The Ocd Side Of Stamp Collecting

Borrowing from another thread:




I face this sort of thing all of the time, in every part of my life, and I have developed several 'outlets' for this behavior so that I can get on with the rest of my life.

For example, I pick one model of pen (currently Pilot G-2 07 gels, if you must know), buy the multi-pack, and wear only shirts with pockets so that I can have the little row of them handy.

Once, on a video shoot, a customer pointed at my pocket and blurted-out "Hey, look, its RGB!"

More recently, the clerk/owner of a collecting supplies store nearly slugged me after he brought-out a product and I said "Oh, they're not Brand X, and I really need them to all be the same."

To be fair to me, he'd clearly heard that one, before.

Q/ In what parts of your hobby do you go out of your way to make sure that they (any they) are all the same?

Q/ Have you incurred great delays because you would not buy something that was not the same?

Q/ Have you incurred great expense ...

Q/ Have you re-done a major part of your collection (eg replacing *all* of the glassine envelopes holding *all* of your plate blocks) because you had to switch brands?

"Re-Hingers Of The World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but disturbed OG!"

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I only use Scott Platinum albums for my US collection, Lighthouse Hingeless albums for Germany and Canada, and Lighthouse 3-ring binders with Vario pages for my specialty items. Colors of the binders are not important to me.




Most certainly! It took nearly two years to complete my set of Scott Platinum albums because they are out-of-print and I had to wait for them to come up for auction on ebay. Additionally, there are still a few years worth of new supplements that I want to purchase but am still waiting for them to come up for auction.

As for the Lighthouse Hingeless Germany albums, I have been doing the same thing - waiting for them to come up for auction on ebay. I still need a couple volumes before I have everything.




To some degree, yes. The Scott Platinum albums for the US are still really popular and sell for a premium. Lighthouse hingeless albums can often be purchased used for less than the cost of a new Scott standard album.




I am in the process of doing this now. I am currently replacing all of my vario sheets (upwards of 1000 pages) with Vario "Plus" pages. The difference in quality is significant. The good news is that I am selling all my used pages, albeit at a huge discount, to club members at the Oregon Stamp Society.

Brian

Yep, Washington/Franklins because they are the same,but different.

Hi ikeyPikey,

Your post made me smile for I recognised parts of myself in it. With my stamp collecting I prefer Frank Godden 'Popular' and 'Warwick' 2 peg albums. The 'Popular' albums are by far the better of the two but are no longer made, so I snap them up on the bay whenever I can. I will even buy slightly shabby examples and recondition them.

And like you I prefer certain pencils and pens that I consider the best from an artist's perspective. In particular, General's Layout 555 (Extra Black) pencils made in the USA for drawing and the German Rotring Art Pens for ink drawing work.

I gave up on Parker fountain pens for writing when they were taken over by some French outfit and became a style product. I now use the German made Pelikan fountain pens, especially the Pelikan 120 and the Pelikan 120 Merz & Krell models. These are high quality pens but are also no longer made so I got two near mint examples from the bay. They are reservoir type so have a large ink capacity and the ink feed system is simple, well designed and robust. So good is the Merz & Krell version that it can be used with india ink. So I have one for writing and one for sketching. Back when I was a young graphic artist fresh out of art school every artist I knew used one of these. The modern Pelikan fountain pens are superb and way better than Parker, but not as good as the old M & K for india ink work.

Stick with it. Quality and choice are important.

Terry

Terry, I agree completely with Rotring: 0.25 mm and 1.0 mm are my two work-horses, but I have been served well for the last 18 years by a Waterman fountain pen with EF nib, modified very slightly by a former acquaintance of mine into a slight italic. They never did the EF nib in italic as far as I could make out.

I also try not to go anywhere without a shirt with a top pocket, unless it's to the beach. You never know what you might need to put in your top pocket (apart from a pen). When you don't have a top pocket, Murphy's Law says you will need a top pocket. I have a pen and paper in every bag I have, "just in case." I have a few bags. I take them to the beach.

Binders? Black Hagner, with labels.

Other issues my partner has to put up with: Books - Alphabetical order and chronologically within author. LPs and CDs, the same, which can take some research on occasions.

This seems as good a place as any to discuss my own 'issues.' For instance, I don't use pre-printed albums as I like to place stamps in a particular way. Even if the Scott number says differently, I like to sort stamps released at the same time by denomination.

Right now I'm struggling with what to do with my multi-national topical collections. When, elsewhere, I place stamps from a particular nation together, I leave a space where the appropriate topical stamp would go. I suppose I could find two of the same stamp, but that seems wasteful to me. Then again, I hate looking at the blank space in my country collection.

Auurrgg...

And don't anyone answer with "First world problem." Hahaha!

I want all my albums to be of the same type, so they look 'right' on the shelf. I currently have 3 albums' worth of stamps waiting in stock books, which I badly want to get mounted into albums - but I can't until I find the exact ones! Daft? not to me!

KGB: noticed that the above is your 5th post. Welcome to the site.

Regarding the topic, I'm the wrong person to ask. I just want to hinge and mount stamps in a presentable fashion. My base albums are the Scott Blue Internationals. But I have included trimmed Scott Speciality pages; a few Schaubecks here and there (also trimmed); and even some old H.E. Harris Senior Statesman pages. The last are retained souvenirs from my 1963 S.S., which was an 8th grade graduation gift from my folks.

Good grief, I think I may be normal!

The photos of regimented collections in identical binders that occasionally appear on here fill me with horror. I like my collection to resemble the rest of my books - lots of types, bindings etc grouped together.

I wouldn't dream of putting novels in alphabetical order. My approach, which I copied from that of the university library forty years ago, is by county and then chronologically by DoB of author. There's thus a logical flow of books - Cendrars to Celine, not Celine to Fenimore Cooper.

I think that a tailor will tell you that a breast pocket in a shirt spoils the cut. Your wife, girlfriend or daughter will happily accommodate your impedimenta in her handbag.

Do I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder {OCD} with STAMPS, yes and no . Yes I have the need to have the biggest and most extensive stamp collection than everyone else . It has to be bigger than yours . No ----because it does not get in the way of important activities , stamps have given me the escape and quiet time I need from other activities that are more important .

Geoff, what if the title is in a foreign language? That's what drives me crazy. I'd prefer to put all poetry together, for instance, but I also keep languages in separate bookcases.

Steve, thank you for the welcome!

I get nervous if the baggies I use to store my stamps are not identical

For a reason that escapes me, I prefer to call it CDO; but I'm getting help.

KGB

You're much more sophisticated than me. My foreign novels etc are all in translation. My daughter has the French and Italian language books, but they're safely removed from my eccentricities.

Geoff

Trust me, no one considers me sophisticated.