Crap, Have I Bought Everything! Time To Panic????

Well I guess it could just be a seasonal lull or something to do with global warming... sorry "climate change"... but for the past two weeks I can't seem to find anything to buy in my topic!

For an addicted collector this is something of a major CRISIS! :)))

I had to resort to buying coins with Italian motorcycles on them... I KNOW!, but desperate times call for desperate measures.... they are kinda cool I have to say, BUT I am a stamp collector damn it!

ebay and Delcampe are like vast arid deserts, bereft of any Italian motorcycle related postal items I don't already have.

What to do, what to do.... talk to my girlfriend? Mow the lawn?
Start collecting tea pots????!

Where else should I look.....

OH OH OH! I remember a few weeks ago I joined an Italian language stamp forum... I should go their and butcher their fine language and ask for leads on some items.... or if I get it REALLY wrong I could end up asking them too "please go stick your head in a pig" or some other such hideous translation error...

Anyone else had down times like this???

Maybe it's a fine time to sort out all my albums and put away all the stuff that's not correctly in the pages????

Regards
Gavin

Well, you could expand to include Albanian motorcycles. And when you get finished with that two months from now, move on to Tahitian telescopes. Or Uruguayan unicycles.

Panic is unbecoming for a philatelist. Steel yourself. You can handle this.

Not Italian, but have you considered Lambert & Butler's cigarette cards of Motor Cycles?

I am going to stick to Postal items relating to Italian motorcycles... I have been on that topic for 19 years now!

I will just have to wait for some more items to come to hand. :)

So suppose I could go to Italy and do a year long tour of the country and visit all the stamp dealers... oh that would be nice.

Steeling myself! :)
Regards
Gavin

Hi,
I do understand.......... for the last 3 years I've been buying/selling albums sourced from ebay. I was pretty busy this winter but now its slim pickings. There are few quality stuffed albums out there, and those that are there are grossly overpriced for the buy it nows, and for the few auctions, the starting price is close to the ending price (IMO).

Like a lot of indoor hobbies, spring/summer causes interest in them to drop. Come November, the activity level will be back up there. Meanwhile, we wait............

This happened to me when I completed my Canada collection years ago. Of course, I didn't have the really expensive stamps but I had most everything else.

I did two things. First - I specialized in issues that I really enjoy. I collected all the shades, postmarks, varieties, etc from these selected stamp issues. There were only 3 issues, a total of 33 stamps.

Secondly, I created mini collections within my collection. I have a collection of postmarks from towns with dates, specialized postmarks, cork cancels, etc. I have a collection of covers, a collection of large margin stamps, a collection of stamps on Thick Paper, watermarks, etc.

These all using the stamps that I like collecting the most.

There are other collectors who have done this in the past. You just have to figure out what they were collecting in you area of collecting. I look at it as advancing myself to the next level of collecting.

Do you collect them on covers? FDCs? I wrapped up my collection of the 150 US airmail stamps last year, but collect them on cover so I'll never run out of new material for the collection.

Yeah I collect everything I can think of in my topic... stamps, mint and used, blocks, gutter pairs, full sheets, FDC, postally used covers, maximum cards, miniature-souvenir sheets, booklets, postal stationery, cancellations, metermarks, proofs, stamp art work, artist signed items, poster stamps, errors, some postcards and other philatelic items.... and some marginal items like letters that have tax style stamps on them if the letters mention an Italian bike make.

I can't even find any postally used covers at the moment!
Regards
Gavin

"I did two things. First - I specialized in issues that I really enjoy. I collected all the shades, postmarks, varieties, etc from these selected stamp issues."

Yep, their is a Burkina Faso Ducati stamp issue that has a range of shades that I have collected and I have a nice range of them.

I couple of years ago I was broke and missed out on an Italian stamp with a Gilera on it that had a marked colour shift error... I have been kicking myself ever since and I am always looking for another copy... one day!

regards
Gavin

Maybe go for motorcycles "Worldwide"; expand your horizon!

I went through this with my KGVI collection several years ago. In the last year of the collection I had added less than 5 stamps so I decided to sell the collection and move on.

Frankly, I started to feel panicky reading your first post. ;-)

"Maybe go for motorcycles "Worldwide"; expand your horizon!"

Their is a story in that. Not a very good story but a story non the less...

As a child I collected stamps, as an adult I collect Italian motorcycles. Back in the 1980's I started collecting mint worldwide motorcycle stamps. At that stage their were just under 1000 and I got close to getting all of them, but for me mint stamps can be a bit soul less and bland. Then in 1996 I bought a few cards with Vespa stamps and special cancels a friend had collected while at the 50th anniversary of Vespa in Italy. That got me thinking and it was not long until I was focused on Postal items relating to Italian motorcycles. I thought at the time it would be a smaller collection, BUT because I was collecting all sort of material it has over the past 19 years become quite a large collection!

So the practical upshot of that little story is that collecting worldwide motorcycles would be a backward step. They is to much lower quality material out their. I would rather have a small quality collection.

I am sure that making some contacts in Italy would net some nice material!
Regards
Gavin

Have you thought on expand collecting Italian motorcycles manufactured outside Italy?
Here, in Barcelona (Catalonia) we made Ducatti and Moto-guzzi motorcycles underlicense, between thw 1950's and 1980's.

In Spain, they made a version of the Piaggio's Vespa.

I'm sure it might also happened elsewhere.

"Have you thought on expand collecting Italian motorcycles manufactured outside Italy?
Here, in Barcelona (Catalonia) we made Ducatti and Moto-guzzi motorcycles underlicense, between thw 1950's and 1980's."

Great idea that I already do.... :))
Bajaj in India (Vespa)
Lambretta in India..
Ducati engine in Austrailian bike call an Alchemy...
An Austria racing KTM which was an Italian MV Agusta rebadged.
And many others that don't come to mind I am sure.
And the Ducati made in Spain or was it Portugal...
Hence the careful wording "of Italian origin" in my topic!

If you ever find anything in Barcelona that relates to those Italian based makes then please let me know!

regards
Gavin

Stay very calm, and consult the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Stamp Maintenance."

quote "Stay very calm, and consult the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Stamp Maintenance.""

Good advice on all levels!
Getting Zen about it is good...
Stamp Maintenance... ie sorting out and improving the albums layout is a good Zen thing to do.

Yes. I LIKE it!
:) :) :)
Regards
Gavin