My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

16,846 sounds good ,keep up the good work .

Thanks floor! In the last few days I've actually added over 183 from the batch of France that I soaked and dried. Right now I am at 17,029.....Still a long way to go.

Here is the next project I may be working on. This is from my specialized Spain days. I haven't much worked with my Spain collection in recent years and most of it will not be on Steiner pages. I've decided to keep it as it is, which is in Scott specialty binders and Vario pages. But, I am wanting to present certain things better than they are. This will be one such thing.

This is 1 page of many, holding the 6 cuartos issue of 1853. I have several hundred copies of this stamp that I have been working with over the years, mostly identifying plate flaws.

There are numerous flaws that exist, most of which are constant, and many have been identified and numbered in the Tort Guide, one of the most important reference works for early Spanish stamps.

Tort Guide vol. 1


There are well over 200 plate flaws and defects listed in this book, just for this one stamp. I've got 60 or 70, that I have been able to identify, on Vario pages, with little scraps of paper as an identification.

Here is one such page.


I've been trying to figure out a way to make Steiner-like pages to display these, while at the same time keeping the page flexible enough to insert new stamps without having to print new pages. All the while keeping them organized, by "Tort" number. In otherwords, I want the flexibility of a Vario stock page on a paper album page that still fits into my worldwide Steiner scheme.

I will keep things posted as I progress. I think I have an idea on what I can do to make this project work the way I want.

Here is a quick mock up of what I am thinking. The number under the little graphic image next to the stamp sort of correspond to the Tort guide numbers. I kind of simplified them for my own satisfaction. In this case, the first number "1" is the assigned number for the corner and outer frame defects. The second number "1" is simply the first defect listed in the tort guide. So, defect number 2 listed would read 1-2.


I am still toying with the idea of somehow adding a short description of the defect, instead of just a pointing arrow. My problem is that I don't want to print that information on the page so I can move them around on the page when necessary. So the description would need to be printed on the small paper that is placed next to the stamp.

Both the stamp and the small piece of paper would be placed in one top loading clear mount, to stay consistent with all the other printed album pages I've made so far.

Bouncing around from project to project like always. So now I'd like to talk a little about self-adhesives.

I've read more than a few threads on here concerning self-adhesives, many of which lament the demise of the hobby because the them. I do not believe this to be true, they just cause us to change the way we collect stamps.
Gone are the days of simply soaking stamps in water and letting them dry. With the exception of existing old-time kiloware, future collectors won't have to worry about this aspect of the hobby. The aggressive adhesives of today simply do not allow for it. Yes, there are, apparently, ways to remove thee stamps with chemicals. But, I am not sure I wan't my 8-9 year old son or daughter using these chemicals to learn the hobby the way we started out so many years ago.

As a worldwide collector, without specific cutoff dates, I have come to terms with the fact that I will need to find a way to deal with self-adhesives, and I have. I have decided I don't want to stat with the chemical approach and simply leave them on the paper backing, trimming them close, and hinging them to the album page.

Actually, they don't look too bad this way in my opinion. The funny part is that we as collectors use to complain about trying to soak stamps from colored paper and NOT letting the paper bleed into the stamps themselves. With SA's (self-adhesives), you don't need to worry about that any longer. In fact leaving SA's on the colored paper and trimming them nicely, actually frames the stamps.

Another positive about SA's is that if you leave them on the paper, then you don't have to worry about today's ultra-strong hinges to damage the stamps, and that's an important factor in my opinion since tomorrow's collectors will no doubt be stuck with ONLY the ultra-strong hinges. I'm pretty sure the vintage Dennison supply will eventually dry up.

Here are a couple examples of some modern France SA's, left on the paper backing, and trimmed close. These are ones I recently acquired in some kiloware and hinged to Steiner pages. The colored paper backing frames the stamps nicely in my opinion. I like the way these turned out and will look at continuing this method for other SA's as well.




The one drawback I can see for leaving SA's attache to the paper backing is that it does add bulk to the album pages.

One thing you might want to consider with leaving PSA stamps on paper is cold flow of the adhesive.

There are a number of threads here on that issue.

Here's an article on PSA stamps [See the section on 'Storage and Preservation']

http://cool.conservation-us.org/byo...n23-605.html

I'm not aware of any 'edge ooze' being reported but it's something to consider for long run storage.

Dam

danstamps54 - Thank you for the link. I had no idea there was such an indepth study of the ramifications of self adhesive stamps, with regards to the hobby. Very informative. I guess I may have to rethink my position on these.

