. I have two areas of interest. In the first, US Airmail, the decision seems to have been made for me with the issue of Scott #C150 in 2012. However, if new stamps in this series were ever issued, I'd add them to the collection. The second area of interest is topical -- US regular postage with an aviation theme. These are issued irregularly, and I'll add new ones as they come along. In terms of stamps, in these two areas I have them all except one (C15, one of the Zeppelins, and I hope to have the $$$ for one of those before too long).

Meanwhile, I also collect covers associated with the stamps in my collection, and that seems like a never ending proposition. While I'm interested in having representative covers for as many of the stamps as possible (US C1-C6 and the Zepps are out of my price range, but I have the rest covered), some stamps interest me more than others, so I try with some to get as many different covers as I can.

While the stamps in my collection are limited (approximately 200 varieties--I don't chase the scarce or $$$ varieties), the covers are, in practice, endless, and will keep me occupied with collecting for a long, long time.

Basil

I'm a full-time dealer, so will answer with what I heard from a long-time customer of mine (we just had this discussion a few weeks ago!)

- For used collections, stop when the album pages become more expensive than the stamps (for many countries that happened many decades ago.)

- For mint collections, stop when the ANNUAL "new issue" (i.e. face value) cost exceeds your typical MONTHLY collecting budget; e.g. if you usually spend $50/mo on your collection and the gov't is issuing $75 of "face" each year, stop (for many countries that happened many decades ago.)

- For postal history collections, NEVER stop. It can be fun & very challenging to find interesting/unusual (non-philatelic) postal uses of common modern stamps.

I'll also note that many collectors don't actually "stop" collecting at a certain point but rather change focus/approach. They'll get more specialized with modern issues (die/shade/perf/paper/tagging/luminescent varieties, etc.) rather than just collect in the more traditional manner of finding one example and filling the spot. Many who decide to collect the modern issues also tend to abandon the traditional stamp album (due to cost of the pages & binders) and start storing those in stockbooks, etc. That's allowed several customers of mine to keep going w/ new issues yet keep costs in check.

This is a great question; I'm looking forward to more responses!

To answer your question most collectors of worldwide collections usually don't actively seek out the latest issues . They put their effort to filling the blank spaces in their albums .If newer issues come with a purchase they put them on a blank page at the end of the album or in a glassine at the end of the album. But very few are buying new issues or any of the stuff that came out in the last 20 years .The attitude is, if it comes across my desk I'll save it but I am not spending money for it .

That just about sums up my attitude perfectly regarding newer issues for most countries. I buy mixtures and kiloware hoping to fill a lot of blank spaces for a nickel apiece or less, but I'm not ordering them individually by Scott# (and thus paying much more), with few exceptions. It's gotten to the point where some countries' annual "Steiner Supplement" is 30 or 40 pages (I'm looking at you, Japan), most of them being souvenir sheets and/or booklet panes. I'm not spending the money to buy them mint and there's no way I'm going to fill all those spaces from kiloware and cheap mystery lots. So I just add some quadrilled or Vario pages at the end of the album and there they go. And since anything even approaching completion isn't possible without spending a wad of cash (which I'd rather put towards classic stamps), I won't even buy mixtures or kiloware for those areas, either.

I collect Poland & Poland-related & this stuff just keeps going.

For Poland proper my collection goes up to 2000, but that's only because the collections I have bought only go that far, I long ago gave up buying new issues as they came out & stick to accumulations, it's the cheapest way to buy. I do feel sorry for the collector who has poured money into a collection expecting a decent return on their investment only to find the market pretty low.

I spend pennies & hours on most Polish definitives, with paper, perf & printing varieties. Stamps & covers from the occupation period 1795-1915 from Germany/Austria/Russia with Polish cancels are still readily available & affordable. WWI & WWII still have masses of cheapish stuff. The inter-war plebiscites, Allenstein, Marienwerder, Upper Silesia can be a life-time pursuit although you're competing with German collectors so prices can be a bit stiff.

