Question: How To Start A Great British Commonwealth Collection?

Hi friends,
im hoping to build a worthy classic British Commonwealth collection.
but I want to be smart about it and not just buy random items.
do you have any tips? books to read? contacts to people I can investigate?
thank you all in advance!

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How do plan to store the stamps? Stock books, Varios or an album?

British Commonwealth is often collected mint (hinged). What is your plan? (used are often cheaper).

What is your budget? It can be an expensive area to collect...

You could certainly give yourself a lot of insight by identifying a live auction that is selling a BC collection, find such a lot that is priced north of $5,000, and go inspect it in person to see what a prior collector did. Take a notebook and note countries, year ranges, sets, etc. to see what you are getting into.

You could get a Stanley Gibbons catalog for the area.

You could start reading the UK based Gibbons Stamp Monthly and Stamp Magazine, both of which cover the area almost every month and have numerous dealer ads. They are available in e subscriptions for mobile devices.

Decide if you're going to restrict yourself to a period - collectors usually divide their collections by reign. In prctical terms, a "classic" collection - i.e.QV stamps - will include some expensive items. GVI and EII are much more affordable.

Buy Gibbons's catalogue of Commonwealth stamps to 1970. Use it for the information - the prices are usually 50-80% more than you'd ordinarily pay

What's your preference in albums? Gibbons produces - or has produced - printed albums covering the oeriod 1840 to 1962. The QV-GV period is covered by the two-volume New Imoerial, which us fast-bound. It's also out of print, but copies - with or without stamps - frequently turn up at auction. The GVI period is covered by a variety of albums. The "crown" albums were fast-bound, and often appear in auctions. More recently, Gibbons has produced a four, and then a six, volume ring-bound album. The early QEII period is covered by the New Age album. Formerly springback, it's now available in ring-bound form. You can doubtless also put the pages and countries together from Palo or Scott. Or you could use Steiner pages or make your own on quadrille.

To kick off, you could buy individual countries or areas or whole Commonwealth collections at auction. In that case, everything depends on your budget. You'll find more material at GB auctions, although prices may be a little higher than in the US. These are a couple that I buy from regularly - the second tends to have cheaper material

http://www.warwickandwarwick.com/au...ns/catalogue

http://www.somersetstampauctions.co...rent-auction

How do you define "Classic British Commonwealth"? Pre-1940? or everything British Commonwealth, etc.?

I would first find out how many stamp issuing agency make up the "classic British Commonwealth collection".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...A%E2%80%93E)

APS suggestion include: http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/ed...0collect.pdf

British Empire: http://www.britishempire.co.uk/arti...erialism.htm



I might consider the EzStamp British Commonwealth software as a starting point.

https://www.amazon.com/EzStamp-Brit...p/B0124G6DHQ

Not sure where the OP is based but for us Canucks, buying from England gets very expensive. By the time we pay the exchange, the buyers premium, shipping, and credit card fees, we are paying double their estimate or more.

Yes, I think that the postage cost is the main problem, given the generally favourable exchange rate - it probably means that small lots or biggger, high-value lots are the most practical. I avoid credit card fees by using my debit card, but I'm not sure if you can do that for international purchases.

Can't give any advice without knowing your experience and financial situation with British Colonies stamps . Are you talking about a $20.00 mixture to start or are you talking about buying MNH early George V sets at auction . You need to present more information .

Hi friends,
thanks to all of your replays!
to answer your questions:
my budget is about 500$ a month (but if I see a wow item it can go up).
i believe I will focus on 1840-1945 era (though I have a soft spot for QEII errors).
i think I will use palo albums.
should I join the RPSL? are there any other organizations I should consider joining?

Are you in the US? If so stay with US dealers and use Scott catalogs. You are considering the exact collecting focus that I have. I use Steiner pages to mount my collection and my budget is about the same as yours. I started about a year ago by buying BC collections from various auction houses. I am now to the point of focusing on individual countries or groups of countries. While this specialty can be expensive, there are thousands of cheap stamps that will keep you busy for a long time.

By ending in 1945, you are ruling out a lot of nice KGVI issues. I'd recommend, as someone mentioned above, the SG Commonwealth catalog which covers the period up to 1970 past which many but not all of the countries became independent and the issues less attractive. I have similar collecting interests and acquire up to 1970 for selected countries, mainly the Caribbean Islands but I always look for good deals on any Victorian issues or complete KGVI sets.

The KGVI definitives are often beautifully designed, with attractive illustrations of local themes. My only bugbear with that period - and others may have entirely different views - is the plethora of omnibus issues - Coronation, Victory, the horribly overblown Silver Wedding, University of West Indies.

I collect KGVI. I think the omnibus sets are better collected together, although my Crown album puts them on the relevant country page each time. I don't see them as a problem though. The West Indies set is pretty small - off the top of my head, 10 pairs of stamps? And nicely designed.

If I had the time and money, I'd buy Gibbons' pre-printed New Imperial album for 1840-1936, a crown album for 1936-52 and a New Age album for QEII up to around 1960. (And stamps to go in them, of course!)

One of the nice things about the KGVI issues is that they are still reasonably priced and I agree that most of them feature nice scenes and are beautifully engraved. Contrast those with the KGV issues which are becoming very difficult to acquire at reasonable cost. The low values are attainable but, often, you have to wait for the right opportunity to get the high values.

Re the omnibus issues, I sort of agree that they are not very exciting but I still like most of them, UPU excepted.

I concur with ronv. If you live in the USA, don't use Gibbons catalogs; use Scott; until such time as you may want to specialize in a given Commonwealth area. The only Gibbons catalog I own is for East Africa.

Why use a lower grade catalogue when better ones are readily available?