Individual Tastes As A Collector

HI. This is my first post on Stamp Community. I am just getting started and my list of questions is endless. But I thought I would start out with something that's more interesting than important.

I was wondering, as a collector, how do you rank the importance of the following stamp qualities: centering, hinging, color, used or unused, or mint..please feel free to add anything I left out.

Remember, it's your personal preference, not how these things affect value or quality.

thanks
wp

Hello, welcome to the board. It's kind of hard to rank these as I just go for stamps with a nice appearance that combine all of those features as much as possible. I suppose if I were to rank them it would be 1) color, and on used stamps, the quality of the cancellation. As most of the stamps in my collection are used, the cancel is probably #1 most of the time. Killer cancels or smudged or otherwise unattractive cancels are a big turn-off. After that I'd say centering and then hinging. I collect both used and mint, mostly because I'm a cheapskate and I can go with whatever option is cheaper, which in a lot of cases is mint for the areas I collect.

First and foremost, collect what appeals to you. If you're collecting purely for enjoyment, then focus on subject matter and eye appeal.

Centering and fresh color factor into eye appeal. However, I think some collectors obsess over centering, seemingly forgetting about eye appeal. I've seen collectors post perfectly centered stamps with jumbo margins in this forum, but the face of the person in the portrait is blotted out with a dark black cancel. To me, this ruins eye appeal.

When collecting mint stamps, unhinged has become more important year after year for resale value. Hinged stamps used to be much more acceptable, but increasing focus on investment potential has made hinged unused stamps much less acceptable. Most collectors will want to sell their collection later in life, and you will have significant problems trying to sell unused hinged stamps. A general rule here is always buy the best quality you can afford.

Defects are another major concern. Again, buy the best quality you can afford. A good question to ask yourself when considering a stamp purchase is; would I have trouble selling this later on?

There are many other qualities to consider including plate varieties and color varieties (both of which are plentiful with US Scott #10, 10A, 11, and 11A, for example).

Topicals (ships, planes, etc.) are also popular.

Happy collecting!

I refuse to use the term "mint", unless we are talking about taste being some sort of flavor.

mmmmmmm..lesseee...at this point;

1. centering
2. color
3. hinging
4. used or unused.

Two years or so ago the order may have been quite different.

Nevertheless, this topic should have actually gone into a different forum, so I have this queasy feeling that it's going to be moved. But don't worry! You'll get the hang of it.



-IBFS

I change my mind all the time as to what is more important. (I think it has something to do with what I can afford.)

'Conditionism' can be a tough master to serve; rather like one of those idols with many arms.

I've taken to collecting mostly GPUOP (Genuinely Postally Used, On Piece), which introduces many other factors, and necessarily diminishes the importance of centering, torn perfs, creased perfs, etc.

That having been said, when it comes to single stamps, I find freshness (the white is white, the colors unsmudged, the contrasts contrasting) to be very rewarding.

Unless you only buy for the pleasure of buying, you are going to be looking at your stamps, hopefully for a long time.

Go thru a pile - perhaps in a dealer's bargain box - and see what most offends you.

It won't take long for you to develop a sense of your own aesthetic sense.

Finally, remember that, if you eschew Completionism, you only have to collect the pretty ones.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

If you're going to collect worldwide, requiring uncounted mint is a non-starter, unless you're a millionaire. With a narrow - or modern focus - it's practicable. But why be a gum fetishist? As, like ikeyPikey, I'm a simple soul, I like bright, fresh colour. Centring doesn't bother me much, but a good, light cancellation is attractive. And, like Artful, when it comes to mint or used, first I look at the purse.

All of the qualities you have listed are important to me, but their priority or importance varies with each stamp I look at. I guess my decision is really based on the overall eye appeal. And, of course, the qualities will vary between a mint and a used version of the same stamp. The process of selecting and appreciating a stamp is completely subjective as far as I can determine for myself. As you collect, I am sure you too will find yourself gravitating towards a purchase and not knowing exactly why.

I don't really care if a stamp is mint or not as long as it is aesthetically pleasing to me. I look at overall condition and generally reject stamps that have beat up perforations, thins, tears or creases. Gum and hinging are not an issue but I do try to find copies that are reasonably well centered and if used, not too heavily cancelled.

