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

"one of which has not been found "un-used""
13c coil narrow spacing? I was lucky enough to find a used line single.

the 13 cent with 1/2 mm between "Presorted" and "First Class" is the one I have that hasn't been found "unused". Hopefully I'll soon be able to get the 1 cent (#1581) precanceled "Philadelphia", too . . .

Do you have the 1581c (white paper)? I only recently got a mint example.

To many collectors ,they understand what a WORLDWIDE collection has in it and how it is put together . Stamp dealers also have the idea of what they are going to be looking at and have already seen dozens of them .

My thinking on this subject went in a different direction . I didn't want the typical worldwide collection that many serious worldwide collectors have . I seen over 100 nice WW collections at stamp auctions from Harmers and Rumsey both in California to Kelleher's in Boston ..

There was the idea of first going SPECIALIZED with shades ,perforations and watermarks all identified and written up on a album page . The second approach was going after those stamps that rarely show up in WW collections . This doesn't mean high price stamps only but you would be surprised how many WW collections are missing the same cheaper stamps .

That was my goal -- go where other collections don't go or are lacking .

floortrader, lovely stamps! Thank you for sharing. It is nice to see what is possible.

As a worldwide stamp collectors over a period of year ,you start to notice certain stamps missing in your collection and when you attend a dealer table or a stamp auction they are also missing , while viewing WW collections.

Here is a set which seems to fill that place not too expensive but always missing . Recently seen this set show up on a website and decided to buy the set . I figure I can always sell off three copies and it would be enough to cover cost and make some extra ,then still have a nice set ,but once received ,it looks better intact and kept as a block .

eyeonthewall - yes, I just got a copy of 1581c (white paper) a couple of months ago. I guess I may be a bit OCD - all I've been collecting for the last few years has been the Americana series. I pretty much stopped collecting anything else (after/during the Distinguished Americans issues) and settled on the one series. Either I already had them, they were more than I could afford, or there were too many issued in a year and I just couldn't keep up.

Tristan has 5 well-designed, engraved definitive sets among it's many definitives. Hopefully all the mainstream WW albums have all the values as these are easily found in complete sets. Scott 113-115 is actually part of an earlier-listed definitive, which is reflected in Stanley Gibbons but unfortunately not in Scott. St. Helena issued a semi-postal set for Tristan, after a major volcano, which is the rarest semi-postal set in the Elizabethan era of British Commonwealth. As an aside, the rarest Elizabethan definitive was issued by the postmaster of Anguilla in 1967.

This is one of the two key sets to collecting Algeria ,this is a easy country to complete once the two sets are acquired .

Pick up a nice 2 volume collection of British Colonies ,this week . Lots of mid period complete sets 1930's to 1960's . I counted some 324 complete sets each being a page filler .

Have fun with those floortrader! When I pick up world wide collections the first things I see picked over are British Colonies and US. There's some very attractive sets in there.

I've found Algeria to be somewhat tough for my Big Blue. 7 cheap regular issues that are missing on every list I look at. Can't find Scott #46 to save my life!! One of your Semi-postal set has eluded me, B16, and it's the only stamp with a CV over $10 I need.

Seems like every collection is missing the same stamps, and it's really cool that this is the type of stuff you're specializing in. Kudos!!
Ray

Landoquakes ----- Not sure where I picked up the bug for collecting more complete sets but that has been a recent thing for me over the past five years .

Maybe it goes back to the days of early collecting as a kid , when everybody had the first few stamps of each country's sets in their albums .Maybe it was a wow factor when I was old enough to attend stamp shows and seen more complete sets on dealer tables, that it kicked in to try and buy more complete sets and made a album page stand out for me .

As you seen many times in stamp collecting ,many collectors go thru different phases with the hobby ,some only a year or two but some stick with a new direction for years ,