Share Organizing & Merging Large Collections Tips?

I began collecting around age 13, but most of my collection exists in glassine envelopes. Recently, a friend gifted me with a large collection with even less organization. My summer project is to whip these collections into shape. Anyone have any recommendations for storage or steps for organizing? I don't want to reinvent the wheel!

Glad to have you asking question here, rainingstamps!

This project, from the sounds of the size and quantity, is likely to take a wee bit longer than just the summer. That's okay, though, as you will have hours of enjoyment going through everything!

It sounds as though YOUR collection is fairly organized in glassine envelopes. That's a good start.

What is this collection you were gifted? That would be the next thing to delve into. Is it something you want to combine with your collection or is this something which is outside of the scope of what you want to collect?

You don't mention what you collect or what the gifted collection consists of. If you don't mind sharing, it will help other members and myself advise you how we might proceed to make organization of chaos.

Pictures are always a plus, too. We all love seeing what other collectors have and how they are organizing their stamp holdings.

I look forward to hearing more about your collection!

Again, Welcome to the Community!

There is only 1 rule to this. There are no rules. There are quite a few methods but it all comes down to personal preference. You can organize by using album pages, stock books, vario / Hagnar sheets or glassine envelopes.

You can organize by country, topical themes such as birds or butterfly's or any number of ways. If you use the search function here you can find tons of information of how some of the members here organize their collections or accumulations.

Enjoy.

I agree with STAMPMAN , he makes some very important points . Try to post a few photos here so we have a general idea of what is in it and how it is laid out before any comments can be made to move ahead .

How I organize changes. I find something more efficient. I just would avoid investing too much money in one method until you are sure. Invest into something reuseable like Vario pages. They last and can be used over and over.

I use the 3 step process.

Step 1.
(yes, that's how I am given, sometimes)

Step 2.

Step 3.

Thank you for all the responses! I collect a little bit of everything, and the gifted collection is quite similar.

The first stamps I received were 3 used Soviet stamps that my grandmother found somewhere. The next stamps I received were a mint US block of carousel animals. As a youth, I kept a world map on my wall so I could number the countries from which I owned stamps. Of course, the envelopes for those stamps had corresponding numbers. Around the age of 20, I purchased a collection from an older gentleman that collected mostly FDCs. A block collector that I know sent me several beautiful pieces from their investment collection that did not sell.

One of my concerns is the safety of the glassine envelopes. I noticed that many of the older envelopes are beginning to yellow (not as bad as tape), but still a little alarming. Should those be changed out for fresh envelopes?

The gifted collection once belonged to the wife of a man who built post offices. That collection includes some interesting postal notices for future stamp releases. Are those of any value? I can add a photo, if needed.

Thanks Again!

RS,



Advisable, Glassine is merely highly dense paper, and will break down over time.




Just about everything in Philately is of interest, to somebody, somewhere,
Value? who knows.
You are present caretaker, try and preserve history, or pass it on.

rod222, thank you! Thank you for sharing the photos in your initial post. The gift collection resembled your first photo when I received it from my friend. I quickly sorted it into several categories. The largest was a soak-off box. I will post photos of the gift collection in a separate post. Regarding the postal advertising, I will care for it, but I'm fairly certain that I do not want to expand the types of things I collect.

For your consideration.
Soaking :
Some collectors feel the need to soak everything, I did for the first year,
but consider, why waste time soaking duplicates?
If one is organised, you need only soak the stamps which are going to become part of your collection.
Also consider soaking can also damage Postmarks if on large fragments.

My process is similar to Rod's and others. The large collection/accumulation I bought about a year ago consisted of 6 large boxes filled with loose stamps, stamps in envelopes, glassines and on loose album pages, some identified, most not.

1 box, as received:


First step was to separate, and segregate, all the loose stamps, into 1 location. For sorting at a later time.


Next, I separated out all the envelopes and glassines that were identified by country and alphabetized those in boxes. Unidentified envelopes will get identified and sorted with the loose stamps, since they were basically random, loose stamps in envelopes anyway. This is 3 of the 6 boxes I wound up with that include identified and alphabetized, by country, envelopes.


After everything is identified by country, and alphabetized, I can concentrate on sorting, identifying and filing stamps away (temporarily) from individual countries. I file them by Scott #.
This picture was when I just began the process. I now have about 7-8 times as much that is waiting to be mounted into albums.


After all that I can FINALLY mount onto album pages! YAY!


But the "fun" doesn't stop there. Many stamps I cannot immediately mount, for various reasons. Either I need to make/modify an album page, I don't have the right size mounts, out of printer ink, etc....

All those get filed into another box for disposition.

After all the good stuff is done, then it's time for the drudgery.....Making want/have lists. I'me about a month behind in this task.

As of right now, I believe I have processed, to the point of mounting on album pages, maybe 10% of the collection I bought about a year ago.

Rainingstamps,
you have the skeleton of a very nice collection there. Lucky you.
Would take me about a year to mount and get everything in order.

The collector sheets, announcements, and Booklets, are not my thing, due to storage. Lots of good information in the pages. All collectable to someone out there. Pass on what you are not keen on, or store away in case you change your mind.

First day covers : Use the "YearMonthDay" of the postmark, to have them saved / sorted in order. eg: 19861203 =3rd Dec 1983

Spain_1850
Neat story....great pics.

TIP: with the used Album Pages, I place mine in those cheap $3 for 50
polypropylene sheet protectors (sandwich between 2 sheets of copy paper to prevent catching the stamps when inserting)

You can then place them in order in your albums, prior to re-mounting.

Rod, that's a good idea and will keep it mind if (when) I get another batch of album pages. This batch, however, was mostly loos leaf blank pages filled with random stamps from various era's. Best I could do was sort them by country and put in large manilla envelopes.

Also forgot to mention those large envelopes in my country sorting. Some countries had such a huge amount of stamps that they bulged the little envelopes too much, so I had to graduate to the large, document-sized envelopes. Countries like China, Russia, Italy, France & Colonies, etc...

Indeed, that's why I moved to Envelopes, I think my current USA stamps, are in 10 bulging envelopes, not began those as yet,

My Russia is bulging too, you don't often see Russian collections on boards.

Some sellers on ebay will cut down Scott pages and ship multiple pages in a sleeve. It is handy.