Stamp Collecting Is Now 3 Seperate Hobbies

I started collecting around 1970 and 'got' my grandfather's collection a few years later, which really got me going. He died in 1964, and his collection ended there. I was looking at the USPS pumping out stamps, and many PB's were starting to be PB's of 20, and I simply couldn't afford all that. I decided then to limit my collecting to the timeline that had been set years earlier by my grandfather. So... I collect USA up to 1964 and that's it. I've only got a handful of things after that time.

About 20 years ago, I bought a WW collection in Big Blue Internationals at auction. They went to 1975/1976. Again, I went with what was 'given' to me - I collect WW up to 1976.

Putting an end-date on collecting stamps makes it much easier. My Want List never gets any bigger. Well, it does (I can never get enough USA 1847's or 1851's), but for the sake of this post it doesn't. Once you 'accept' your collecting 'fate', life is a lot less stressful. If I collected to the present day (and THAT is a moving target), I can imagine I would have to spend a MAJOR portion of my income simply to not lose ground. As it is, I spend a MAJOR portion of my income, but it is filling in spaces before my end-dates.

I also enjoy collecting 'dead' countries - there is a finish line. I suppose I could start pursuing Iceland now. RIP, Icelandic postal issues.

Mooter, I have a question. And certainly I hope many others can provide opinions as well. There have been discussions in the forum recently about how most large, multi-album collections have more or less the same material. In other words, if one bought 3 WW collections, there would be a lot of overlap of the more common issues.

Since the scarcer, more expensive stamps will be the ones missing, how do you go about adding material to a collection like yours? Of course it's understood that some lower values will be faulty and in need of replacement.

I learned about the law of diminishing returns many years ago. I used to buy WW collections until I realized I would only get a couple 100 stamps out of a collection of many 1000's. I figured I needed to get more focused with my purchases, so I started buying country collections. At least with country collections, there is usually a good enough description to have an idea of what spaces it could fill. I rarely buy a 2nd collection of the same country - a 2nd one means (to me, anyway) that I either made a mistake with the 1st one (not enough coverage) or I am going to make a mistake with the 2nd (spending a lot of $$$ to only fill a relatively few spaces). At that point, it is time for me to be looking for individual stamps/sets. Depending on the country, I am at either Stap 2 or Step 3 now.

I actually have a small problem - I have a bunch of very common stamps missing from countries that I have bought my one and only country collection. So, like you say, shermae, even though there is great overlap of common stamps in multiple WW or same-country collections, there are exceptions to that rule. Think about it - no WW collection has ALL the common stamps - a good one may be, say, 95% complete, which means I am now missing 5% of the commons. The exceptions are minor, and not worth buying another WW or country collection to snag those few commons. So, what to do? I am not very well going on to ebay or Hipstamp to find 25c stamps being sold individually. Find a couple of 25c stamps (for 25c to 50c apiece), add $1 for P&H, and it gets ridiculous. Multiply that 'overpayment' by the many 100's (or 1000's) of commons that are missing, and we really are talking about real money. I COULD go to stamp shows and dig through dealer collections and pick out those that I am missing. Another option is to find trading buddies. At this point in my life, I don't really have time for that. I will retire in 6 or 7 years - that may be the time to do that. For now, I buy country collections and slightly better sets/stamps online. That satisfies my collection 'needs'.

@mootermutt987: you raise good points, but there are always exceptions. One suggestion first: for those common, but hard to find, stamps, have you tried doing a want list with a dealer? There are a number of dealers with really broad-based worldwide stocks. I've gone that route some, and plan to add to it this month as I have time. To find them, do a browser inquiry for some of the big name shows from 2018 and 2019, like WESTPEX and others. Or visit the virtual APS show schedule from this past August.

What may appear common to a worldwide collector like you; and like I used to be; may not be really common. My best example is the 1914-1926 Ceres issues of the Portuguese colonies. 13 different colonies and districts issued at least one set of the Ceres. The lower values are pretty ubiquitous in virtually all world wide collections. I see your point about not wanting to buy another world wide collection with more of those "common" Ceres stamps.

However, would your mind change if you knew there are around 350 documented printing plate flaws on those Ceres issues? Or that there are a myriad of shades; as well as printing "mishaps," separate from the plate flaws? As a hint, the stamps had to go through the printing press a second time to place the country name & denomination.

You bring up a serious issue that has been discussed many times . The first problem is nobody knows which stamps are common and which stamp are difficult and which are rare . Sure everybody here can point out a few items here and there .....but who has a list of those that fit the Scott Internationals that are almost never found in general lots .Add to that collectors want them at 2 cents each.

The second problem is no dealer wants to carry a huge inventory of cheap stamps to satisfy buyers who want to buy $5.00 worth of stamps and complane over condition that they received .

Also there are stamps that have a value so low that postage and shippings kills the deal .

Yes, finding the common issues can be a real headache. I am going through that now with my Russia collection (1918-1958). I can lay my hands on multiple sets of the really good 1930's big dollar sets but the sets and singles that are a few bucks can be really hard to locate and nobody wants to list them and if they do the shipping kills the deal. You can buy year sets but you lose control of quality and still end up with a lot of duplicates. This is where the brick and mortar shops came in back in the day.

It's just as much work to list online a stamp for 50 cents as for $5, $10, etc. As someone who sells a fair amount of classic worldwide singles, it's a no brainer choosing which one I'll list in that case... Unfortunately it does lead to the situation where you do end up with remaindered feeder albums full of those cheap singles/sets that are uneconomical to list, but someone out there probably wants them (at a very cheap price naturally).

