Big Blue Collecting- A Quandary

I was interested. I read it all the way through.

Drew wrote: "the regular binders are too big for me to handle comfortably...." And a full 4" Jumbo binder will be heavy. I'm particularly careful with my 4 inchers.

Only slightly negative observation would be about putting everything in chronological order, as in semi-postals, airmails, etc. The Minkus catalogues did that, which I have found irritating when I've bought collections on Minkus pages. I like having the B-O-B separate by category.

Over the upcoming holidays, I'll be completely re-doing my collection of Poland. Not sure yet of the plan, but know for sure the Part 1 International pages won't be used. So, many blank pages, a combination of Subway G & K, and trimmed down blank Specialty pages will be utilized.

I appreciated all the helpful input, thanks guys.

My plan for now is to leave volume one as a separate entity and then to collate the rest. I just bought a volume 7 to take coverage to mid 1971. I have a large general Russian collection that will be remaining on Specialty pages so not having the Russia pages in the mix for the Internationals will save some binder space.

Interesting to see how each collector does it different ,people do what works for them .

What works for one guy, doesn't work for the other, and the third guy is doing something else altogether. That's why they make chocolate, vanilla, AND strawberry. And why Baskin Robbins has 28 other flavors.

This is a 'bump' from an older topic. But one that I found interesting. I thought there may be other collectors, who may be new to this forum, or who like me may not search through older posts. It took me a few months of random viewing to realize that there are older posts. Anyway, some of the older posts such as this one I find interesting as I can relate well to what other collectors go through as collection grows.

Years ago, I just collected US, then I added world collecting. I found got more bang for my buck, and it is great fun to search a collection rather than just getting individual items as I do for US. So, I bought a Big Blue 1840-1940 2 volume set. As time passed, I too became frustrated with the Big Blue not having spaces for many stamps and the printing of small countries on backs of other countries in a really mixed-up order. It got so frustrating for me that I felt I had to change or quit collecting the world.

My Big Blue Collecting solution was to switch to Scott specialty pages and binders. Only thing I will say is that when I merged my Big Blue stamps to specialty pages, the collection looked empty compared to being in the Big Blue. But it's a fun thing to work on.

My main reasoning for this taking this route was I was too lazy and/or busy to make all the pages needed for all countries in the world. I tried for a short time but gave up. For me, the Scott specialty series have spaces for all stamps regularly issued, they were readily available used, I could add extra pages for additional stamps or covers, and they lined up with the catalog I used. Although I didn't like the 2-post binder much it was doable. How I got here is below.

I started by buying a cheap used non-US specialty collection (less than $30) at a show and liked it. I started the change with British and liked it so well thought I would try the world. I merged my Big Blue stamps into the 'new' binders and used the Big Blue for a duplicated backup collection. So now I was after not just stamps but albums as well.

But as I bought, my collection stop date expanded to stop at 1960. I had to make enough space but OK so far. At that time, I held to my self-imposed rule to stop at 1960, by selling all stamps and pages that went beyond 1960. It took several years but eventually I got all but 3 countries to 1960 and those 3 went to 1950s. Then I inherited my dad's collection in Big Blues which went to 1965. Then I wish I had not sold all those post 1960 pages, binders and stamps!

I actively pursue to 1965. But to get a collection to this date, it seems I end up buying a collection to later dates. I end up with pages and stamps up to
1970s- 1980s. I'm now out of space and may have to sell back down to 1965. So, I try not to buy worldwide past 1980s and keep my US below 2011.

I do have a lot of admiration for whole world collectors.

Their patience levels far exceed my own!

Thinkstamps ----- You may want to look at Steiner pages ,it keeps the bulk down and your bookcases are not loaded down with tons of blank pages . Print just what you need .

The collection I have, with pages from parts I through VIII was originally collated. I preferred to separate part I early and wound up removing everything and remounting to Steiner. The rest of the pages are't really like the parts you might buy today, rather they are various versions of parts 2, 3, 4, and 5, and then yearly supplements after that. I have some of the original cover pages for the supplements. My binders are pre-labelled with Part II, Part III, etc. through Part VIII, two of each in some cases, and so I decided to reorganize the pages into the Parts, to fit the binders. Parts 5 and 5A are simply Part V for me, as are 6 and 6A being Part VI. I must admit this was challenging because I couldn't always tell if a page at the end of one part was really a beginning page for the next. Overall, I am happier with this approach.

Interesting resurrection thread. I just recently turned my Big Blue volumes I-IV (to 1959) into I by itself and II-IV re-sorted by country. There were only a few cases where II-IV didnt' fit together right, all in BOB areas. The later volumes waste a lot of space on BOB to let them combine across volumes, lots of countries with 2 semi-postal stamps on a page, for example.

Vol I is my focus, and the pages just don't want to be split by country. Opening II-IV separately when going through a country was just too much.

My goal is a single example for each series, and I am a long long way away from that. All additions go in Hawid mounts, I just like how they look in the album better in mounts. My versions are old round hole 2-posters. I made my own spacers out of 2mm craft foam, a project all in itself.

Hello, 'Tiger Dude'.

Each to their own liking, but something you may want to consider in the mounting of items in mounts over long term is expense. I once thought as you, I too liked appearance of a mount. But over time (years), I found that cost for new mounts gets expensive. Also for me using a black backed mount here and there on a page as I filled the page in, detracted rather than improved eye appeal and worse yet, for me, was having an empty black backed mount on a page.
My solution was to use clear Hawid mounts only on items with higher value or NH items in my pre 1960 era. The rest I use hinges.

If one day you should decide to expand, as my collection has, past 1960, try to buy collections with mounts. I purchase country collections and most times they already have mounts for many post 1960 era stamps. The collectors used mainly black backed which was OK as long as they covered the whole page. But I sure would not want to buy all those mounts new! Especially if stamps only had a catalog value of 25cents and/or a real value of less than a cent!

I found that cost for one stamp in one mount cut from a 26 mm strip is about 5 cents. If you get to 100,000+ stamps that's a lot of nickels.

Just a thought.