Selecting A Collection Focus?

Lots of good suggestions here. I sort of fell into collecting Portuguese colonies in the mid-1970s; got out about 1980 or so; hopped back into it in the late '80s and going strong ever since. I've never been to Portugal; don't speak the language; and made my first ever visit to a former Portuguese territory (Macau) last December. But, I've always liked the designs of the colonial issues, especially the earlies with all the perf, paper, shade varieties. And most are very cheap too.

Mobilman wrote: "it would be USA through 1960 and WW through 1950" I'm sort of close to that. I base my WW collection on parts I through V of the Scott blue International album, which takes me to 1965. I collect the P. Colonies and a couple other countries through 1974. With these cutoff dates, I've avoided most of the Communist bloc and 3rd world approach of "hey, let's print lots of stamp issues that collectors will buy;" often known as "wallpaper." Using the International albums has been a good cut-off place for me, but may not work for others.

ikeypikey suggested considering places you've lived or visited. Good idea. For me, I've lived only in the US, but have visited a lot of countries. In particular, been 8 times to Tanzania, and 5 of those trips also got Kenya; which all led to me last year to buying a collection of British East Africa, to add to a small existing collection of Kenya & Uganda. Been mountain climbing in Mexico a couple times and the early issues of the country are very intriguing. Hence, purchases of several Mexico collections in recent years that await remounting.

One thing I didn't see mentioned; consider joining the American Philatelic Society (www.stamps.org). You'll find a variety of opinions on this site about the APS. Myself, I've been a member since 1974 and am still learning things about my chosen indoor hobby through my membership. Whenever you select a more specific specialty, check to see if there is a specialty stamp society for that area. Likely there will be. For me, it's the International Society for Portuguese Philately (ISPP - member since 1991) and Mexico Elmhurst Philatelic Society Intl. (MEPSI - joined 2012). Since I live in Colorado, another membership for me is with the Rocky Mountain Philatelic Library in Denver.

Overall, Peanut, this is a great hobby and I wish you many great experiences. Steve (continuously collecting since April, 1960, at age 10)

Hi Peanut -- One of the earlier replies is along the lines of... "it will find you". I think that's true for a lot of people, and it certainly has been for me. I inherited a 3-generation WW collection a couple of years ago -- many 10s of thousands of stamps. Completely overwhelmed me, but I wanted to keep it if only for the family memories. Now I'm hooked.

I, too, tried to find an area to focus on early on, but although I 'declared' one or two, I didn't have any real passion for them. But then last year I won a box in a very inexpensive club auction that was full of odds and ends, almost all very old Great Britain. In the process of working through that box (now referred to as "the Magic Box" in our household), I discovered a huge fascination with these early issues. Now I'm impatiently trying to finish recataloguing the inherited collection so I can put it away and focus on the area that found me.

Whatever it is that grabs you, just have fun with it. The possibilities are limitless.

Thanks Polimom, and everyone else. I am definitely excited about textiles, and have been doing searching online. I see that some FDC cachets were printed on fabric and attached to covers (Colorano covers). I'm thinking I might expand into that...not sure. I need a better way to store covers than I currently have. But that's another thread for another day. Right now I'm focusing on stamps. :)

Hi,

peanute wrote





When collecting topicals, it's you who defines the limits, so it can get as narrow as you want. One of my favorite collections is one-stamp-per-country. I exclude those countries where other stamps with overprints were used and I chose for landscape sceneries as stamp motive. I further chose to take stamps from the classic era because I prefer engraving over offset. The whole fits in a single 64-page stockbook and still takes time to complete since some countries are difficult to find.

Klaus