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

Floortrader's book would probably be better than stuff written by Pat Hearst.

If you are truly, a serious worldwide stamp collector, like me, you build your stamp room into the plans for the dream home you build. You have to think big and go for it. That is what I did. My wife and I built a four-bedroom ranch in 1994, and I got one bedroom for my stamp room. There was a basement steel beam running the length of the center supporting the floor, so I planned my wall of built-in bookshelves to run above that steel beam. I do not worry about bookshelf-weight sagging the floor. My shelves were spaced for Scott Specialty and Lighthouse Grande albums, with slipcases, to fit perfectly. My only regret was that I should have put a small sink in there for stamp soaking water, as it is a pain carrying water in and out. I have two large windows to look outside and watch the horses or the birds at the bird feeders. You need to refocus your eyes after a while doing close work on stamps. My only worry is the threat of tornadoes blowing out these windows, but so far, they have held through the tornado of 1998 and the derecho of 2020.

Thanks for starting this thread, Floortrader, as it is one of the best current threads on SCF. We all could write a book when you reach our age, but mine would only have one chapter on stamp collecting.

Linus

Yes, I am awaiting Floor traders's book. I want to hear more about auction houses and WW collections vs single country collections and what he looks for. We could all learn alot.

I think Paul would have dozens of stories about stuff that's happened at auctions, not to mention his relationships with the owners and wins/disappointments.

Here is a interesting story ,I told this story before, a few years ago .

Back in the 1990's , I was working in the Asphalt business ,with this business it was seasonable , so around November as it got colder in Chicago ,it was time to finalize the year's work and clean and store the equipment for next spring .

At this time I knew what money I made and just waiting for the last of the checks to come in from customer billing . I put away money to carry my business thru the winter ,gave money to the wife and put away funds for everything else . Which include money for stamps to get me thru the winter months .Done and finished another good year .

I got the Gregg Manning Collection's Auction catalog in the mail for the December auction . I took the catalog to work and read it page for page during my breaks from putting away the equipment .

Finally the day came a week before the auction ,agreed with the wife how much I should spend and then drove from Chicago to New Jersey to give me a few days of viewing collections and lots before the day of the auction . At the viewing I started to see more nice material than I agreed with the wife that I was going to spend , so I had a problem .

So I asked about getting some credit ,the answer was a quick NO!

That was strange to me .I had credit from two major banks in Chicago for a little over a million dollars each for my trading account to trade the financial markets . So borrow money was not unusual for me and credit was excellent ,they didn't want to check my standings with the banks ,and all I wanted was another $10,000 line for 30 days because invoiceing checks were coming in ,30 days would be fine .

That ticked me off ,so I went to talk to Gregg the owner of the firm . Sat with Gregg in his office and he understood what the issue was . He explain to me he had a whole lot of credit outstanding to most of the stamp dealers who came to his auctions . They were over extended and still trying to buy more inventory at auction . Hopeing they can reduce their balances with new material and this was a on going problem with all stamp auction firms . Customers buying material with no funds to back them up when payment was due .

I got the extra credit and by the time I drove home , their was enough checks sitting at home . I dropped a note and a check to Gregg ,in a week after the sale ,after that nobody at his firm ever questioned shipping me unpaid stamps

The world has changed since the days when a national known stamp dealer could run a huge debit with a stamp auction firm . The stamp auction firm owners and even the staff doesn't know these on-line sellers .All transactions are done online .

Also understand that the auction firms can see these new sellers activity on their own computer. So someone selling on ebay is selling 2 or 3 hundred a week isn't going to be able to ask for a 12,000 or $15,000 line of credit for purchases .

This new world of stamp dealing is way different than when Kevin at Rasdale would see me in his office each week and then see me at different stamp shows , then Gregg Manning ,H.R.Harmers, Regency and Stan from Kelleher also sees me at the shows ,easy to build that line of credit if year in and year out your doing business with them . That is a thing of the past .

Floortrader - both great stories. Thank you! I can share one of my auction house stories. Without going into the auction house. I had one auction house or auctioneer who could not believe the price something was about to hammer for, and then started slow playing the hammer. Instead of the customary seconds between hammer, we are talking like minutes. Started talking about other stuff not related to the auction making small talk with people on the floor like talking about food, breaks, the weather etc. Then finally another bidder decided to bid up the price. The stalling worked and I turned from a Greendragon to a Reddragon. Auctioneers use all kinds of tricks to bid up the price. I am sure the stampforum auction experts know of many more. Building a good WW collection means sometimes you have to sweat it out.

More stamps from the A & D inventory that now reside in my albums .

It is safe to say that we will not see these type of stamp inventories like A & D Stamps of California had and other stamp shows had . Now that these events where dealers could bring in these huge selections of stamps and have a massive inventory for customers to pick thru .
It seems now the dealers buy on the weekend at auctions and list the stuff right away ,so no building up these huge stocks to sell .
So I think we are seeing the last of the huge dealer stocks .

They are shrinking but not disappearing completely. Stamp Art and A-Z Stamps are two examples very active on the West Coast, and they still have quite a few years before they reach Depmsy's age. I'm sure there are others in the Midwest and East Coast.

Zebraman --- Think your correct ,there still a few large holders of inventory . Still trying to figure who took those 574 red boxes that were put up at auction . Also during the auction someone purchased a supply lot which had 73 brand new empty red boxes up for auction , that was more than a collectors life time of needing red boxes.

I could not resist posting my image of A to Z stamps where I try to highlight the enormity of their stock. Picture was taken at the annual February APS Show in Sarasota Fl. Seated on my left was my buddy AndyRich who scored dozens of stamps for his collection. I was only able to find a small handful. Enjoy!

Linus has a great point... It's all about the bookshelves! I knew one super-collector that filled a room full of stamp albums, then created a doorway in a wall to link to another room filled with stamp albums... Then I found out later that he had a secret stamp room in the basement.

Thanks for all those photo's of the wall of RED BOXES .

I have a few and enjoy filling mine with duplicates ,they are a lot of time spend setting them up . It is a two step process first filling each 102 card and writting the info on the card . Second job is the filing of those cards in Scott order then putting inside the boxes .

I need to write a piece for newer collectors and new readers what to expect and the various expectations that they will see and what surprises during their viewing .

In order to maintain some sanity, I don't put my cards in Scott order, only country order. Saves a bit of time even though I only have a piddly 14 red boxes.

Wish there was a simple solution for 102 cards when storing larger sets - e.g. 9 or more stamps. Inevitably those sets try to knife their way through the card adhesive. Is there a better card out there made for this purpose?