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

$1000+ for a box of hinges?

To quote you, floortrader, and from this collector's perspective only,

"great way to spend and waste money"



Dale

That box of 50 hinges can hinge 50,000 stamps... Or 100,000 if one cuts them in half. To mount 100K stamps, one could get bulk mounts of maybe 200 for $20 (the better ones might cost more) So maybe $10,000 to put those stamps in mounts.

landoquakes,

I do understand the economics of it, and if I were a hinge guy I'd be drooling over the thought of so many Dennisons.

And if I had the money to invest, a box of those would yield a nice profit in short order.

My own preference is for clear mounts on a nice album page. Unfortunately a nerve issue in my left arm (which is my dominant arm) currently makes mounts too difficult, so it's stockbooks/pages for me.

Dale

STATESMAN ---- If you look around ,you will see Dennison Hinges going for $30.00 to $33.00 a pack of 1,000 . ,so if 50 in a box comes up for action at $20.00 a pack you can bet there is going to be a active bidding war . The last box I purchased was $860.00 and 30 pack were sold at above $30.00 ,leaving me 20 packs which was for my usage ..

Look I am shocked at these prices as a lot of others ,I thought $12.00 was the most anyone would pay . Then it was crazy to see others paying going up to $18.00 a pack ,so where are we now above $30.00 with no boxes for sale for close to a year .What can I say now when I posted here that $12.00 was to much for a 25 cent pack of hinges .

The good news is that I've had good success with just about any hinge that is at least 40 years old. There's a clunker once in a while so it is good to test them. Even the hinges in cheap stamp kits they used to sell in the 70s are really good! I've taken apart many kits ditched the stamps, and saved those valuable hinges ;)

Yes, good hinges are valuable. I once got a stamp collection and the hinges (real Dennison's) packs as throw ins were worth more than the collection itself.

good hinges are so valuable you might as well use a stamp mount.

Another thing that I have been thinking of. If one spends or averages 100 dollars on 200 of the major countries with real postage stamps in the world - not sticker stamps or fake collectibles, you will spend 20,000 dollars on the collection.

Green dragon ----- That is exactly how you build a large Worldwide Collection .

The key is to have a long term plan ,that takes years to reach your goal . Steady purchasing over a decade or more likely over many decades .

Remember back in the 1950's and 1960's , it was buying W.W. mixture lots , then to fill out the album and get stamps on every page it needed a collector to buy those 10 cents or 25 cents packet. Then as you grew it was buying those huge $1.00 country packets of stamps at that level you were passing the other kids in the neighborhood .

Spending a $1.00 a country put you up as a serious Philatelist

At that point ,your ready to show your album around to friends and stamp clubs ,your in serious territory ,that was the time to do a serious count of you collection . Mine was 5,700 different stamps . My life time investment in stamps now exceed $40.00 . After that got a paperoute and started making $20.00 a month which means $10.00 for stamps a month . The rocket ship was ready to take off .

The plan to continue grew stronger and started to make serious mistakes about buying stamps and listening to other stamp club member . So mistakes were both costly and damaged my idea of honest stamp dealers ,was getting punched around and took a few bad blows {blows like $30.00 to $100.00 on stupid stuff that took me months to save and buy }. Had to clean that up and stay on the path to build what I want . So yes a rough time where many quit stamp collecting but as stated earlier my plan was long term

There was an interesting tidbit in the Grossman stamp album thread. A collector bought one of those 40,000 packets for $700 a long time ago. I've always wondered what was in those. A big upfront cost, but would fill those holes quick and since they were all mounted in books... a chance to reuse those hinges ;)

floortrader - I started listing countries out. Set date cutoffs.The goal is to avg about 1,000-2000 stamps per country with real postal systems (past or present) and real use of stamps. This cuts down on all the chaff.

Green Dragon --- Sounds like you got a long journey in front of you . A journey that I started 60 years ago .

Yes, floortrader you are ahead in your journey for sure.

Got a weekend at home ,so working on stamps .

Here is a set that you never see complete in 95% of collections . Not that expensive but just not common to find .

Green dragon ---- It is only because ,I put in the time and been at it since the 1960's .I have enjoyed the journey of building a worldwide collection .