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

Most of the old timers here know I also collected Cinderella stamps . My Cindy collection is about 12 binders of pages .

So I though it would be neat and different to post some of those pages just to show new readers and new collectors that there is a world out there beyond regular philately .

Sometimes you get lucky and are able to acquire a set that is a "Holy Grail" item for you that means more than just filling spaces on a page. For me one of those items is the 1937-1940 definitive issue from Kelantan. It was a set my father had in his collection, bought in the 1960s when Malaya was dirt cheap. I remember helping him mount it on pages when I was a kid in the mid-1980s learning the hobby from him. I helped him sell it in the mid-2000s before he passed away. Always wanted to have that set in my collection because of the memories it has. It's not an easy set to get, with quite a high CV, but was able to find a mint light-hinged set from a dealer at just under 60% of CV and decided to get it and cross it off my Holy Grail list



won't be buying much more this year, but this set makes me feel like i've completed a circle with my personal history as a collector.

DJCMHOH ----- Nice set , one of the sets that is needed to have a world class rated W.W. collection .

More interesting stuff from my Cinderella collection ,I try find all types of stuff for my collection to make it interesting .

It would be interesting to see a study done of which worldwide stamps are needed to make a collection a world class collection . This would be a across the board survey of worldwide collectors and stamp dealer which 300 or 500 stamps or sets of stamp needed to be in that collection .

This is not about the gems of philately ,which is a whole different thing . They are not stuff like one of a kind items ,these gems make their own headlines when they are sold .

This is what W.W. philately sees as a major W.W. collection . I am sure the above Malaya stamp set would fall into that classification . It would be a list of the whole world and not overly strong in any one part or one nation but a overview of the whole world .

It would be stuff like the Japanese airmail S/S , the German Zepps and British early pound values . The list would have 300 to 500 stamps and sets . The list would need a few hundred people to make a fair list .

So what I am interested in what makes a massive worldwide collection into a world class collection of some note . What are the key stamps needed ,it is not a few stamps or a few dozen ,it has to be in the hundreds of items .

floortrader:

Are those Steiner pages you use or something else? Also what kind of paper are you using?

I just love all the pages you post to share with us and I'm getting ready to dive into my first country for my big project of getting all my W.W. in a standard system of binders and I thought I would like mine to look like yours. Thanks for the help

Floor trader my goodness that might be the best question asked of all-time.

1) Penny Black

First the list can't be Euro-centric. It's got to be WW and balanced. @2nd the list probably is made up of "Better" Stamps as supposed to rare. Iconic stamps to boot.

Interesting question! Us # 1 should be on the list... Now that I think of it, the next level up from a US #1 and World #1 would be one of the large 1 pound Great Britain Stamps like UK Scott 124. Or should it be the 5 pounder "the holy grail" https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamp...victori.html? There might only be 8,000 of these left so for general world collectors, my gut tells me that few would have this stamp.

There is another way to look at it besides the dollar value though. On a budget with A LOT of time, how far could one go in an all-different collection? 100K wouldn't be all that hard, 200K would be a bigger challenge, because it would be harder to avoid higher values. But even at that, it is possible. Sounds like fun. I know dealers that will let a collector pick through a collection for 10 cents a stamp- with better deals in bulk, 5 cents or less for a stamp is probably doable. Time to start hinging...

To floortrader's question - how about:
1. The first stamp and set of each country (mint where possible)
2. For countries that started issuing stamps before the formation of the GPU in 1875 - the first stamp and set issued after they joined the GPU (again, mint where possible).

All long sets classic 1940 and below with a print run of at least 5,000

The QV £5 orange may be a key stamp for a GB collection, but not a workd collection. And there's no shortage - they're readily available, as long as you have the money to blow. Finding a postally used one would be difficult, however.

Kyle B. ----Yes ,those are Steiner Pages . the paper I use is 20lb. Staples ,cream color paper . If you use a lot of mounts ,mount covers or use mounts on souvenir sheets then you may need a heavy weight paper like 32 lb paper .

Thanks for the positive comment ,I do enjoy showing what I am doing with my collection .

STAMP DRAGON -- Your right the first stamp every major W.W. collection has to have is the Penny Black .

LANDOQUAKES ---Agree , we are in a hobby that you can still enjoy yourself and still build a decent collection for $10.00 a week . Buying a mixture each month still gives a collector hours of enjoyment with 5 or 10 cents stamps ,I know because after 50 years still like looking thru a mixture lot .

What about the many unknowns? This is definitely a classic set but almost certainly in the category of fake. I went down the rabbit hole a few years back and read everything that I could get my hands on about this set and never could come to any conclusion as to authenticity. Do they belong in any collection? As a "Space Filler"? I have them in mine but with a disclaimer on the display page.

Backroads ---- I don't have my collection in front of me ,give me a day or two to find it . I worked on those issues about 5 years ago and the easy way is to lay a low value real stamp next to those higher value stamps and look at the perforations ,the perf. cuts are clearly different .

You would be surprised how many fake stamps can be identified just by having a low value stamp and that you know is real laying next to a high value stamp in the same set .

Just looking at your scan ,I can safely say you got a mix of real and fake stamps ,try laying some next to each other and blow up a scan ,you will see a difference . Try it .