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

Just finish adding a stamp lot that was purchased at a known name stamp auction . The lot was a high catalog world wide lot of better stamps with none under $15.00 per item .

As with any W.W. lot a few were damaged and got a few that I just didn't want . The not wanted were heavy canceled or too off center that I just don't want to keep .

Was satisfied so maybe one or two more of the same.

Seen a posting here on this board ,that stamp dealers are raising their "pick your own " up to 10 cent per stamp . I remember many of the same stuff at 2 cent each in the 1970's,1980's and 1990's ,then when ebay came around many dealers pushed up the prices to 5 cents each . That is when I sold a lot of mixture boxes at that price . So if the 10 cents each for better stamps hold or becomes popular as a price point ,maybe I will sell more . Should add that stamps mounted in Worldwide albums have already reach this point a few years ago . Before you say anything negative ,trying to make it clear these are for better value stamps not the mess you find in bulk lots or bags of stamps but stamps that collectors have interest in .

I think the pick your own for $0.10 approach can be a good one, if you're willing to put in the time to hunt through stacks and boxes of albums at shows. Which for me is never a problem, since that's a lot of the fun. It's been a great way to pick up stuff in the $10-50 range.

gvol21 --- This 5 cents or now 10 cent level should not be a hindrance to anybody looking to find something to entertain themself's and build value .

Even in advance collections there is always interest to improve your cheap stamps and buy them to replace poorer copies .

Always working on to build my Worldwide Collection . It is a long road to travel ,it is never going to be completed . It is like chasing rabbits ,your never going to say FINALLY . So it is about the challenge just to see how far down the path I can go .

Floortrader - That's a very nice set you're showing. I have a question for you about your buying strategy: if you would have seen this set but only half the stamps were there, would you have bought it and tried to complete it at a later date or if you would have passed this lot waiting to get the complete set in the future and is your strategy changing when looking at a cheap series or a rather higher price like this series?

Mirman ----My goal has been to build a decent Worldwide Collection .

I started out the same as millions of other stamp collectors growing up . I had a 25 cents album in 1961 and hundreds of common stamps . My duplicates were growing much faster than my album of all different stamps .. So I had to change, the decision was to buy packets of stamps from different countries at the local department store at 10 cent each and a special treat at 25 cents envelope filled with treasures ,that the other kids didn't have .

I like to think the buying strategy I used at the age of 12 works for me at the age of 76 .

The 10 cent pick from an album definitely a big thing at shows here. I try to buy the whole page if I can, because otherwise, one winds up with another pile of stamps to deal with! I haven't seen those Somalia stamps in those albums, but finding a stamp that catalogues for $50 in those 10 cent picks is not unheard of. I used to take a dealer album home and get a bulk discount if you get 1,000 stamps or something like that. Then it could get down to 5 cents each still.

Mirman --- On your question of buying half or part of a set ,the answer is I don't buy incomplete sets as separate purchases . Broken sets are picked up in country collections or in those boxes that show up at the end of a stamp auction . What you don't see is the many thousands of broken sets that every collector has in our Worldwide Collections .
There is something "cool" about having a complete set , doesn't matter the cost or the value ,when you mount it on a album page it just looks "cool ". Trying to purchase stamps to fill out any set is lots of work and a increase expense that collectors don't need also the time suck makes that effort a killer .

Guess a $5.00 complete set will look nicer on a album page than a $20.00 set where half the stamps are missing .
Every collector should understand that .

On the subject of buying strategy . My purchase method is simple I buying a country collections ,lets say $800.00 dollars and at the same auction will purchase something to work on ,like a $300.00 misc. lot , so the $800.00 will take me a week or two of working on . Then it will take me 2 months to work the $300.00 lot and that will take me to the next stamp auction to buy this method all over again .
Enjoying myself and over 5 or 10 years the collection grows using this strategy .

zendo59 - still in the acquisition phase myself, so no lists for now.

The problem with incomplete sets as others have mentioned, but to reiterate, is that the dealer usually has them for sale as complete sets and thus won't break it up for you to complete your set. And buying it separately (assuming cheap to mid-tier) is the shipping cost. Creating complete sets is a challenge. Someone has to do it, and hopefully it will be someone else. And then I buy it from them :)

Happy to see that common collectible stamps have become better accepted to retail around the 10 cent level and dealers who have loose stamps and stamps mounted in approval books are offering them at this 10 cent levels . Even looking at the on-line stamp auction house's this fall of 2025 have few collections of Worldwide Stamps up for bid . So this 10 cents per stamp is becoming the norm .

I like this level ,because I still have lots of duplicates to get rid of and mounting them in a extra set of Scott Internationals is just a way to end a busy day .

For new readers and collectors , in those previous postings about the subject of those mid-range stamps ,which I posted about over the past month .

I should of made clear not only the higher percentage you pay to fill those spots but there is something else that I talked about for the past year and should of made more clear .

To make my Worldwide Collection different than what everybody else has been doing . That is my goal right now is to find and buy those stamps that rarely come on the market ,that in itself is a lot of time finding which mid-range stamps are true rare ,rare meaning they are not normally found in W.W. collection and most country collections . This is not just looking stuff up in a stamp catalog like everybody else . Stuff that rarely shows up at auction and just not out there . We all already know catalog pricing is just a continution of previous dated older catalogs .

So talking to W.W. collectors ,I tell them my goal is to build my collection with stamps you don't have ,that is my goal right now, that you understand that , then maybe next year I will go back to collecting other areas like Cinderella stamps ,forgeries, stamp from everywhere , Clipper flights, or whatever I find fun to collect