Postmark Collections - How Do You Organize Your Postmarks?

I am a general WW collector - and if that is not enough - lately I have become more and more focused on getting postmarks from different places as well

I am curious - are many others collecting different postmarks - if so, how do you organize them?

(Please - this discussion is restricted to postmarks not pre-cancels)

I am a novice on postmarks so it would be interesting to see how experienced postmark collectors are doing this. Any feedback much appreciated

Let me start with how I am organizing my postmarks.

I am creating a dedicated postmark collections after each 'Main' collection for each country. Then my postmarks are organised alphabetically. I am using Vario sheets, so the flexibility of the Vario system easily allows for expansion. The intention is to get as many different identifiable place names as possible for each country. Obviously this is an endless endavour, but something I am really enjoying.

I am creating lists of towns, villages, places etc for each country in Excel - and use the lists for a register where I can tick of the postmarks I have - and the condition of the postmark.


Example: I am working on Luxembourg for the moment. This is my register of place names for Lux with 633 different place names, filtered to show only the postmarks I actually have.

I think it makes it quite interesting when one can see the population of each place - particularly for a country like Luxembourg where the total population in itself is quite limited. Most of the postmarks are from tiny places with a population less than 1500. Places I never have heard off and never will see. This makes postmark collection into a kind of travel to unheard of places. I really enjoy it.

Thanks to my stamp brother barbu that convinced me into this

Blaamand, I am not a postmark collector as such (I do collect cancellations on U.S. revenues), but I would have to say that your spreadsheet is awesome. And organizing alphabetically makes great sense. Am I correct that the hyperlinks point to images of the postmarks? I do something similar with my revenue cancels. Great job!

Blaamand:

As a WW used collector, I have maintained a small, but growing postmark collection for a few years. I am not nearly as organized as you. My unmounted stamps are filed alphabetically by country while they await mounting. I have three main categories of cancels: towns, slogan cancels, & object cancels. When mounting the town cancels, I frequently place under the stamp a short statement locating the town within the country.

My only criteria for inclusion is that the cancel must include a clearly readable town name, with day, month, and year of use. Slogan cancels must be complete on the stamps, although I do include a few longer slogans on neatly trimed paper.

Cancels on stamps has become an enjoyable sideline collecting area for me. I rarely pay more that 50c for a collectable cancel, unless it is from a very obscure location or unusual slogan or object cancel.

I draw my own pages and that process can be somewhat tiresome when all of the stamps on one page are different sizes.

Don

That is an excellent sheet!

I have been pondering something similar lately as well. I am also trying to figure out a general way to categorize the postmark itself. Whether it is a CDS, or Slogan Cancel, etc. etc. Don't really have a comprehensive system figured out yet (that is not too complicated)

I shouldn't let Fru Blaamand see this if I were you!

I don't really collect postmarks, but have thought of doing so with my nineteenth century French stamps, given that I've assembled so many of them. My initial idea is to do this by the Départements that were in place at the time, then by city or town.

I expect to be making extensive use of this site:

http://marcophilie.org/index.html

That's a great sheet. More data entry than I am willing to do, but hats off to someone who is willing to do it.

Did you consider tracking the postmark dates, too?

I also use Varios, with a sheet of paper between each Vario sheet that I use for identification and additional information, so that when a binder is open, the Vario is on one side and an explanation of what is on that page is on the facing page.

Obviously, this changes all the time, so I have more penciled markings than permanent markings. At the moment, it is a mess, but it is easy to update and reprint a page (in theory...in practice, who has the time?).

Blaamand, it is an honour affecting you with this delightful maroophil disease!
Great work with yet another comprehensive xl spreadsheet of yours, let us hope it will be a timesaver in the years to come.
Personally I an organizing the CDSes like Blaamand, but as a WW collector I am so far only saving the SOTN (or close to) on the definitive series on the bigger countries. That way it looks far better and I am saving tremendosly time.

Nice to see so many other Brothers here making interest in postmarks!

CJD: could not agree more: "who has the time.."...and stil we let the hours fly! But what a nice flight.

For countries like Germany (3rd Reich), I would like to have the different commemorative postmarks that came out with a particular stamp.

For the classical period, I would like to have one of each type of postmark for a particular country. This typically adds up to 5-10 different. Quite doable.

For German colonies, I'm like Blaamand, one from each town please.

@Blaamand, awesome spreadsheet!
@Cjd, can you post a few scans of your Varios setup. Sounds very inspiring.

WOW - good response on this - and I have been to busy with Lux to reply.... Thank you all for good feedback.

@rusty - No, I have not scanned each stamp, that would be too much for me. The links were part of a list of place names that I copied from the web into the database, links leading to homepages for the different towns etc.

@Don Sellos -

Yeah, that was my intention as well (in order to avoid this postmark collection becoming a monster!), but for Luxembourg which kind of limits itself, I will allow also postmark 'fillers'.

@geoffha


Your advise is very sensible and spot on!
Funny you mention the marcophilie site - I think that fabulous site was part of what got me going more deep into postmarks in the first place. barbu and me has already started collecting PC and GC lozenges separately. That's really a delight - so many beautiful cancels on such beautiful classical stamps! Barbu and me even traded GC/PC postmarks with each other some weeks ago (disregarding what kind of stamps the postmark was on) I don't think that kind of trading is commonplace in our community....
Please share with us some images of your result with the French when you proceed!

@cjd - - I might look like I have been doing lots of typing, but (as stated above) the list of names were simply copy-paste. The database on the other hand required lots of hours to make functional, so I can use it as a template for other countries later. The database automatically generates Tags with Place-names for each postmark, to go in the Variopage with each stamp. Saves me for my own terrible script Clever idea with info on the adjoining page. Images to share?

@barbu - . I agree. The lesson learnt with Luxembourg is that I definitively need to be more picky about which postmarks to save when I start with larger countries.

@ClassicalS -
Would be nice to see some of thos commemorative postmarks of yours


Clever idea I have been thinking the same. If considering France - with literally thousands of different postmarks/slogans etc - one of each is terrifying enough as it is. On my last 'visit' to France I put aside several envelopes with Imprimes, Conveyour, Slogans, hotel cancels etc etc - and I do not know what to do with it all. Maybe they will just remain in those envelopes....

I guess 'time'is a key word that summarize many of the responses from you good people. Need to find sensible limits to avoid postmark collecting to take more time than stamp collecting in itself.

Thank you all for responses - please do not hesitate to show your postmark collections/work in progress
Jon

For Thurn and Taxis, I organize postmarks according to the German state where it was used. For French general colonies, I keep them in Scott order but add slips of paper identifying the colony where it was postmarked. For Germany and Austria, I intend to organize postmarks regionally.

Greaden - I like it!

PS -Send me a PM if you would like a copy of my database for Austrian Place names, including Region/district info, about 13.000 different names. (and including other place names in the former Austrian empire, useful if interested in forerunners etc)

Greaden - you have mail

Blaamand: do you also do pre-cancels? I don't know about Luxembourg. But one could assemble quite a collection of pre-cancels from its neighbor, Belgium.

Blaamand (or other hobbyists),
If you have spreadsheets/databases you would like published so that others will be able to use them I would be happy to do this on Stamp Smarter. This kind of data presentation can be published in various ways if desired.
Don

@Climber Steve - Sure I do! I have just made setup for Luxembourg on Vario pages, and naturally I had to allocate space for the 27 face-different pre-cancels (acc Michel). For now I have only 3 of them tough
US on the other hand - the US pre-cancels seem to me like a daunting task. I have seen many in the forum creating good systems for them, and I applaud their work. How about you?