My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

I didn't even realize the name of the breed, thank you! That one really struck my fancy, but more for the colors. There are many colorful stamps in Egypt.

Just to let everyone know that I have not abandoned this thread. Last few weeks have been hectic at work for me. We've been breaking in a new supervisor who has been trying to score points with his boss, so we, the labor force, have been working a ton of overtime and I've really been too tired to even concentrate on much of anything philatelic.

But, in that time I was able to process the batch of 675 different Chile stamps. So in a little while I'll be posting some pictures and numbers concerning that project.

***WARNING**** Scan-heavy post!


So how did I do with the Chile packet of 675?

Like any "all different" packet I've ever gotten, there is still a few duplicates included, maybe about 20 this time around, which I wasn't too concerned with.

Before processing this lot I had 465 mounted Chilean stamps already. I was hoping to add for 350-400 from this packet.

I actually added 320 that I didn't already have, plus I was able to upgrade a further 104. Upgrades includes either replacing faulty stamps with sound stamps, both mint or used. Or replacing used stamps with mint stamps, or even replacing MH stamps with MNH stamps. I'm always looking to upgrade. A handful of the holes I filled were actually watermark varieties.

So, I was able to use a total of 424 of these stamps for my album, about 63% of the 675.

I was also able to extend my printed page coverage to about 1980, with single pages added beyond that.

Quite a few pages got completed in the 1950-70 period, which are pages I had sparse coverage in previously.

All in all a nice purchase for me.

My current Chile total is 785.
My current WW total is 19224.

Here are some of the completed Chilean pages. The years following these start to get hit and miss again.

Here is another Chile page. This was actually the first page I created for Chile, and the first I scanned to share. With the 675 packet was another 3, smaller, Chilean telegraph stamps.

So, I took the opportunity to modify the page, adding the second, smaller set, and printing a new page. "But what about those mounts you used?", you may ask. Actually, in this case, I can cut the mounts from the page, cut them down a bit and reuse them for a smaller stamp in the future. I try to waste as little as possible.

The smaller scan is the original state of the page, and the large scan is the new page.

I've just finished reading this thread from start to finish (well I read most of it last night and realised it was 2.00am). This is really inspiring and providing that I won't be accused of plagiarism I think I'll start a similar thread of my own as I think it will happen keep me focused :)

Maiden - I don't think it could possibly be considered plagiarism. After all, eveerybody's collection is unique, therefore each collector will have a unique approach based on their own set of standards and abilities. My own collection is based, loosely, on other collections found here, but my material is probably vastly different. I am always looking for new ideas to try, or new stamps to collect and that can only happen when other people share their collections.

I would love to see similar threads of beginning-to-end projects, as they progress.

Well, as mentioned earlier, my next project is French Morocco. I never realized how intertwined the various Morocco's are, French, Spanish, Kingdom, etc... For my purpose, I will be separating them as they are laid out in the Scott catalog.

After sorting out what little I have, I know this particular project will be pretty quick and probably won't be including varieties or anything like that, mostly because I just don't have the material right now to worry about it. It will be pretty straight forward print and mount on Steiner pages.

Here are the first 3 pages I have done right now.

Thanks Spain, hopefully I'll do as good a job of my story as you have of yours :)

French Morocco is one of my favorites though I start at the 1917 definitives. For only 3 pages you have a nice balance of stamps vs. spaces. Looks very neat.

I noticed most stamps you've mounted are used. Does it ever bug you (or anyone else reading this thread) to mix mint and used? As collectors we all strive for some level of uniformity so I've often wondered about this.

In principle, I prefer not to mix them (and old vendors of loose-leaf albums sternly deprecated the practice, thus helping their sales). In practice, it rather depends on the country and the number of stamps I have. Whilst I arrange stamps differently from spain, I also generally fill up the page with what I have, mint or used. If I get enough of either, I'll then make a second page and separate them.

I've never really had a problem with mixing used and unused on the same page. This is how I collected as a kid and it just stayed with me. However, when I was specializing in just a few countries, I tried to collect a used and unused example of everything. I even made my pages to accommodate both, either side by side or on top of each other, depending on the orientation of the stamp. I tried to put the unused example on top of the used one, or to the left of the used one. I really liked that approach since you get the best of both worlds on the same page.

But, collecting the entire world I have to be more accepting of whatever comes along and be happy if I can even complete a page or set. I guess ideally you could have an entire collection of unused and one of used stamps, but again, collecting the entire world kind of shoots that idea down.

I do leave myself open to upgrading from used to unused, if the opportunity arises. I just don't have the space, or money, to be able to collect everything in every form. Having said that, I kind of like GeoffHa's idea of using what you have until you can make another page for either used or unused. I guess there is no need to try to do it all at once, but being opportunistic and just making a new page as needed might be something I would consider.

Unfortunately for me, many of these smaller collecting areas, like French Morocco, I don't have a great deal of material to choose from. So for now, I mix and match and just enjoy the journey.

Most worldwide collections that I have seen mix both mint and used .

floortrader - I believe this to be true as well. The vast majority of "country collections, on pages" that you see on places like ebay, consist of both mint and used.

I personally prefer used, but will used mint as placeholders until I find a used copy.

I know of at least 2 stamps that will be impossible to find used so mint will have to suffice there:

spain - this is generally what I do. The first couple below are printed pages (I didn't actually buy two lots of these ruinously expensive things new!); the second, my more standard quadrille. If I were doing this from my present accumulated experience, I'd probably mount the used set on the back of the previous album page, so that used and mint faced one another (with interleaving intervening). With A4 pages from the web, you could achieve the same effect with page protectors.