What Was Your First Major "Evolution" In Expanding Your Philatelic Interests?

I'm starting to sell and give away all the stamps of my Scott Int over 1940 ( so part II and Up ) those are pages and pages of not interesting stamps for me.

Concentrating in a less larger area, getting more knowledgeable in it , it's expending my philatelic interest.

Back in the early 1970s I was a garden variety U.S. plate block collector. I had started dabbling in coil line pairs and booklet panes by position. Oh, and DIY FDCs.

Somehow I became aware of postal stationery and read an article (Linns, APS magazine, I forget) in which reference was made to the 1954 Thorp Century Edition (the mother of all U.S. stationery catalogs).

As it happens, my grandfather was an antiquarian bookman and I asked him if he could get this book (then long out of print). Later I would discover the book sold for $150, if you could find one. He put a want ad (outside the philatelic marketplace) in the ABAA journal for this book/catalog and soon had a copy for me for $7.50 (and being a good grandfather, he picked up the tab).

That catalog got me converted to a stationery collector and I've never looked back.

DJCMHOH - I can appreciate that you just want one of each stamp, but I collect them in other forms and formats as well. Add them up again and now calculate the envelopes/cards, FDC, programs, a pane, a plate block, a plate number single and in some cases a uncut press sheet, etc... for each. None of which will ever be of any value barring a error or freak.

I have to agree with Blaamand, it's tat amount to collecting stickers now. I'm not tied to a tight budget but I'd rather spend the money on stamps that interest me and that will hold some reasonable as semblance of value. Predominantly pre-1940.

Part of my comments were also aimed at a deterrent for kids to get interested. While it's not really that much, in their mind... why spend 3-5 bucks a week when every month or two that could get them an xbox game at GameStop. That's the kind of reasoning my two youngest and their friends use. They think these old stamps are neat but it just doesn't compare to killing zombies.

Lets take a look at a couple random recent years... 2009 Scott's catalog has 60 numbers issued that year and of those 60 there were 4 that were multi stamp issues (example 4423 A through J) for 97 stamps and that's if you just do one of each. Likewise, 2012 goes from 4585 to 4720 (135 stamps) + 2 issues that break out 5 and 15 more for a total of 153 stamps. In comparison, in 1972 when I started out Scott's goes from 1446 to 1474 = 28 total stamps. Big difference which also adds up in mounts and album pages for a kid.

As for me, collecting the way to do, this just isn't worth the effort. Calculate all that I would need to keep my collecting style up. (yes that's my choice and my self inflicted burden). Not that the value is the bottom line or the only reason I collect but it's part of it. If the value was there in recent stamps I'd think about the investment but it's not [for me].

Not trying to be a stick in the mud about it. Not trying to debate. Just trying to give some insight as to my thoughts and feelings about a potential evolution to my collection which I am strongly considering.

Sorry, if I side tracked this topic unintentionally... I'll put it my "issue" to rest and give thought to starting a thread for this but don't feel like thinking very hard about it at the moment :)


Jeff