A General Question To Worldwide Collectors. How Do You Do It?

I always enjoy looking at worldwide collections here. I've been collecting for a long time and have tried a number of times to make a worldwide collection. By "worldwide" I mean a nice representation of stamps (subjective) from all or most of the major stamp issuing countries. I've crashed and burned every time I set out on this venture.

My question is not about time, money or access to material but rather, I guess, attitude. There are some philatelically interesting and complex countries that I simply have no desire to collect. With some other countries I do start to collect, I begin by obtaining a nice, basic country collection. I re-catalog and re-mount the collection. After that, I have no interest to dig deeper or fill in the gaps.

I don't think it is attention deficit disorder because if it is a country/area that I am really interested in, I'll take a deep dive into the rabbit hole. For example, I'm interested in Germany. I wanted to improve my Soviet Occupied Germany collection (SBZ). I found a good source of SBZ material. Long story short, I ended up with a 1 ½ in. binder of SBZ that I collected to the level of gum and paper type.

I'm satisfied with the way I collect and I have plenty of countries to keep me occupied well into my dotage. I am just curious how worldwide collectors approach their collections. I would enjoy reading any comments or observations from you true worldwide collectors.

Dan

Hi Don!

It sounds like you are dating your first girlfriend. Not in any maturity measure, but in a "I am going to learn something about myself" kind of way.

It sounds like you love the IDEA of collecting worldwide, but you don't really LOVE collecting worldwide. (The analogy: one who is in love with being in love, but who is just not in love with the person he/she is dating) If it doesn't really press all your buttons, then let it go and find out what does press the buttons. There is nothing wrong with collecting multiple, seemingly unrelated, areas in philately. Lots of people do that. There are people that collect only one thing, and are as serious as any collector out there. There are also casual collectors that collect WW, but their level of commitment is less than the serious collector of a focused field. It all depends on your level of commitment - financially, timewise, and psychologically/emotionally. I would suggest that you find your fit and embrace it. If you like the 'deep dive', it'll be hard to collect it all, so choose a country or two and focus there, until it is time to focus elsewhere. Some guys marry their high school sweetheart and make it last a lifetime. Others have been married 5 times and are always looking for a sixth. Figure out where you are on the spectrum, and simply embrace it.

mootermutt987,

I'm completely satisfied with what and how I collect. I tried worldwide collecting and it just wasn't my cup of tea.
I was just curious how worldwide collectors approach their collecting. Maybe I should have titled the thread "the philosophy of worldwide collecting."
WW collectors have a different approach to collecting than I have and I am interested to learn what it is. Just intellectual curiosity.
Dan

When I came back to collecting after decades, I assumed I'd pick up where I left off - with a GB collection. In fact, as I picked up a few ancient albums on ebay, I decided to go further. Over the years, I picked up area and country auction lots, and got a fair spread of countries. I then decided I needed to cut back, so I've disposed of lots of stuff and now concentrate on France and the French area, chiefly because I like the country. I've retained a GB/Commonwealth collection, which isn't particularly distinguished!

It's really whatever you're drawn to. When I started collecting as a kid, I got both a beginner's U.S. and worldwide album and while I did put some WW stamps into the latter, it never really interested me that much. I focused on U.S. and while later in life, I added some other countries, I still don't have the drive to go full worldwide. There's just nothing that attracts me to it so I don't do it. YMMV.

Jack of all trades and master of none is apropos for most WW stamp collecting. Mastering none is just fine. The hobby is all about defining your own pleasure. For someone that needs to complete something a WW collection can be an exercise in frustration. I tackled WW and found it drove me bonkers because I knew that it would never be finalized. I collected US and realized that I would always be missing many stamps due to financial realities. I currently collect a defined period, 1918-1958 of Russia and finally feel at ease. I really enjoy it and it is finished for all intents and purposes. I am expanding into postal history and varieties, fleshing it out, and it has become a very satisfying endeavor.

Really though a collection reflects a personality in many ways. Let your freak flag fly and have fun with whatever you like.

