Largest Number Of Stamps In A Collection ?

floortrader,

Have you ever considered scanning your collection and putting it online? It would be a massive amount of work, I'm sure, but would help those of us just getting going in worldwide to see what is possible with time and focus.

Dale

Statesman ----I have no interest to spend the rest of my life scanning pages and posting them on the internet . What is feeding my ego and interest right now is the crazy stuff going on in the STOCK MARKET . I bought that 5 POUND ORANGE as a reward for a good week .

My interest over the past few years have been to buy those countries and sets that most collectors don't have ,not the expensive stamps but those stamps that just seems to be missing in most worldwide collections . You and others would be surprised how many collections are missing the same stamps even the same cheap stamps, that gives me a challenge to find them. .

Floortrader wrote (quoting Kelleher): "they stated many of the better world wide collections usually have 4 or 5 strong countries, and then many naked countries or blank pages. Another problem is world wide collections lack powerful stamps and the stamps catalog only up to a certain level......plus the Scott's album series leaves out a lot of stamps" (I assume the last is a reference to the Big Blue International).

Well stated; the reason I gave up trying to collect world wide several years ago. For me, it was too little money being spread too thin. I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond; being able to concentrate the available money; than the opposite. As one example, I need 5 inexpensive postal tax stamps, and several ordinary paper 1914 Ceres issues, to have a complete collection of all major Scott numbers for Timor. The collection includes a good sprinkling of minor numbers; like the hard to find 27a now cataloging US $575 mint; plus errors, shades and other varieties. The Timor effort has been ongoing for 30+ years.

"I rather be a big fish in a small pond " understood .

I always wanted something different and enjoy putting it together . One of my early experiences was to receive the H.E. Harris BNA Catalog . At the back of that catalog was two sections that took my attention and refoucused my desire . One was the many bigger albums for sale ,these were huge books compared to what I seen at the local Woolworths or the local stamp store .
The second section was the worldwide listing of country collections that the firm offered for sale . Me as a young collector understood and purchased 25 French stamps for .25 cents or 5 Belgian Congo stamps for .25 cents at Woolworths or other 5 and 10 stores . But this catalog had stamp lots of 500 French stamps for $15.00 and even had a 10,000 different stamps for $200.00 which was amazing to read that someone could buy .

That is how I judged my collection , 12,000 stamps worth more than $200.00 . I was rich .

Then around 1968 ,I went to COMPEX ,the big stamp show in Chicago . Got talking to a stamp dealer who that day purchased a worldwide collection of 40,000 stamps for $8,000 . After seening that my goals expanded .

Now , 60 years later my goal is to go beyond everything I seen in the past and build that decent collection . Long time ago I by-past a lot of goals I set over time and continue to move my collection forward .

"Got talking to a stamp dealer who that day purchased a worldwide collection of 40,000 stamps for $8,000"

That is the equivalent of spending about $60,000 today. Most collectors (especially most young collectors) did/do not have anywhere close to that kind of money to spend on stamps at that time (or today).

Floortrader: "One of my early experiences was to receive the H.E. Harris BNA catalog......" I still have my 1965 pocket catalog, of US & BNA, somewhere. I also have my late father's copy from October, 1949. In that issue, U.S. #1 used cost $17.50!

Rev wrote: "that is the equivalent of spending about $60,000 today...." Several months ago, I figured up my philatelic expenditures for last year, motivated by a thread on the other SCF. In 2019, I spent $9,085 on stamps, based on analysis of the checkbook, and credit card receipts. Plus maybe another $1,500 for supplies, donations, subscriptions, and dues to specialist societies (I'm an APS life member, so what I give there is strictly donation). Not a ton of money by some standards, but perhaps more than many.

Happyness is being able to buy all the things that you wished for as a kid .

I remember taking my $2.00 or $3.00 in pocket change to John Ross Stamp Store and sitting there looking thru his stamp stock looking for the most valuable looking stamps I could buy . On the ride home on the train ,I would close my eyes and think of all the nice stamps I seen and hope that someday I could afford to buy more of them .

15 years late .

I walked into Cherrystone Stamp Auctions in New York City and there sat on a row of tables were those large black and blue binders. Dealers and collectors have looked at them for what to bid ...... I was going home with them ,it wasn't value of what they were worth .....it was that train ride home is what I was paying for .

"have been to buy those countries and sets that most collectors don't have, not the expensive stamps but those stamps that just seems to be missing in most worldwide collections . You and others would be surprised how many collections are missing the same stamps even the same cheap stamps, that gives me a challenge to find them".

Floortrader, could you give us one or two (or three) examples of what stamps you are talking about, Thanks -david

Sure Will , There has been a few discussions on-line about hard stamps to get to complete a Scott International part I . The agreement was to fill the pages for Cape Juby .
It took me three years to find and buy a decent collection of Cape Juby that would fill all the spots in the album.

I had Vince from the firm of Sandfryre of England tell me after looking over what I had that the material nobody has and rarely sees is what will bring the highest return when the time comes to sell . He said when it comes time to sell call him first ,that is the instructions I gave my daughters .

Here is another page or country I never seen in a Scott International Part I, again missing in most collections that I viewed at different auctions .

Thank you Floortrader, very illuminating

Will ---- There is all kinds of stuff that catch's my attention . Years ago I was at a stamp auction looking at what was coming up for auction .There was a airmail cover from Tibet ,I never heard of airmail from Tibet and the four or five people I asked the general view point was no such thing exist .

But this cover came with a certificate and was up for auction,I decide to go after it , because of two things first nobody heard of it and I got a airmail collection and then I was working on my Tibet ,so I got it .

Year later I purchased a book about Tibet stamps and postal history of the county . Sure enough there is one sentence in the book that says ,one cover was mailed airmail .