Pushing 330,000 All Different Worldwide Stamps In One Collection .

Makes a lot of sense. I'm a bit of a completionist myself and find that crossing items off the list is part of the fun - I even have custom software that tells me what percentage of the world I have complete for both my Blue International collection as well as classic worldwide, down to the country - but there's something nice about allowing a collection to just expand in whichever direction the wind blows, too.

GVOL 21 ---As you said ,whichever direction the wind blows . My direction and purchases go in the direction other collectors ignore like building collections in China Liberated areas , French Offices in China , Black Flag Republic , The New Republic, Tibet ,All the Italian Occupations , Italian Trieste , and many others that most collectors miss or have nothing to show . That is how I decided to direct my collecting .

Look at the great collections of the past 130 years ago these were guys who had millions of dollars to spend on stamps and what do you see ? When their collections sold their collections had U.S.,Great Britain, Germany France ,Cape of Good Hope ,Mauritius and British Guiana ,they had certain countries between themself's .

One of the joys of collecting stamps .

Is the making of your own collection,it is the adding anything you want to it ,there is no right way to this . Here is one of a thousand pages that doesn't fit into pre-printed pages that I have and hope to add another thousand self-design pages ,with stuff I enjoy putting together

The other thing about "the missing stamps" is that they loom large when you're putting away stamps from a particular country, but then you forget the gaps when you're putting away move on to another country - plus they're often beyond your means.

GeoffHa ----- Each collector has to make their own decision where they want to go with their collection . I never had much money growing up and buying expensive stamps was not something to go after .

Going to stamp auctions around Chicago and spending many hours viewing other people's collections during viewing days prior to the auction a person can develop a good understanding of what is being collected and what is out there . It doesn't change that much year to year . So with out a pocket full of money and commonalty of those collections . Wanted to have something different .

Cont. ---- My big pet peeve is the sloppy way other collectors keep their collection and not maintain a due dilligence for neatness .

I remember the first few visits to a establish Stamp Club and bring my $1.00 stamp album full of the kind of stamps you find in cheap mixture boxes . It was a lot of positive comments from those who sat next to me , until it got to the end of the three tables placed end to end . There sat a German collector who was a retired old fart . With a loud voice so everybody could hear said " Nothing here and just worthless stamps ".

That was like a bolt of lighting into my heart . Never forgot that .

Danzig ---Always a favorite of mine .

Iraq is one of those countries where very few Worldwide Collections ever have a good showing .

We are seeing a new trend developing in the stamp collecting hobby .

This trend in stamp collecting is the making of your own set of albums . Each person has their own way of doing it but starting to see patterns develop. I see with ANGORE here ,under the chapter about Scott vol 1 , he states he is trimming down Scott album pages ,which I am doing also . Then you look at the Kelleher Collections sale of the $109,000 Worldwide Collection that recently sold at auction . What do you see here is a book case of three ring binders with cut down album pages from both major album suppliers the Scott pages and the S.G. Supreme albums .
So your seeing three ring binders with different combinations of regular notebook size blank pages , Scott both International pages and Specality pages ,then the Steiner pages, also the S.G. worldwide pages .Each collector doing trimming of pages to fit a 3 ring binder .

Each collector doing their set up .

It is a interesting trend and believe we are going away from the large ,bulky albums especially as prices increase and storage space becomes a issue .

Why some collections will NEVER be near completion. There is always something new to add .
The goal is never to finish ,but to see how far one can go down the path of a Worldwide Collection .

Over time, I've come to appreciate used stamps more and more. It looks like those Iraq ones were on actual mail and are lighter than ones with gum :)

"So your seeing three ring binders with different combinations of regular notebook size blank pages , Scott both International pages and Specality pages ,then the Steiner pages, also the S.G. worldwide pages .Each collector doing trimming of pages to fit a 3 ring binder ." - I suspect that is because of how one buys at auction. If you buy large mounted collections why go through the expense of remounting again.