I sometimes start to worry if I think too much about what I am collecting and to what depth I should go. I have tried to release myself from the desire to complete sets, years, even countries. I just collect for fun and am happy to have incomplete sections. It is just my hobby and so I can pick it up and drop as I wish. Storage is a problem I think, and so is how to present material. I think we all start out with a general WW collection when young, develop into a single country collector, then specialize within that, then suddenly want to release ourselves and enjoy stamps as when we were young and go WW. I suspect we all go down the route of Hungry first (lovely stamps and affordable) then Cuba perhaps and we are off. I have always wanted to have a collection of the most aesthetic stamps, so I could just enjoy their beauty regardless of value or origin. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it could be an interesting idea.

Unless you have unlimited time and a great deal of money, you have to set limits.

My impression is that most people who have been collecting for more than a few years tend to ignore the recent (1990-present), desperate flood of stamps from around the world...unless they are collectors of only one country's issues.

Iused to look at my dads collection of GB stamps mounted on handwritten pages and think it was almost complete 1840 to the 1967. later when I collected I realised he recognised how far he could go or wanted to go with sets and varieties and mounted them without gaps. Only when I had been collecting a few years did I realise how "incomplete" his collection was, but it looked goood and it satisfied him.
I think with worldwide collections you need to realize you will never get near completion and decide where you are going, I know some guys who collect one country get so far then move on to another country, are they world wide collectors but concentrating on one country at a time?

I have two large, long boxes, that hold A4 envelopes.
Box 1 is "Stamps to scan"
Box 2 is "To Go to Album"

Each box has an envelope that covers every country in the world.

As stamps come in (swaps and boxes of stamps from auctions)
they are sorted into box 1

When the mood strikes, I take an envelope out of Box 1
Scan the stamps, and place in envelope in box 2

Today is SENEGAL

If envelope in box 2, has enough stamps, I take out and mount on Steiner Pages.

Fairly simple really, completion is not entertained
however a completed page, from any country, is a nice event.

Rod - How do you track what you have?

Personally, not avoided, but not actively sought.
If they arrive, (swaps?) they are scanned and Identified.

But therein the problem, Steiner pages not available
or useless to mount just 1 stamp on a page
So they lay dormant in a page titled for example "Hungary 2017 stamps."

Every stamp is scanned and Identified
the image then placed in its place in a Directory Folder tree

XYPlorer Windows file manager can pick any stamp from 1 million stamps
in a few seconds.

The accuracy of the above depends on the text string entered when identifying. Time prevents input to mainly Country, year and value tablet.
With China I also include Scott "Type" which brings up a sub set
of the hundreds of similar stamps overprinted or surcharged.

Example Directory Folder Tree

It may be added, to alleviate the thought this is a labour intensive
routine, there are some tricks, amongst them are...

1. Employing an EPSON perfection scanner, with the ability to draw carousels around stamps on the platen, then clicking "scan", whereupon, one can make a cuppa, and a slice of toast, whilst it does its work.
Up to 40 stamps in a session.

2. SCF member "PostmasterGS" Free "Stampfix" which captures each stamp
from a scanned image, isolates it, deskews it, and sends the result back to the folder.

3. XYPlorer can, and will, auto fill a group of stamps, with any text string, and add a suffix automatically.
One only then needs to alter Catalogue number and Value, when typing.

If the need was there, I think perhaps 150 stamps in an hour, would not be unreasonable.

Quite the impressive system Rod.

-Lance

Cheers Lance.

Like anything, it was not without teething problems
(Like over a 10 year period)

Things changed drastically with the advent of "Stampfix"
and best of all "XYPlorer"

The biggest pain was for a Worldwide collector, when a bunch of stamps arrive, how does one know what stamps one already has?
That was tedious and frankly bordering on madness.

Take out the album, flick through pages, looking for spaces...Ugh!

Now, with XYPlorer's powerful folder search, one can type in the value tablet, and have a subset of every stamp in that country, with that value, one has.

With the text string "Surcharge" I can get every Chinese PRC and ROC surcharged stamp in 1 click.

With the text string "Dove" I can get every stamp with a dove on it
in the whole world, in 1 click.

..provided I have scanned it, and have inserted the appropriate text.
Collecting has returned to "fun"