How about Polonica - foreign stamps & cancels related to Poland, virtually every country has something. You can easily put together a 20 sheet display on Kosciuszko from Australia, Poland & the US. Catherine the Great gave her part of Poland to one of her ex-lovers to look after for, um, services rendered. Bonnie Prince Charlie's mother was Polish. There may only be a tenuous connection & only one stamp, but in it goes into the collection.

You can spend a lifetime specialising in any of these areas, or you can do as I do & have a representative collection, accept that it will never be complete, & keep adding to each part as it comes along.

For all the American friends, you of course know the serious connection U.S. President William McKinley had with Poland. His assassin was the Polish anarchist Leon Frank Czołgosz. McKinley stamps & Postal cards are in the collection.

Hi - thanks for all the great responses! I do like some of the historical dates, with my pre-decimal collection being one of theses. The use of the Steiner pages now make some of these cut off dates more variable. For example, I did find a good well priced collection do Croatia. I printed a new album of "Modern Croatia 1991-2012" that fit nicely in a 1" binder. I have no desire to buy new issues, but will continue to fill in holes as I find them.

The responses on this thread show how philately is such an individualized hobby. Like the original poster, I generally stop my world wide collections in 1965, coinciding with Parts I through V of the blue Scott International. My Portuguese colonial collection goes into the mid-1970s, but all colonies except Macau became independent by 1975. Another logical stopping place.

I also really like Mexico and Poland. Both collections stop in 1965. Canada goes to 1973, with 1966 to 1973 being on blank pages. I do collect a few items of more recent postal history, mostly postcards I've mailed to myself from various places. Some of these cards are associated with personal mountaineering destinations. Couple friends also send me cards from their travels; most recently, one sent me a card from the Falkland Islands.

I agree Steve.
If we stop collecting our collections are still collections; but are we still considered collectors?

My Internationals are my 'fun' collection and although I stopped adding new supplements around 1996. So I add blank pages and mount new stamps that come my way but do not actively buy them.

I still buy annual supplements for my US albums and purchase mint stamps. But I do this because it is one of the few things my wife enjoys doing together and I don¡¦t mind supporting USPS. Obviously this is not a good monetary investment but for me well worth the enjoyment of my time spent with my wife.
Don

For me, getting back into the hobby, I've set a limit of 1975 (the year I graduated high school...seemed like a nice cut off point). That being said, I do purchase mixtures and some kiloware. If anything catches my eye...a EFO, a cinderella, a BOB, I'll keep it and put in a stockbook. My gf who collects as well is more topical collector. For her it is nature stamps...animals, plants. Seems to work well for both of us.

I only collect U.S. and stopped with the 2000 New Year's Baby stamp. It seemed like as good a time as any and I like the stamp. It seemed to signify a new beginning in my collecting interest. My collecting focus has changed to the clasic era, U.S. Revenues and postal history. Sinbce 2000, my revenue collection has pretty much been completed due to cost of additions (The Rugs) and some of those imperfs are pricy as well. Then there are the counterfits that one has to worry about.

My postal history collection will never be completed and the classics are getting near the end of my affordability as well so I don't see a long future there.

Except, I have focused on one area of the classics that is still within budget. This being the U.S. One Cent Franklin of 1851-57 and primarily the Type V. It's perhaps the most studied and documented stamp of all U.S. stamps and has the most varieties of all. It has 13 major types and 5 sub-types. (5,5A,6,6b,7,8,8A,9,18,19,19b,20,21,
22,23,24 & 24 typeVa)

Art

Yeah 2000 is the limit for any of my Canada/Germany/GB collections. For the US I keep buying the Mystic album supplements, but I really don't go out of my way for any of the newer issues. If I get them in the mail, great, but I am not going to be placing orders for year sets or anything like that. Just an absolute flood of the market in terms of new issues. As a collector, I can barely keep up with what is being issued.