I want to make a plug for collecting used stamps, rather than unused or mint ones, or at least I want to explain why I prefer used. One obvious reason is cost, inasmuch as used stamps are usually (but not always) less expensive than mint. Collectors who follow the vogue for mint never hinged also have to purchase and deploy rather expensive and distracting mounts for their stamps, another economic reason to collect used, which only require inexpensive hinges for mounting. Stamps are functional objects, intended to underwrite the cost of conveying a letter, and fulfilling that function is their primary reason for existence; collecting used stamps takes seriously that functional social purpose. Collectors of these stamps thus implicitly discourage stamp issuing authorities from releasing many more new issues than their country's actual mail users need, this surplus rather cynically targeting mint collectors whose purchases provide nearly 100% profit to the governments issuing them. Finally, collectors of used stamps can enjoy more the intense intellectual pleasure of making choices among stamps to add to their collections, assessing how a cancellation adds or not to a stamp's esthetic pleasure and historical significance.

A Big To Our Community.

You have got them talking.

I collect Worldwide ,having been at it over fifty years . Over that time I have replaced tens of thousands of stamps ,some more than two or three times because a fresher or nicer copy was in the many albums that I match up page by page to my main collection .
It is safe to say most collectors do the same thing ,we all save a poor copy with the idea when a nicer copy comes up we replace it .

Worldwide collector here, currently focusing on French colonial issues.

Centering - a biggie for me, stamp design has to clear the perfs or cut of imperf side unless the issue was printed with such small margins that clearing the perfs is nearly impossible.

Hinged/Gum - personally I prefer unused stamps to used for my main collection, just allows one to see the designs in their full glory. Pre-1960ish I have no problem with hinged, there are plenty of sets from the 1920s to the 1950s that have huge premiums for Never Hinged which from the front are badly centered, while beautifully centered hinged sets can be picked up for a song. Only after about 1960, when the use of hingeless mounts became common among American collectors, do I tend to prefer Never Hinged to hinged. As for used, for each country I collect I do keep a collection of nice Town Cancels that eventually will probably get developed into a "virtual" collection online. But I am not primarily focusing on such stamps, just picking them up as the catch my eye for the most part.

But as everyone else has said, the important thing is that you collect what interests you in the condition and style you want. Philately is a wide buffet of tempting dishes to sample, some much more esoteric than others. Find what you like and bon appetit :)

MNH USA and Canada collector here and I can only tell you what I have learned. If you are collecting a narrow range of stamps be it topicals, country, whatever, condition is KING!If you collect frogs on stamps I don't want to look behind the cancel to see the frog! I have friends who say the only good thing a stamp is for is to hold the cancel. Go figure.

Ikey, those are the wisest words I've heard in a long time. I probably go through a good 5000 or more stamps every month in various unsorted mixtures and lots. As recently as a year or two ago, I would basically give away stamps that I found attractive just because, well, I don't collect Nepal, or Grenada, or Rhodesia, or what have you. In other words, I felt that since I wasn't working toward completion in that country, I didn't want to bother saving any stamps from them at all.

I recently started a stockbook just for stamps that catch my eye whether I collect that country or not. The change in attitude has been quite liberating and I look at mixtures and bulk lots with a different eye now. That stockbook is already becoming a favorite part of my collection and I can easily see it being a seed for a new interest at some point down the road.

Thanks for the kind words, Artful.

As I posted a while back ... https://goscf.com/t/38544 ... I now evaluate my hobby in terms of how many dollars I am paying for how many hours of entertainment.

Pawing thru a bargain box for whatever strikes my fancy (sans want list, sans catalog) gives me hours of the thrill of the hunt, followed at home by sorting & researching (& scanning & posting to SCF) ... which ends-up being a lot cheaper than dinner-and-a-movie-for-two ($20/hr), and competitive with brand new off-the-rack hardcover books ($2-3/hr).

By my accounting, the five-cents-on-the-dollar that my heirs might see from dumping my goodies on the open market will be pure profit.

But only if they can bear to part with them

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

PS: Folks who are paying real money for their stamps should feel free to discount that price to account for the hours of entertainment they gained while shopping & comparing & evaluating ... all of which are good, clean fun ... and for which they paid not a dime.