Feeling Like It's All For The Birds

I am building a bird collection, and because I was a birder long before I was a stamp collector, I would like my album pages to be in taxonomic order. So if a given species has 35 stamps depicting it, I'd like to include a range map, information about the species, and then spaces for the 35 stamps, likely arranged chronologically, and alphabetically by country within each year.

My main question is: am I crazy?

My second question is: how do I determine the dimensions of each of these 35 stamps (not all of which I own yet)?

My final question is: does anyone else do birds in taxonomic order?

Thanks for your help!

Big topical. The American Topical Association lists 3,896 bird stamps. They also list bird stamps by type of bird. 1,564 Doves, 913 Owls, for example for thousands and thousands more bird stamps.

http://americantopicalassn.org/checklists.shtml

http://americantopicalassn.org/pdf/...al280217.pdf

Choirmaster, I think you will need to approach this endeavor with flexibility in mind. Because birds are a popular topical area, countries will continue to issue bird stamps.

If I were doing this, I would create a bird database on my computer. Then I would make my own album pages, also on the computer, so that I could expand and add new pages for a particular family, genus, or species.

Even before this, I would organize the bird stamps I currently have in a stock book, or on vario stock sheets.

Thanks, bookbndrbob! My database is currently just under 36,000 lines. I am in the process of deleting duplicates (surcharges, overprints, sheets, etc), preferring instead to make a column for notes that includes that info rather than a separate line.

I started with ATA bird lists, but have come to prefer the birdtheme site for a more comprehensive and ornithological arrangement, sortable by country and with images of all stamps. But this doesn't help me with size. I currently had the stamps sorted into taxonomic families in gladsines.

I am also using the MASSIVE Handbook of the Birds of the World, which has a wealth of information about species status and range. It's a lot of fun, it's just a trifle overwhelming. And I still can't figure out how to find stamp sizes.

Thanks, redwoodrandy! Actually that ATA 3800+ list is just those groups of birds that haven't been separated out into their own lists (some of which make sense, like "penguins" and "owls"; others of which do not, like "crossbills, weavers, fodies, and finches").

More birds by family, genus, species, and country.

http://www.bird-stamps.org/

I see ebay lists 82,633 bird stamps.

Gee Randy,

I only see 49,912!

Jack Kelley

Yes it's frequently around 80,000 on ebay. There are around 10,000 species of birds on earth, and around 3,000 have been depicted on stamps. It's a great deal of fun!

Good luck choirmaster. Your project looks very daunting.

Make that 81,942 and changing by the second.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...s&_sacat=260