My Worldwide Collection: An Ongoing Journey

Spain 1850, nice, love your style. Alot of work there.

Ireland - Thank you! I've never really looked at it as work though. This is just a lot of fun, and very stress relieving.

UPDATES!!!

I'm currently updating my Brazil album.

For reference, I originally started this Brazil album back in October of last year. Here is a quick link to my beginings:
https://goscf.com/t/63909&whichpage=4

I recently bought a small batch of older Brazil, and have been accumulating other Brazilian stamps along the way, which in turn has made it necessary to update my album.

Started with the Dom Pedro issues. My original page for the 1866 issues included spaces for 3 types of the 100r, as listed in Scott. Not sure why I did it this way, instead of going by the RHM listing. So I decided to re-tool the page.

Here is my original page, which includes the 1876-77 issues. The Scott cat. lists the 3 types as I, II, and III.


The RHM catalog shows 4 types and lists them as 1, 1a, 1b, and 2. So that is what I went with. I also included graphics, depicting the 4 types, at the top of the page. This required me to actually split the page into 2, which is fine as it leaves me room to add other stuff at a later time. These are the 2 pages created from the 1 old page. I was lucky enough to find examples of all 4 types among the group of stamps I am working on now. I also filled some other holes as well.



The 1878-79 page remained the same, but I was able to add a few more of the missing stamps., as well as upgrade a couple others.

Old page:

Updated page:


Also while working with the Dom Pedro issues, I wound up accumulating enough duplicates to create a separate page to show some of the many cork cancels that can be found on these issues.


Next up are the Southern Cross, Sugarloaf Mountain and Hermes head issues, of which I have quite a batch to get through.

Here are a couple more pages from Brazil. I never even included these in my original posts for Brazil, because I had so few of them. Most of these came from my recent purchase of early Brazil stamps.

Originally I just printed the Steiner page for these, but I realized the other day that one of the only stamps I had on the page (The 100 from the 1882-84 set) was actually placed wrong. I had it identified as the "small head" type, from 1881. The problem was that I didn't have any other copies to compare it with and separate the "small heads" from the "large heads".

Even though the Scott catalog states what the differences are, I still neede visual evidence. I set out Googling, looking for good images I could use as examples of both. I finally figured out that telling them apart ids actually pretty easy. Still, I wanted visual evidence on my album page.

On this page you can see I drew out a graphic depiction, using enlarged images of actual stamps, showing the main difference between the "small heads" and the "large heads". That being the lock of hair above the ear.


Unfortunately, I didn't find any of the small head types among my stash, so I will be needing to add them.

Anyway, this was sort of an experiment for me, and I will probably do other such things as I move along.

Keep up the awesome job (to me anyway) that your doing. Your motivating me to get mine done.

Hello!!!!!!

It looks like I may be back. I really had no idea it had been 5 years since I last posted here. But in my defense, the last 5 years or so have been hectic and with many events taking place, both bad and good. I'm sure many here can relate, but I will try to keep things stamp-related.

When I stopped posting I decided to try and make my own facebook page dedicated to my collection, similar to this forum, just to give it a try. It started getting to be too much to handle. I really was hoping for community interaction, but had to endure the constant posts of "how much is my collection/stamp worth", and other typical Facebook postings.

The reasons I initially left here are my own and don't care to go into detail.

I'll probably spend the next couple days going over this thread to see where I might have left off. I don't want to duplicate content if I intend to continue.

In a nutshell, it looks like the last update I made here, as far as where I am with my collecting goals is:

20,478 mounted/counted stamps (5 years ago)

Today I stand at 67,581, so a little over 47,000 added over the last 5 years.

I'm still having just as much fun as I was 5 years ago, with very little dropoff in my participation. There have been periods where things became a bit overwhelming for me, and I didn't do much, but I always made it a point to get back at it which helped with mental state at the time.

Lately, as in the last year or so, I have had very little extra stamp money due to the place I work going through a huge buyout. We're still being integrated with the new company, but with a skeleton crew. I use to work 40-50 hrs/wk pretty consistently. Over the last year it has dropped to about 32. Not much stamp collecting funds.

Good thing is I still have a ton of unprocessed material to get through, without having to buy anything. Even adding 40k stamps to the albums, it still feels like I am not even making a dent in the piles.

Right now I am busy printing pages and mounting stamps for Costa Rica. These will be my first NEW scans, when I get them mounted.

Carry on people.

Spain how do you typically acquire stamps to add to a rapidly growing collection?

shermae - The vast majority of what I currently have are from a lifetime of buying collections here and there, and never selling anything. Just sort of hoarding with no purpose.
When I finally decided to organize everything and mount them up, I had plenty to work with. Then, I made a couple larger buys (detailed in this thread, early on). Those were made with purpose and not just to hoard. Nowadays, I am content with buying more focused country collections, even better if they are heavy in oddball items (booklets, cancels, revenues...whatever), and the occasional small lot of interesting items.

