What's Your Guilty Pleasure, Philatelically Speaking?

As I browsed through the forum this evening, an idea popped into my head about an interesting topic. I thought it would be fun to discuss the range of our individual collecting tastes, from serious to frivolous.

In my case, I am a dedicated and ardent collector of MNH WW definitives. I go for complete sets, as well as perf varieties, shades, paper differences, and other standard varieties.

That said, I started a collection of Dinosaurs on Stamps back in 1978 and while I doubt I will ever have (or aspire to) a complete collection given the explosion of Dinosaur-topic stamps in the 1990s and beyond, I love these stamps as guilty pleasures. Dinosaur stamps are loaded with scientific inaccuracies, lack value (in most cases), are often poorly executed, and they are largely frivolous and exploitative. Heck, many creatures featured on "Dinosaur" stamps aren't even Dinosaurs- but I could care less.

I can also say that Fish and Shells stamps are guilty pleasures but I have not pursued them in the way I have pursued Dinosaur stamps.

So, what's your philatelic guilty pleasure?

I guess that my guilty pleasures are coral reefs and tropical fish on stamps. Although my health has curtailed my activities recently, I've been a SCUBA diver for 35 years and these stamps appeal to me in that respect.

Building that one last decent Worldwide Collection . There has been many great and more expensive collections in history,but how far can I go by myself in the comprehensive area .

According to my wife, my entire collection is a frivolous, guilty pleasure. From my perspective: Woodpeckers on stamps and Mushrooms on stamps. These are pretty similar to the dinosaurs mentioned above: lots of CTO, parts of oversized bird/mixed sets from 90's and beyond, etc. My wife is a mycologist and birding is another hobby of mine.

As a serious collector, I focus on Nepal, Greece, Czechoslovakia and Europa 1961.

Dogs in space! And Many stamps of the DDR, I collect mint, postally used and CTO, not so bad.... except there are 2 or more types of the CTO on many issues, and that I am guilty of collecting! Europa locals too! Of course these are all parts of my grand WW collection (mainly sorted by country)!

Also an excessive amount of Bhutan!

Railroad locomotives on stamps (not trains, just locomotives).
Also, warships on stamps (not any warship, but the big ones like battleships and cruisers).

Robert

Coastwatcher and Trainwreck- what are your "serious" collecting interests?

For me it's the hunt, I love buying and then exploring collections or boxes, I have always been attracted to the treasure hunt.

Scandinavian definitives
Great Britain Machins and Wildings
Worldwide classics
Iceland Tollur cancels
Hungary three-hole punches
I've taken a break from U.S. revenues at the moment
Germany
Germany used in Austria and Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland) 1938-1945
United States
Canada
there may be more
Russia also
and precancels from U.S., Canada, France, Belgium
and Belgium "-10%" surcharges
and items from my hometowns (my philatelic nostalgia collections)

"Buying and then exploring collections or boxes" Ken, you would be in Heaven going thru my collection .

Machins all day long!

I would say mine is anything postal from my small town (population 3,000) or surrounding township here in SW Ontario. Really a side interest as otherwise not very interested in postal history. Covers, postcards, postmarks. Not a lot to be found as you can imagine, so it's a fairly cheap diversion as well, which I like!

'
Hey, there's a bunch of them !@#$%!

Multiples are my Peter-Pan-never-gonna-grow-up guilty pleasure.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Miniature Postcards, Tiny Covers, Smallest Post Offices, Western NC postal history, North American Christmas Seals, HPO stuff, control perfins (and psst... US cut squares, but don't tell anyone).
Don

US cut squares?

Dear G-d, Don, next thing you're going to tell us that you are buying the new issues, cutting them down, and hingeing them.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey