What's Your Guilty Pleasure, Philatelically Speaking?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing re Don collecting impressed stamps viciously excised from envelopes.

Sand Dunes. Some CTO countries made some very attractive stamps along the way in the 1950s - 1960s.

My serious interests are the US until 2000, Rhodesia 1890-1980, British Solomon Islands until 1978, British Virgin Islands until the present, French Polynesia until 2000, and German Third Reich stamps including occupation issues. Oh yes, and US postal cards.

My guilty pleasure is I collect cheap US minor errors, EFOs that are on ebay, purely based on aesthetic usually from non major dealers. I don't discriminate by classic or modern, or the type of error. But this is a low cost treasure seek of oddball stuff.


This is aside from the more valuable EFOs (color omits, and imperfs) I hone in, usually color errors first. I love US space issues and science stamps, with an emphasis on their minor catalog listings. (Tagging omitted, and harder to find stuff)

I collect worldwide, so I consider anything beyond stamps off-paper a guilty pleasure eg. postmarks, covers.

Occasionally I set aside an interesting postmark, or an envelope full of the same stamp which could be full of interesting postmarks...

Cheap mission, or genuinely used mixtures. Most collectors go for the obvious "high values" and don't bother with cancellations and varieties, in my experience. But, I enjoy trying to find out about obscure stuff...regardless of catalog value.

Business covers from my hometown of Utica, NY and environs .

Cinderellas (mainly, Catalan ones) and lately the Projuventute and Propatria Switzerland issues. Not too easy to find used at a good price.

Essays and proofs. I don't collect them as a primary focus, but they can be so attractive that sometimes I can't resist. I guess Roosevelt Album proofs especially - because of all the research I did on them http://stampsmarter.com/proof/Home_proofs.html. I have a few pages in the front of my US album of essays and proofs. It makes a nice introduction, but I'm never serious about them and only buy them once in a while when my guilty pleasure wins out.

Austro-Hungary cancels, they cover an amazingly diverse part of the globe. I guess the guilty pleasure side of it is I can occasionally look past the condition aspect of the stamp (pulled perfs, small thins, etc), if the cancel is clean and clear.

Having too many collections. USA, GB, KGVI Commonwealth, and worldwide. They keep me busy.

Jack Kelley

Oh, And my Machins! I just got a 2003 Deegam encyclopedia. It is in beautiful shape and looks brand new.

Jack

Jack, how deeply do you get into the KGVI definitives? A lot of Americans kind of skip over shades, papers, and plate flaws/varieties. I've never had the interest in plate flaws but really like all the other "basic" varieties.

It does not help that Scott does not cover KGVI to the degree as even the basic SG catalog.

Totally agree. And then some values attempt to blend scarce and common varieties so that the common variety is overpriced in Scott and the scarce variety isn't listed.