Storing Large Used World Wide Collections

My bad, Don was referring to G & K Nassau binders as being hard to remove. Basically the same principles apply--whether Vario G or Nassau, they only become hard to remove, in my experience, when overfilled. And perhaps it's even more tempting to overload them because they are smaller and one wants to get a few more pages into a binder to avoid have more and more binders.

But that's just my experience, not necessarily normative.

This is fine! I'm sure that overfilling or weight is the reason. New ones pop right out of the dustcases. It's just that the Vario F is so smoooooth!

Don

Thanks to all for offering good ideas of this seemingly universal challenge! Personally I was 'infected' by the WW-stamp-collecting-virus again some 12 years ago. I immediately decided on establishing an uniform grand-scale system. Unlike most of you good people, I ended up in favour of stock albums. My arguments were mostly in line with Kejko (SCB); ease of use, no need for hinges, economical and compact. So 160 identical thick stock albums were purchased, filling a 3 meter shelf from floor to roof. I made a program to distribute all WW issues based on Scott Specialized Classical, with variable degree of 'compacting' according to expected completeness level and simply personal interest on various countries. Some banana-republics ended heavily compacted with recent issues compacted into more than 100 stamps per page, e.g Guyana, Tanzania etc. This compacting was done in interest of keeping desent space for all classical issues according to Scott. Small pieces of paper with info like year of issue, perforation/wmk details etc was inserted into the album pockets to dedicate sufficient space for each series/years etc. The system was established during some 4 years, so the last 8 years have all been about filling stamps into the vacant spaces. No need for hinges! I am using mounts, however in the interest only to protect and to highlight better items - medium value items in clear mounts and high value items in black mounts. The black mounts then automatically draws attention to the best items of the collection. I'm quite satisfied with the stock album approach. If I was to start again, I think I would have invested the little extra to get loose stock album pages, e.g. Vario for increased flexibility, but I would still prefer stock albums rather than conventional albums. Still I have no problem to admit that collections on classical paper pages tend to look better, with better spacing and more elegance than any stock album can provide. In the end the hobby for me is about the fun of getting and arranging the stamps itself, so I comprimise the looks for practical and time-saving reasons. This leaves me more time and money for even more stamps.. Passing 130k and counting.

Blaamand do you collect mint or used? How do you obtain stamps to add to your collection- in sets, auction lots, or mixtures?

Hi Shermae. Good one, your question mint or used is certainly on personal preference. I do not stick to one or the other for various reasons, but general collect both. The ability to stock several stamps slightly above one another is a useful advantage of the stock album, whilst keeping it compact. So I keep up to 3 copies of each stamp, both used and mint examples - and also perfined/specimen copies if I am lucky. Then the question arises - which copy of the 3 to keep in front as the 'showcase'? I absolutely adore perfectly SOTN stamps, and would normally show of any SOTN stamp even if the mint issue may often be much more valuable according to the catalogue. The SOTN is still more attrative to me, displaying its role in postal history, so the mint stamp will then be only halfway visible 'behind' the SOTN stamp. Keeping a 3rd copy also gives me a duplicate, removing any other need for storing duplicates in a seperate system. I have a brother that has arranged an exact copy of my 160 stamp album system - any stamp from any year will thus normally be stored at the exact same spot in our albums - which makes swopping stamps between ourself extremely convenient.

As a WW general collector I have so far mostly been obtaining stamps in large lots / old collections / treasure boxes etc. However the more stamps one get, the more difficult it gets to fill the remaining empty spaces by chance, unless investing in more specialised material. So, I recently made a huge dedicated investment of Sweden to fill those holes. But now I am unsure if that was a good thing or not? I now have only 2 empty spaces to fill for major numbers until year 2000 (Gustav 55 - 80 ore). How joyful will collecting Sweden be in the future now then? I guess it will now be all about finding even nicer postmarks, the more seldom shades/inverted wmk's etc. But that dedicated investment certainly took away some of the excitement of that country for the future.... Luckily there are hundreds of other fantastic areas with plenty of interesting spaces to fill!

Recently I have also recognised the fantastic selection of rare items available on ebay, e.g. forerunners used in the colonies and postmarked 'abroad'. These are hard to find in general lots, so at some occations I have been unable to resist the temptation to 'cherrypick' such forerunners one by one. An relative expenive but interesting exercise.

How about you shermae - what is your approach?
Anybody else out there that has experienced the feeling of disappointment when all the easily affordable spaces have been filled after obtaining extensive collections?

Blaamand- I would love to see some pics or scans of examples of your collection in your stock books.

Congrats on finding a system that works for you.

Congrats :)
(Ah, Jim beat me by 5 minutes... , LOL)

Agreed, please post some images so we can see how your collection is arranged. As to your question Blaamand, I actually am collecting on MNH at present and almost exclusively definitives, officials, and dues. There are some countries where I do collect some of the commemoratives (e.g. Ryukyus, Affars, St Pierre, Somali Coast, Ifni, Rio Muni, Spanish Sahara, etc). For these collections Vario pages make the most sense and are fast and easy for me.

I originally started this thread because I am intrigued about putting together a large worldwide collection, within certain boundaries. Some boundaries for me would be having a cut off date, perhaps 1990 or so. Some countries probably wouldn't make it into the mix, e.g. any wall-paper purveyor such as later Guyana, Sierre Leone, any of the "Grendadines," etc). I would also likely focus mainly on used stamps unless mint are less costly (again, the idea is fun not value). This kind of collection won't have very much value in the long run but for a hobby where I genuinely just like stamps, it would be enjoyable and challenging.

And best of all, I likely will never complete it.

Thanks for feedback, I had not expected this level of interest! Sure I will make some pictures, but I am at work at sea for the next 4 weeks, so please have some patience. Have brought with me my Sweden collection tough, pictures will follow when it's 'dusted'...

Shermae - I find your approach on focusing on the definitives intriguing. Those should have the respect as the 'work hoses' behind our hobby in the first place - and normally most of the exiting variations etc would be found amongst them anyway. Credit to you for your capability to narrow down your other areas of interest that significantly. I am afraid I failed in that exercise, however the mentioned wall-paper purveyor is getting close to zero attention, and is simply 'stowed away' in the album to fullfill the original intention of a WW collection. I treat issues after 2000 very much the same way, as most countries have seemed to multiply the amount of issues since then. Sadly even areas like US, UK and France is in there, so I have decided to calculate my 'completness-level' only on issues pre-2000, almost ignoring more recent issues. In retrospect I think your suggested cut-off date of 1990 seems even more sensible so I would absolutely support you on that one!

Whatever we do, we should go for the fun off it. And the beauty. Considering this, I sometime wonder if my own WW-ambition should be moderated by cutting off areas like Guyana, Mongolia, Tanzania, Grenadines etc...

Best of luck with your project, I am sure you will find boundaries more sensible than my own

This is what a real large worldwide collection should look like .

Floortrader:

What've you got inside all off those?

Blaamand , this is not the Floortrader collection this is the collection of Dr. Cheng Chang
http://worldstampalbum.com/main.aspx

I believe Floortrader has about twice that many Big Blue Internationals, if I recall one of his previous comments correctly. Dr. Chang has an earlier cut-off date than Floortrader? Uses thinner paper? More stamps per page than Floortrader's Steiner pages would have? Or???

I recall that this was an earlier picture of Floortrader's massive collection. hats off here in TN!

Thanks for the kind words . Yes- that is my collection .