On another note, I must have had a power failure at some time in the past, which shuts my computer off. I sometimes have a bad habit, which I know I will have to break, of neglecting to save my computer work frequently. So, some of the counts in my spreadsheet were off, I noticed. Only reason I noticed is because whenever I add stamps to the country counts, I enter the current date that the stamps were added. And some of the dates were old, even though I know I have added stamps recently.

Long story short, I had to recount a few countries and update (and SAVE my work).

As of today, my new overall total is..........17,682 mounted stamps.

I am now finished with the New Zealand remounting project I started a while back. Finished that last night and added about 30 more stamps. Also finished is the France kiloware project I was working on. I ultimately added about 350 new stamps to my France album and had to expand that to 3 1" binders.

Now I'm wondering where to go from here. So many countries, so little time.

I did notice another thread here about "Mauritius on Steiner pages" and it reminded me about my Mauritius collection that I acquired , along with the New Zealand collection. It also needs remounting since it is on the same cover stock-type pages that the NZ collection was on. Not sure if I want to do another remount right now, or tackle a completely unmounted, unsorted country.

Spain- I did not see this wonderful thread until very recently but it has quickly become one of my favorites. Please keep writing prolifically.


P.S. I'm impressed that despite your being sophisticated in your pursuit of specialist varieties in multiple arenas, you also include modern material in your collection. You've done an amazing job securing lightly-cancelled stamps that don't appear to be CTO (France). It can't be an easy task....

shermae - Thank you for all the nice words.

I'm not sure how sophisticated I am as far as specializing. I did specialize (or tried to) in early Spain for quite a while, but found that after a while I didn't seem to be finding as many interesting items within my budget. Much of it was in larger auctions and out of my price range.

But, that didn't stop me from pursuing specialized material in other countries, and since I already had a specialists mindset, that carried over well into the worldwide collecting arena. I'm sure however that if I chose to get too involved into any one country, or collecting area again, the same thing would happen. Sooner or later I would hit a brick wall. But, it is still quite possible to just scratch the surface of specializing in many different areas, and create a personalized collection that goes beyond just filling the prescribed spaces by sprinkling in some of this semi-specialized material here and there.

It also allows me to go to shows with more of an open mind as to what is available, and be more opportunistic. In the past I've seen many interesting things, at great prices, at some shows that I passed up because they had nothing to do with my specialized collection. That is not the case now. Everything is fair game.




This is actually one of the aspects I really love about collecting. There are many countries I have lots and lots of duplicates of. The4se countries I can be highly selective in which stamps to present on my pages. For the most part I try and choose a stamp that is nicely centered, has good color, and has an unobtrusive, lightly struck cds in either the lower right, or lower left corner. I can usually accomplish this by comparing many duplicates and weeding out the non-candidates. It's time consuming, but I love it. My second choice cancel is a nicely centered socked on the nose cancel. But, usually all the S.O.N. cancels get set aside for a future project. Of course, many stamps I only have a single copy of, so that is what I keep unless a better item comes along.

Whenever I get a new batch of stamps, I don't just look at my lists to see which stamps I am missing, but I also compare them to what I have in my album. If I can upgrade anything I will.

And the choice has been made.
I will be starting on Chile tonight.

Before I print any pages I'll first be sorting and identifying what I have, which will have a great impact on what years I will need to print pages for.

I've always liked the early imperf stamps of Chile, but I know I won't have many to place on my pages.

Let the sorting begin!

This is the pile of glassines, envelopes and assorted 102 cards I've accumulated.

spain - Good luck! Free Chile pages with various formats here - better than Steiner, I think

https://www.chilecollector.com/arch...bum0000.html

Geoff - Those are certainly great looking pages. Thanks for the link!

I probably wouldn't be able to use them as pages however, mostly because they are in color and I would blow through too much ink, which is bad for my tight budget. But, since I don't have any specialized literature or catalogues for Chile, these pages certainly look like something I can use as reference for making my pages.

That is also a great website in general. I really love finding sites like that and Google can help with the translations to a point.

I used them for my Chile collection (since sold), but printed them in b/w. In those days, I was also blissfully unaware of how quickly I could wipe out a Samsung laser cartridge!

Just want to say what a great resource this forum is. Whenever I start a new country, the first thing I do is a "search" on here and pull up any pertinent threads, in this case threads about the stamps of Chile.

Great thread spain_1850, thank you for your time and effort.


You can always print color pages in grey scale!
Don