Whereas I use to just buy everything I found, regardless of how cheap it might be, I now pass up many, many small, general collections. Most of the time, they are just duplicating what I have, so I don't worry about it.

As time wears on, I am more content with just working on what I already have. I am now coming to terms with the fact that my collection will outlast me and I may not even get through all my current inventory. While I am still keeping track of my counts, once I finally reach 100k, I will probably stop worrying about it as much. If I can maintain my interest, I now have enough information to be able to make educated guesses as to how many I have, based on average numbers of stamps added per month.

Hi Spain,

Welcome back!

I have recently been revisiting some old threads on various forums and reread this one just last week. I'm glad to see you've continued your journey. I look forward to seeing more from you.

Dale

Dale - Thank you!

So, while I am still working on Costa Rica, I can share some pages form some of the countries I have started since my last time here (in no particular order).

This is Algeria It is what I would refer to as a "base" collection, with a few misc items thrown in.

I actually put this country together in 2020. It seems to be one of the easier countries I've worked on. Most of what is on these pages is what I already had, I just had to get it sorted and organized. I did however, add a few pieces here and there by going to a couple stamp shows. Still a few spaces to fill for the earlier pages, but they don't seem to be too hard to find, and I'm not in that much of a hurry.

I do know that I have upgraded some items along the way, and these pages do NOT represent the status of the current pages, but it's probably close.

I have a good sized grouping of nice, readable cancels that I still need to address in some way.

For now, this will be a re-introduction on this thread. Mostly for me to re-familiarize myself with the uploading and posting process.

For anyone new, who might be reading this I generally use Steiner pages for my base album, and AlbumEasy for creating Steiner type pages, when I need to add content not covered by Steiner.

Enjoy everyone. I'll be resting tonight, as I just got my flu and covid vax, and I tend to feel yucky for a while afterwards.

Lovely!

John

Very nice! Eye candy!

Spain_1850,

I am really glad you came back. I never saw this thread 5 years ago, and so your posting to it bumped it to the top and I was able to read everything. You collect the same way I do, Steiner Pages with Album Easy pages to supplement it, so it is interesting to see what directions you went in to add additional pages. Over time, I have found I have less desire to keep creating more pages to handle the varieties that are not in the Steiner base pages, so I admire your perseverance. When I think about the work it would take to convert modern Japan to singles pages for all my used stamps, I feel overwhelmed, but I still am motivated to create pages for the stamps I really love.

johnsim03, OzwaldO - Thank you for the kind words.

StamperJD - I agree, in part. I too find I am having trouble justifying making a new page for 1 or 2 varieties. I am finding myself dropping into the old habit of just adding the variety to the base page.....somewhere, with a notation.
I also struggle with decisions on making pages for varieties if I am not familiar enough with the area. In the case where I have many varieties, or what I THINK are varieties, I set them aside for further investigation. There is a lot more specialized, free, information available on the internet nowadays.

Impromptu SHARE:
Found this Schermack strip while soaking some Washington Franklins, and I thought it was interesting.

I belieive it is a 482, a pretty common stamp. I've never really paid much attention to the Schermack listings in the Scott catalog, until I started soaking W-F's.

I am assuming the value columns reflect unused on the left and used on the right, as is common for Scott catalog.

However, what I am noticing is that the first listing, below`the catalog number and description, is for an "UNUSED PAIR"??

Do they not value these as singles? If not, why? Is it because they tend to be collected in pairs to highlight the perforations?

Also, the valuation for a used strip of 4 is almost double that for a guideline strip of 4. Why?

The picture I have included here is a strip of 4(6). There are actually 6 stamps that SHOULD make up this strip, Unfortunately, the 2 left hand stamps became detached during the soaking process, so it's technically a strip of 4 with reattached pair.

Anyway, any insights as to why these are valued so strangely in the catalog?

Still working on Costa Rica.

SIDE NOTES:

I've never really paid attention to which countries are my largest, as far as mounted stamps on Steiner pages, so I took a quick glance down my spreadsheet.

So far, Belgium leads the way with 2427, which includes separate pages for precancels, but no revenues or postal stationery mounted yet.
The smallest?
It's hard to tell because there are many minor/dead countries or Colony issues where I have less than 5 stamps. Not every country can be a winner I guess.

Not too long ago I found out that my main supplier for mounts has went belly up...... stampmountseconds.com, so while I am slowly burning up my supply I am always on the lookout for bulk lots, with not much luck right now. Still I trudge on..........

Looks like there will be yet another setback in my collecting journey.
Hit a deer this morning on the way to work. They'll probably total my truck, so that means I'll be looking for another vehicle and will be on the hook for a car payment for a while.
No stamp money for a while.

Man, I can't WAIT until I can retire and I don't have to do any more unnecessary driving.