~Greg

I find tracking down odd "very common but i've not got one in stock" stamps an interesting challenge. When I started I bought 2 Albums of GB stamps that had been cherry picked. Getting the desirable stuff is either practically impossible or merely a matter of paying for the thing. Penny blacks, 1840 tupenny blues are merely a matter of having a big enough wallet. the fun for me lies in finding I have only part of a set from the last 50 years and getting the remainder without buying another complete set. I enjoy going round dealers at a stamp show, browsing through "junk boxes" asking other collectors etc. I probably get more pleasure from getting my last dinosaur from a 1990s set than I do from paying £30.00 for a nice 10 shilling sea horse. It's all part of the same hobby, some parts are more appealing than others to different individuals. For me ordering complete sets from a dealer is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.

I guess the answer to finding those missing stamps is this .

A stamp business that has their own website and list every stamp in Scott order and price it at a percentage catalog on their website . You as a buyer have to give your credit card .All the stamps you buy each month are held to the end of the month and only one shipment is made each month with a $3.00 shipping fee . This frees you up to purchase 5 ,10 or a hundred items at 12 cents each or more and be billed once a month and you receive everything once a month for a flat fee ,if you buy over a certain amount then it is shipped insured with a flat fee of $6.00.

The firm would have employee that just list and others that pull items ,also catalog researchers ,plus a mailing staff .

Look at that collection Kelleher sold it was $600,000 and sold for $90,000 ,I am sure it had a lot of $1.00 to 50.00 stamps that could be sold for 1/3 of catalog in a online list .

Although I don't collect to build a collection on album pages, minor stamps are still sometimes an issue. Whenever possible I have collected complete sets. That said, sometimes sets pop up with a missing value or 2, or have values with flaws. Sellers may heavily discount such a set so I give in to the temptation of completing it on my own. Most times I am successful, but it can take time to find some of these stamps.

Other times, Scott lists a set that was issued over many years. An example is the Argentina pictorial definitive set issued between 1935 and 1951. 16 years! It is essentially impossible to find such a set complete, so one has no choice but to try to put together the complete set. Most of the time I can find the key values or groups of key values fairly easily. The tough ones, aside from perf, shade, watermark, paper, and die variations, are frequently the lower priced singles.

In the end, I have begun to consider buying needed items as long as the shipping costs are relatively reasonable. Certainly a 50 cent stamp with $2 of shipping isn't an ideal value proposition. But in the end, will I miss the 2 bucks if I can more quickly complete a set? Don't know, but when I find something like this I look through the sellers stock to see if I can buy a few items and lessen the pain of shipping cost.

I want to pick up one sentence from shermae:




Overhead costs: I went to APS's Stampshow a number of years ago and spent $100 on philatelic material. My costs for gas, parking, lodging, food, etc., came to $200. Did I get any bargains?

How far can I drive today for a 50 cent stamp versus having it show up in my mailbox for a buck or two in postage?

Maybe I should clarify on my comment a bit. I don't believe it is worth it for a dealer to list 25c stamps, each with the associated research, check for faults, listing fees, the time to pull each stamp, and packaging time/fees. I am a HUGE believer that a stamp dealer has every right to make a profit - I contend that maintaining a large stock of 25c stamps is probably not profitable. As my collection progresses, I have morphed my behavior into other facets of collecting, and I don't expect that to stop now. Whether someone charges me 25c or 35c for a 25c SCV stamp doesn't concern me in the least. I just cannot justify in my head spending $3-$5 (folding in postage and handling) for a couple of 25c stamps. It's not that I am cheap (I have plenty of $$$, and am more than willing to spend it), but it is more that it simply jars my sensibilities. If it were simply a few dozen stamps, this wouldn't be a problem, but there are 100's or 1000's of this type of stamp. This is simply the 'force' that will cause me to change my behavior. I think my path forward is to do what so many others in our hobby do, and start/join a trading network. Another way is to start attending more stamp shows. When I was young, I went to every stamp show I could, and had a ball spending 5 hours digging through the 5c or 10c bins and spending $5. I haven't done that in 30 or 40 years, and my 'predicament' may cause me to do that again. This predicament may be an opportunity rather than a problem.

If it were about the money, believe me, I have made much bigger mistakes than spending $3 on a 25c stamp. It doesn't take too many $1000 stamps that I will only get $800 back on to make a pile of 25c-for-$3 stamps be a very minor issue. If I were in this for the money, I wouldn't be in this.

In my opinion if there was a feasible market niche for the 'common-but-scarce' stamps/covers it would be filled. Obviously this topic is not new nor unique; it is not like no one has ever considered trying to fill this niche. If the material is truly scarce and there is demand, than the marketplace would certainly react (with increased values and/or increased attention). So one of two things must be true; either the material is not truly scare or the demand is not large enough to impact the values.

The flip side of this coin is also true; there are endless amounts of material that is truly scarce that is available for very little money. I have at least 50 examples of HPO covers which are truly scare (single digit known examples) yet the demand is so low that they are worth less a few dollars.

This makes me think the issue here is about the demand-side of things.
Don

Living in a country town, this is so pertinent.
Groceries, one is better off paying the local premium.

Other items, one has to maintain a list of "wants" to offset the cost of fuel, meals and drinks.
For me a 450Km round city trip, costs $50 fuel and $20 in meals.

If I spend $500 to travel to a great fishing river but do not catch anything, did I get anything of value? It is not clear to me that reducing this to dollars and cents is what it is all about. For me, the experience has value too (and in fact the experience is much more meaningful to me since I have cut back on purchases over the last 5 years due to my medical death sentence).
Don