Advice On Topical Vs Thematic Stamp Collection Organization For New Collector

Hello forum members. I have recently picked up stamp collecting again after abandoning the hobby as a teenager. I was recently cleaning out some old childhood items from storage and after perusing my old stamp collection, I found I didn't have the heart to sell it with the other items I was listing on ebay, and have spent much of my free time in the last weeks acquiring a modest topical collection of fine art stamps with the money I've made selling childhood collectibles.

I've limited myself, for now, to collecting stamps featuring Italian Renaissance artwork. I am undecided, though, as to how to display my growing collection. As an art historian by profession, I'm tempted to go with a thematic approach that shows the development of Italian art over time, with supplementary stamps showing the original locations of the works (cathedrals, palaces, etc) and prominent patrons. Yet I also see the value in arranging sets chronologically by country. Obviously, I am a long way from even thinking of designing a custom album; still, I'd like to settle on an approach.

Do any of you more experienced topical collectors have advice on the pros and cons of these methods? Or do you have another to suggest? Finally, are there any good websites you can recommend with photos of people's topical collections? I've found a few scattered images on Google, but I'd like to see more extensive...

1991
Australian Philately
Thematic Wizardess Betty Van Tenac

How she weaves story with stamps.
Take from it, what you will.

Competitive thematics work to rules, your country would have them listed somewhere.

I like Betty's approach, but it would be severly penalised in competiton
being overly verbose.

This type of effort would be the pinnacle in style, for any study / discipline.....

A tour de force.

Welcome to the forum.
For now I suggest using Vario pages for storing and displaying your stamps. That way if you decide to change the way you originally arranged your collection it can be accomplished easily. Using this method also allows you to arrange/re-arrange your stamps until you settle on what works best for you. Additionally, as you add new acquisitions you will be able to insert them in the appropriate location without as much pain.
Don
APS #094826

Thank you for these page scans, rod222. The album (or book?) you shared looks very impressive!

One thing I have noticed in the minimal research I have done on thematic collections is that there appears to be a heavy narrative component. Is that fair to say? And is it also true that these tend, by and large, not to be terribly comprehensive collections? Or are there rules for exhibitors on quantity?

Perhaps because I spend much of my time writing in my profession, I would prefer a minimalistic approach with simple headings. I have additionally concentrated on acquiring a wide variety of stamps featuring a single work, because of my interest in artwork details and stamp design. Would these things suggest that I'd be better off arranging my stamps topically as opposed to thematically?

I also agree that Vario pages are probably the way to go for now. I'm using a lighthouse stockbook, but am quickly realizing the limitations of this for adding new stamps in various orders....

angreely,
I am, by no means any authority, just an observer.
How you will decide, depends entirely where you feel comfortable, but no doubt your ideas will change as you progress.

Here is the well spring of any thematic, you can spend hours here.
This is where the big boys hang out
Mind boggling collections /thematics that no doubt have taken amazing amounts of time and dedication.

enjoy

http://www.japhila.cz/hof/index02_.htm

Here is one of my favourites, thematic on the Volkswagen.....

http://www.japhila.cz/hof/0155/index0155a.htm

Many thanks for this link, rod222! This is precisely what I was looking for... very helpful.

Personally I wouldn't want to go for the type of thematic collection which tells a complex story. For me, the stamps get relegated to being illustrations, just for the sake of a town postmark etc. and they somehow lose their beauty. Everyone has their own views of course - but I also have an album of art stamps, mostly paintings, and I am more than happy having them laid out as sets on their own pages, countries all alphabetical.

I completely agree with you Ringo, and this is why I am currently rethinking my initial plan for a thematic collection. I do admire the collections on the site posted above, however. Very impressive and creatively compiled.

Are topical collections ever arranged in a manner other than chronologically by country? While I'm not interested in writing a lot of text and captions for an album, I would prefer to arrange the stamps chronologically by artist and date of artwork. Are there rules against this if I ever wanted to exhibit the collection at some point?

I think that exhibitions/competitions are a different game altogether. If you wanted to exhibit you would have to make your collection and pages fit a set standard which would put rules on, for example, the number of pages you can include. If you wanted to go down that route I think it would be wise to decide on that now, as you won't be able to just submit your collection - it won't fit the necessary format. Also, you will probably have a lot of stamps which you like but which aren't special enough to go into exhibition.

As for arranging them chronologically by artist - yes! Go for it. Do it completely your way, in a manner which you find best. After all, who aspires to be ordinary? All I would say though is that if you go for chronological by artist and date, you may find that having mounted up your stamps you the acquire more which would slot nicely at a certain place in the collection - but there's no space so you have to re-do the whole page. The solution is to not mount them - keep them in stockbooks or use Hagner-style albums where they can be moved about.

Again, just my personal view - I want traditional paper albums, and the stamps are permanent once they're on the page - so I've gone for the alphabetical by country arrangement which works just fine. I like the way sets look when mounted together, but I realise I end up with a whole page of modern art sandwiched between pages of say, Rembrandt and Van Gogh. Doesn't worry me - I just appreciate the look of them.

I guess I'm so old-fashioned that I would finish with chronological by country. But that wouldn't stop you from arranging your stamps in a variety of ways and then scanning the pages before working on a new narrative.

I am sure that you will find this site interesting:

http://heindorffhus.motivsamler.dk/arthistory/

I would offer that it depends on whether you want to find the stamps, or show the stamps.

Chronological by country is a good way of warehousing stamps, because you will always know where to look to find any particular stamp.

Years ago, there was a country music station in Dallas that put up a series of billboards, each with a line from a song (eg, "If today were a fish, I'd throw it back") and the tag line "Country Music Tells A Story".

If you want to tell a story, go with the thematic approach.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Thank you everyone for the helpful links and tips. I think, after trying both options in powerpoint with scans, that my preference for a visually coherent album probably outweighs my preference for historical chronology, so I will probably end up arranging the stamps by country.

On the subject of albums, is it possible to design hingeless albums oneself, and then have a company print them? And if so, do you have any advice about software?