How Often Do You Gaze Upon?

I'm 66 years old and have been collecting since I was 6. I have what I consider a pretty nice collection of U.Sl (there's not going to be an auction catalogue with my name on the cover though). The bulk of the value of my collection is housed in a Davo hingeless album. How often do I look at my treasures? Maybe 3 or 4 times a year, and even then maybe for 3 or 4 minutes. It sometimes makes me wonder why I have them, but I like to know that I do and if I do want to visit my stamps, I can. Is this weird, or somewhat typical? I think in the past 50 years the only persons that have laid eyes on my collection, or any part of it is my wife and my son-in-law who actually thought they were pretty "cool," my wife not so much.

I came to the conclusion long ago that, for me, the thrill is in the chase and the acquisition, moreso than in actually possessing the item. Some areas of my collection are 100% complete and I've filled every space on every page in the binder (or section thereof), including some pretty nice stamps. Since completion I rarely take those binders off the shelf. When I do, as often as not it's to check to see if any stamps need upgrading, rather than admiring them for their own sake. This is a big reason why I don't pay a premium for NH stamps. As a general WW collector, there are plenty of stamps where I'll probably never look at the front of it again, much less the back!

Not as often as I should.

I collect U. S. issues, mostly Banknotes and Officials.
Well, the newest acquisitions, a lot! I spend a lot of time looking (digitally) at the postal history collection, and I study the Special Printing Officials, especially 3rd and 4th printings overprints. Looked at my First Bureau issues just recently for the first time in probably 10 years.

I periodically thumb through my collection not only to see if something is amiss but also to recall the chase for a particular stamp. It is kind of like a hunter reflecting on his/her past hunts. It is one of the enjoyments of collecting for me.

Dan

A number of years back, I had been bringing bits and pieces to our local club for their enjoyment. One of the long time members and a nationally known writer and exhibitor asked me if I had insurance on my collection because of the quality and types of items I had been bringing in. We talked about it for a bit and I decided it might be a very good idea to insure the collection. When I called Collectibles Insurance, the first and most obvious question was "How much is it worth?" I had to admit I had no idea. I didn't want to under insure it, but I also didn't want to buy insurance which exceeded the value.

I decided I needed to create a detailed inventory, as suggested by the insurance agent. So I started creating an inventory AND scanning the stamps into a digital set of files.

Over the last seven years, I've scanned some 47,000 stamps and added them to my inventory. I use a simple Excel spreadsheet with nine columns for the different information. I assign an inventory control number for each stamp and use that number to tag the image once I've scanned it. This keeps the size of the files down and when one of the files becomes to large and cumbersome, I simply split it in half, creating two files of images, both now more manageable.

I know this sounds like a tremendous amount of work, and it is, but I've had to do several things while doing this.

(1) I had to decide whether I had a reason for each and every stamp, plate block, proof, FDC or cover in the collection, or if the item really wasn't something I wanted to keep. This meant I've weeded the collection out to some degree.

(2) I had to stop and look at EVERY item in the collection and then describe it in the inventory.

(3) I've had to scan each item, so I now have a stored image of the item. I also scanned any certificates the item had.

(4) I've kept rather extensive files of where I've purchased my stamps, and I've entered that information into the inventory, along with the price paid, the date purchased and who it was purchased from. There are a lot of wholes where I haven't had the time yet do this retroactively, but everything I've purchased in the last seven years is carefully documented.

How does this relate to the thread in question? I look at my digital stamps all the time. I compare what I have with whatever I'm considering adding and it has begun saving me a tremendous number of times as I realized the item would only be a duplicate and not needed.

As I add more items to the collection, I have a complete record - both for myself and insurance purposes - of what is in the collection. This will also help my heirs once I close my albums for the last time.

As I mentioned before, while it does take a lot of effort to do this because of the extent of my collection, it has been an absolute pleasure to see my collection grow and I get to visit it all the time digitally. By visiting the digital images, I still get to see what I have and it keeps the stamps protected and out of the light, helping to preserve their colors.

I realize this may not be for everyone, but if I can do this with such a massive U.S. collection, I think most collectors could do it with any collection of 3-4 volumes easily. Larger collections will take more time, but I still think it is definitely worth it.

I keep the images and inventory in several locations and update it monthly in each. I have it on my desk top, on two separate flash drives and in the cloud, so even if a burglar who knew what he was doing managed to take the collection, I would never have a problem identifying items in the collection nor would I have a problem filing a claim with the insurance company. It's all right there.

I think I'm about half way through, maybe a bit more, and will continue doing this until I'm done. I would highly recommend something like this to every collector. Technology today makes it a dream when I'm at a show. All I need do is open my laptop and look at my current holdings to know whether I've already got the item I'm looking at with the dealer - no guess work, no more making lists!

