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

DJCMHOH ----To create a website , I have no interest in that field .

Most economical way to build a collection:
First, The most expensive way is to buy every stamp yourself in singles and sets. - good way to go to the poor house. Tried it with a few countries and can confirm.

The medium way
1) buy a remainder collection with most of the cheap to mid-tier stamps. Look for complete sets of these. No completes sets is a pass
2) buy high end items to fill in
3) Buy something unique like a cover or two to augment the collection

Rinse and repeat - This is the stampdragon collection

The other way to do it is to shell out 5,000-10,000 or so on a comprehensive collection from the auction house.
And then do it again and combine the two selling the rest off. This is probably the best way to do it but the upfront cost is higher.

Chen and Ra have done a great service as has floortrader to the WW stamp collectors posting their stuff. I use Chen as a reference for my own collection as sometimes Scott is cryptic.

Where floortraders collection gets set apart is that the collection has less forgeries posting as real stamps. But still Ra and Chen have collections to drool over.
stampdragons has gone a different route and so far will focus on a few countries in every region of the world. That way I am still WW but don't have to collect every stamp. No island countries with fakes stamps.

For WW collectors - Lastly try to avoid a hodge podge collection or else you end up with an accumulation or what looks like one. You can have consistency between albums or regions.

For example, Lighthouse or Davo and the like for Europe and maybe Scott or Palo for other countries or go all-in on Deep blue Steiner and buy your own binders or Scott Internatinals. Try your best to avoid a mixture of albums. Here stampdragons is guilty as charged. This is what happens when you look for the best deal instead of what fits.
Lighthouse, Kabe and Shaubek - look very similar
Scott - One of a kind
Palo - One of a kind
Davo - One of a kind
Steiner - DIY but small pages

stampgreendragon - I think I belong in your "medium" category as well. I buy remainder collections when I can, but only if I feel they will yield a decent percentage of items that I can use, like countries I am light on, or specialized studies or similar. I've given up on just buying large, messy collections as I am winding up with too much unwanted material or duplicates.
I also like buying individual country collections if I can find a bargain. Collecting the entire world allows you to buy countries that are unpopular and abundant, for cheap prices.
As far as albums and pages, I am in the Steiner camp. But I use a Steiner hybrid approach. straight Steiner pages are used where possible, but collecting varieties, shades, multiples, covers and other esoteric items means going beyond Steiner. That's where AlbumEasy comes in. I can easily manufacture a supplemental page in minutes, for the oddball items, while still keeping the Steiner look and feel.

Right now I stand at just under 62,000 mounted stamps/items, and it doesn't feel like I've even scratched the surface of my "todo" files and accumulations. With many of the large countries still pending, like Russia, Romania and USA.

I can see myself reaching 100k, but since I started so late in my collecting life, that might be close to where it ends. But, in my 50 + years of collecting, the worldwide journey from the last 7 or so years have been the most enjoyable.

For the last few years I have focused less on buying stamps and more on my catalogue library, to the point which I now have specialized catalogues for most nations of the world. My plan is in to start focusing more on buying stamps about five years from now once I get my catalogue library fully set (still a few catalogues I am looking for) and I want to get the stamp collections I have worked up properly first before moving into new collecting areas. Armed with the proper catalogues, I can then dive in looking for all those wonderful varieties that aren't listed in Scott and can be lurking unrecognized in dealer offerings. As they say, knowledge is power.

But won't lie, when I get the latest sales lists from Dr Robert Friedman every couple months, it's hard to restrain myself from starting a new era area that I am light in.

I stumbled upon some notes from an article that I wrote for our club newsletter. I corresponded with a collector I called "Rex" that had about 400,000 different stamps through 2002 in 380 Specialty albums. I asked him about some collecting tips... Here's what he said.

One piece of advice he had give is to try to avoid collecting mint stamps of the last ten years. He found that prices on the newest stamps tend to be inflated and can usually be had for less than face value if one waits a decade. However, the price begins to creep back up after 20 to 30 years so there is a somewhat limited window of opportunity there.

Another nugget of advice was to concentrate your collecting to one country at a time. This way you can focus your efforts and perhaps some day "retire the country," which means collect all the stamps in a given country minus the great rarities. Rex was able to retire 60 countries and was down to the last twenty stamps for Romania. His Hungary collection was complete minus that pesky first page of the Scott Specialty Album. Another advantage to focusing on a single or a group of countries is that the want lists are easier to manage and hopefully one will avoid getting the same stamp twice (I've been known to do that more than once!)

Another great idea he had was to use Hawid mounts or something similar so that you have easy access to your stamps. He placed mint never hinged upright in the mounts, if the stamp is mint but hinged he placed the stamp in upside down. This way the stamps are easy to get at and upgrades are easier.

Sadly Rex passed away sometime ago. Even toward the end he still had that fun enthusiasm for collecting. Even at his advanced collecting level, he was jealous of one of his friends that worked in a stamp store because he would "get the good stuff first!"

LANDOQUAKES ---- Thanks for posting your notes from your article .

Your friend "REX" is making a important point . A principle for new collectors to follow for those who try to keep up with new issues for their collections . The thinking here is buy at the new issue price before prices climb. When in fact most prices go down .

Continue ----- Later in your article , "REX" gets into the subject of how to collect Worldwide Stamps . That is like writing a book about " Who to marry " ---- no right answer .

I started with a newspaper boy's budget ,that was like 25 cents per country for a packet of stamps . In my teen years it advanced up to $5.00 per country . The same thinking goes on today at a different level . To see this today just look at the HAMILTON collection at Daniel Kelleher's Auction in two weeks . You will quickly notice country after country in the same price range .

Finding the last 20 or so stamps can be difficult and time consuming in many cases. I know AndyRich can relate to this- I have a modest series of cheap stamps on my wants list that I cannot find in the desired condition. This is the risk one takes one attempting to complete sets vs. buying fully complete sets. Sometimes I have given in to buying incomplete sets when I have been unable to find a complete one (over a period of years). This usually ends well, but not always.

And in the case of the Hamilton collection, some people may resort to buying an entire country to get those last 20 stamps needed to complete their own collection.

Floortrader- a couple months ago, you posted your Indochina stamps, and my question is about the "Airplane" Airmails. I received in a trade, two imperf copies of the Airplanes. I've looked in Scott and Yvert and no mention of the imperfs.



So, a couple of questions for you, or anyone else:

1. Have you ever seen one of the imperf Airplane Airmails?
2. When collecting the world, there are so many pitfalls sometimes where you come to a dead end. What do you do when you're looking for info, and can't find it, other than posting on SCF?

Thanks, Ray

ray.mac the 2021 edition of Yvert's Colonies Françaises specialized catalogue lists your imperf as PA2a with a CV of 55 Euros.

Ray --- I see DJCMHOH came up with the answer that the French catalog answers but without that . As a experience collector {not a expert } I have to form my own opinion . I believe what you have is "printers waste ". It is call that because the copy you have has never made it to the government post office .

I would lay it next to a real stamp and check paper ,ink color and size before coming to that decision .Even my experience of French Colonies tells me it is printers waste .

LANDOQUAKES - Rex and I are kindred spirits. Looks like a great way to collect to me. Thanks for the insight.