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

floortrader - Another thing I observed at auction was that most WW stamp collectors have a hot mess of albums in their collection.
There is a lack of consistency in the albums. And the reason for this is that ALL the stamp manufacturers that are cost effective have incomplete countries. Only Palo and Steiner have every country. And this shows in people's collections including my own. I am trying to cut down on this but for a variety of reasons it happens.

Greendragon ---Agree with you , about what you call " lack of consistency in their albums " . I would explain it by saying it is more exciting to buy and accumulate material than just hold-off buying stuff and work on organgizing your new stuff , like your recent purchases into a proper collection .

What you see when you visit the stamp auction firm during viewing or inspection days is a lot of half done collections ,for example albums with recent purchases still on auction cards or dealer cards inserted into albums or included extra material in a side box next to the albums .

As I've read through this excellent thread, it has occurred to me several times that if collectors did opt for albums or pages that had a space for virtually every stamp, would there be interest in buying sets of facsimiles of very expensive stamps so that there is a really good looking space filler. Until a time might come in the future when the collector might obtain those stamps, I envision the facsimiles coming in sets. And they would look much nicer than your typical space fillers which also can sometimes be very expensive. Using albums or pages that are essentially complete would also solve the problem of modest stamps that don't have a space in the traditionally popular worldwide albums.

Well, the Fournier/Hirschburger French Colonies Navigation and Commerce forgeries filled that function - and often fill old album pages.

shermae - No this is a bad idea for the following reasons. It encourages counterfeits. Even if one is honest about it. Once you create a market for this, you can bet scam artists will be trying to make a quick buck. This has happened in other collectibles. Right now you can see this with stamps from China in the cultural revolution. tons of facimilles, tons of counterfeits. I have seen collectors pay thousands of dollars just for fakes.

Yes, my stamproom has many stamps that I need to sort. I inherited other's people's messes. Maybe the buck will stop with me.

Dragon in my vision of this, the stamps would be marked facsimile on the back and sold as such. Also, the various kits of stamps would be relatively inexpensive.

Shermae - I will stand by my comments, you will encourage counterfeiters even if you are the honest counterfeiter. Once scammers know that placeholder fakes will sell, one day that mark on the back will be gone. There is already someone (multiple someones) on ebay doing this. I report them to ebay all the time, but they are still illegally sold.

In some instances this will not be a concern. For example, I own facsimiles of the Mauritius 1d and 2d "POST OFFICE" issues (printed from the original plate when it was rediscovered), the US Providence Postmaster's Provisional, and the British Guiana 1c magenta (this one produced in the 1980s). No one would ever believe these are genuine. And I have them mounted on album pages explaining what they are and the stories behind the real items. For things like this, Shermae's is a good idea.

True counterfeiters are already aware that they sell. Facsimiles marketed to collectors aren't going to change their motivation (or those of the next generation).

5 REASONS TO BUY FAKES and FORGERIES

1} To fool family and friends that your a advance collector and a philatelist ,not hard to let it slip at you got a $5,000 stamp .


2} To fool your fellow collectors by showing a poor scan or a tiny picture on a chat board.

3}Try to sell them to someone else as a real stamp .

4}to make a interesting side collection all properally disclosed .

5} Use for research so to educate yourself in buying real stamps .
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My printer is out of ink so just hand writting these pages until I get new ink .

Fun and games on the chat board .

Now that is funny!

Here is a page that I include in my album . If I purchase a collection lot and find a nicely done page ,instead of destroying it and mounting it on my album page ,I leave it intact as is . I notice over the years other collectors also do the same thing . , never seen a discussion about this practice .

Floortrader, that is a nice-looking page. It certainly depends on the collector, but for me (and I suspect many others) time is a factor (as there are sooooo many stamps to collect). So, if a well-mounted page comes along in the right format, I would also not hesitate to place it directly into my album and go on to the next part of my accumulation. There are those who value consistency in their albums, but my question would be, other than the collector and possibly a few friends or family members, who else will look at it? There are very few others interested in seeing my lifetime results, I know that!