The biggest difference though is knowing the value of what I have. If I had made a "guesstimate" as to how much insurance I needed, I'd have grossly undervalued the collection. It would have left me vulnerable to loss and when I went to sell it or when my heirs do, we'd have been cutting ourselves extremely short. Do you really know what your collection is worth today? I sure didn't.

I'd love some feedback from everyone out there. Do you think this is doable or am I insane? All comments welcome!

I failed to mention I do this with my philatelic library as well. You'd be amazed at how fast the value adds up!

How many scanners have you been through?


Back when I was collecting with a goal towards forming an exhibit, it was all about the pursuit of a particular item. The hunt was a lot of fun, as it took many years to acquire some things. In order to do that, you need to become familiar with the body of material that exists in your field, decide which items you want to target, then wait. Be ready to jump.

So I enjoy the hunt, but I also thoroughly enjoyed studying my stamps, after I had them. I would constantly fly-speck them with the magnifier to try and plate them, and look for anything interesting. Additionally, when you stare at them long enough, if you are like me, and collect zillions of copies of just 1 stamp ( you start to notice patterns of progression of colors and quality of impressions over time. Then you can see what cancellations were in use when from the previous observation. And so on. So, I really enjoyed looking at my stamps, and did so very frequently.

Artfulhinger, Would you believe only two? It wasn't the scanner which became the problem but the attached printer which died on me. The scanner was still going strong.

I'll probably replace this all-in-one with a larger model this summer so I can start printing large format album pages. Still going strong though...go figure, right?

howell
Since I was back collecting in 2005-2006 I first had an Olympic collection then a Europa collection. I made all my pages using Albumeasy and spend a lot of time working on them. They were huge collections. They sit on the shelf and sometime I show my albums to friends and family members but a family reunion is not really the best time. But few look at my collections for a short time and like it very much.

I don't gaze upon so much as I now sell my collections to dealers when I have no more interest in it except some Central or South American that have little value. It's when i'm not working that I sell and when i'm back to work I start a new country. This way I have collected all Scandinavian countries one after another plus Poland and Brazil mainly. Selling to dealers has been great for me. Not that it pay so much that it is secure and no troubles. It is also true that if I had work all year long for the past 12 years I wouldn't have sold any of my stamps and would be gazing upon them sometime. Daniel

Stampman, I like your approach. You mention an excel spreadsheet, what are the 9 columns you are using?

telchar, the columns are as follows:

Column Description
1 Primary inventory control number (See note 1).
2 General descriptor (See note 2).
3 Description. This is a detailed description of the item.
4 Date of purchase.
5 Price paid.
6 Purchased from.
7 Catalogue value.
8 Reserved for future catalogue value (See note 3).
9 Additional notes. (See note 4).

Note 1. I initially use the Scott catalog number with a dash and a three digit suffix (i.e., 294-001). As I add items, the next item will be 294-002, then 294-003, etc. I also use a secondary system since I collect EVERYTHING to do with the stamp. Proofs are usually first, along with essays (i.e., 294-001). When I add another proof or essay, I add a second set of three digits to the initial six to keep like items together (i.e., 294-001-001). So, I may have a proof group, an unused group, a used group, a cover group, etc.

Note 2. I use a set of general descriptors to serve as a sort function. Currently, I use Cover, Document, Essay, FDC, Photo, Proof, Unused, Used and Prec (for precancel). This way, if I need to sort by all stamps of a given subset, it is a simple matter of doing so.

Note 3. I started this project several years ago and used the 2010 catalogue as the basis. I've had to use the current catalogue (2017) for stamps which are newer, but the bulk of the listings still had the older catalogue. I plan on using the 2020 catalogue to add new prices and see where everything is headed.

Note 4. I use this field to add notes about provenance, references to articles and other information pertaining to the item.

I find it has worked well for me so far. I occasionally have to renumber a particular stamp group. For instance, I prefer having everything in the same order. Let's say the only stamps I had initially were used and then I add an unused stamp (mostly occurs in 19th century). I may have to renumber a dozen stamps to place the unused item first, but it's a matter of a couple of seconds usually.

I also use the Inventory Control Number as the tag for the image. That way, if I want to see what 294-001 looks like, I simply go to the image folder which has that stamp. I have 55 different folders for all the images. If one becomes to large, I simply split it and move on. That has no effect on the Excel spreadsheet, as I keep them separate. The largest part of all this are the image files. The actual spreadsheet itself is only 2983 KB.

Hope this helps!

Stampman - while I admire your effort, I'm over 40 albums now and it would take the rest of my remaining years to catalog the collection as you have. I look at my collection a lot and it would be great to have it scanned and available to examine on screen but, oh well!!