My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

Some updates:

1 - New Printer! My inkjet was just not cutting it. Changing ink cartridges was becoming a chore, and I had to re-align the print heads each time I changed one. Add all that to the fact that the printing was starting to to look weird and it made the decision an easy one.

I decided to go with a monochrome laser printer, since it will be a dedicated printer for my album pages. The replacement cartridges will yield (supposedly) 2600 pages, so I "should" be set for a while. What I got was a canon Image CLASS, for just under $100.

2 - Paper. I also decided to stock up on paper for a while. So far I have been buying by the ream, as needed, but that will obviously get pretty expensive. So, I went and bought a case of the paper I've been using. 3000 pages will get me pretty far down the road without needing to buy more.

3 - Chile. I kind of ran out of steam on this country. Mostly because I started to run out of stamps much beyond 1950 or so. Tonight I made the decision to buy the largest, all-different, collection of Chile I could afford. I found a collection of 675 different, which I already bought and paid for. I should be able to add AT LEAST 300 of them, plus, I'm hoping to add a bunch of watermark varieties on the early issues.

4 - While working on Chile, I have also been finding small batches of stamps here and there to add to some of the other albums that I already have established. Nothing really earth-shattering, just a stamp here or there.

5 - My next project.......Egypt! I've got most of my Egypt stamps in a basic sorted state. I will be looking at Egypt-related threads here, as well as my SG catalog, and Scott too, to get a preliminary thought on how detailed I want to get. It looks like there are agoing to be opportunities for inverted wmk's on the earlies.

Where did you find the Chile collection you purchased?

Where I find pretty much everything like that.....ebay.

Update:

I finally finished up Chile, or at least as far as I can go for now. I still have some revenues to deal with. also, I'm still waiting for the all-different lot to arrive that I mentioned earlier.

I also took the opportunity to add Chile to my APS circuit list, to see if I can fill more of the wmk variety holes. You never know what will show up in those circuits.

So my new totals are in:
Chile - 465, but that includes wmk varieties so is a bit deceiving.

WW total - 18,268

Up next is Egypt!

I just finished printing the first 10 pages, but noticed I needed to make some custom pages to allow for some inverted wmks, as well as chalky paper varieties.

Pictures coming later.

My Egypt stamps are sorted and ready to go!

The first leg of the Egypt pages.

The first page is, well, blank, so no point in scanning it. In fact not too much to see until the later Sphinx issues. But not too bad coverage from there, so far.



Added paces for a few inverted wmks I have, plus chalky paper and aniline ink variations. According to the SG catalog, it looks like most of these Sphinx issues can be found with an inverted wmk. However, I have so few of them I didn't see a need to add them. If I ever get more I can always create a new page.






Many of these early sets are very colorful. I'm really liking Egypt so far.

Found these 2, which I believe are forgeries of some kind. Neither look even close to what they are suppose to be.

Those are real .

Nice start on Egypt ,a lot of Egypt is easy to find and collect but their are speciality areas that get difficult and expensive .

Thank you floortrader! I admit my only references I have for Egypt are Scott and an older SG catalog, so I'll probably not be able to get very specialized.

Having said that, can you expand on why you think these 2 are real? In the Scott catalog, both of these issues should be perf 14, but these are perf 11, and unwatermarked. Maybe I'm missing something, which wouldn't be the first time, lol!

Here are the next batch of pages I have mounted.

Just a note:
Many of the vertical commemoratives that are missing on these pages, I actually have, I just ran out of the appropriate sized mounts. Looks like I'll be placing an order in the next couple days.

This page had to be retooled to include several shade variations listed in the Scott catalog.

Spain,

I just finished rereading this thread and getting caught up. I'm amazed at how your progress has inspired me to begin working in earnest on my accumulation. Thank you for that.

While I don't think I will go as deeply as you have by using specialized catalogs for areas like Brazil, I do plan on picking up a couple older Stanley Gibbons catalogs for the U.K. And Commonwealth. Those are areas that have a draw for me over other parts of the world.

Keep on stamping. I look forward to reading more about your progress.

Dale

StatesmanStamper, Thank you for the kind words!

The only reason(s) I got the Brazil specialized was because it was available through the APS lending library, and because there doesn't seem to exist a specialized, or semi-specialized, catalog available for South/Central American countries in general. I was hoping there was one similar to what SG does for all Commonwealth countries, or what Facit has for Scandinavian countries, but apparently there isn't.

Gibbons does south and central American catalogues - I have older versions. Won't be as specialised as local productions, though. Yvert does central and south America in three volumes, which would overlap with an SG BC catalogue.

GeoffHa - How do the SG catalogs compare to Scott, if you are familiar with them, as far as depth? If I can find them cheap enough it probably wouldn't hurt to have them anyway, for added reference.

Looks like I'll be revisiting Chile sometime soon. Got my lot of 675 different today! Probably, when I am finished with Egypt, I'll go back to Chile since its still pretty fresh in my mind.