Reference Material Or Collection Material First?

Trying to post here a little more often as I think I find myself wondering, then searching, then ultimately forgetting my original question, but I have a bit of a quandary to share today,

I've changed my collection areas probably 3-4 times over the past year or so, finding something that excites me, only to be priced out fairly quickly, or losing interest rapidly in something else, and to this extent, I've noticed that the areas I tend to have clung to the most seem to be ones with a fair bit of reference material available on the subject, which I track down and then use to expand my knowledge on the area. One major area this has helped with is Danish issues up through and around 1905, up through the bicolors (my personal favorite at the moment!) of which there is a decent amount of English language literature to study (thank you APRL!!!).

My question then becomes this, if I have an interest in a collecting area (my most recent example being the early Lakatoi issues of Papua New Guinea, which I have not dug into just yet,) should one look for reference material to study before starting to collect the area/subject? Or would it be better to start acquiring material and then start to further specialize with literature? I know this is probably going to be different for everyone, so I'm very curious to hear what people have to say about this!

Opinion:
Personally I see pertinent literature, like adding salt to your mashed spud.
It just adds flavour, and increases the urge to find more, and study more,
the stamps in your collection.

You are fortunate to ask this question early, took me years to cotton on
the value of great source material.

I sense you have the World wide collecting gene, my condolences
Depending on your disposable income, grab any Philatelic literature you can
there is a whole world awaiting.

Free Lakatoi album pages here

A great question!

If you are attracted to a particular area of philately, you'll gradually acquire a good holding of material as a matter of course.

If the interest deepens beyond the standard catalogues and what's available online, then you'll go looking for more advanced literature.

It's a very natural progression!

As Rod says though, if you're a whole world collector, grab everything, offline and online

There are circa 20 x Lakatoi revenue stamps, retailing total around $1,700

I have amassed a huge quantity of reference material, specialist books, Government reports, Government Acts, post office guides etc. You never know when you will need to dip into one. Match your references to what you collect.

One area I have rather neglected is catalogues. They can also contain specialist information. The values they give are largely meaningless, though the relative values are useful.

My advice would be to collect the stamps and the reference material alongside each other. Each can inform the other.

Don't forget also that quantities of cheap research grade stamps/covers can also be useful for working out shades, postmarks, dates etc.

Absolutely!

I've been archiving so much non-philatelic material related to the geographical area of New South Wales I collect.

History, Government, Road Making, Exploration, Architecture, Transport, Cartography, Railways, Tourism, Archaeology, Conservation etc etc etc.

I think it depends on how deep you want to go in any specific area. You are always going to run into the lack of further progress in some area, either by lack of material or running out of money. And sure enough, the minute you're completely tapped out of money, here comes loads of material in that area all at once.

I like the Lakatois myself, but (unfortunately for me) it's one of many such areas.So I have just really scratched the surface, just a bit deeper than general collectors. Here's something from the Big Blue site that might help you decide if you want to jump in:
http://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.co...-closer.html
This only covers the engraved issues.

What I like is that when small groups/country collections can be found, there's often something interesting that turns up. There's also misidentification, for better or worse. There are cancels to be found but the scarce ones are indeed scarce. Covers start getting expensive beyond the most basic postage rates.

The Gibbons Commonwealth catalog is a solid reference for these. There is a book about postmarks, there is a very recent book that's a plating study of the engraved lakatois. You may not want to go that deep, but there it is.

Otherwise, I'd start with getting catalogs that aren't Scott. Old ones turn up and are cheap (shipping not so cheap), like Michel Germany and their European catalogs. Gibbons country catalogs, FACIT, etc. etc.. There is a Gibbons PDF version for the Commonwealth that runs from 1840-1970 where slightly older versions are bargains. Then you have a reference, and even just read them. Because they often provide more details than Scott on what they cover, you might find something that interests you.

This is all subjective and there's really no right or wrong way to go about this, but in my opinion it would be better if you first develop your areas of interest and then acquire the literature about the topics you chose to focus on.

At the moment you seem to be exploring multiple areas of interest, but at some point you'll likely want to specialise in something more specific - which you already seem to be doing since you mentioned Denmark and PNG.

If while you are still considering different options you happen to come across general literature about an area of interest then you should go for it, but you probably shouldn't focus too much on buying books about very specific subjects. For example, at an early stage you would probably find it more beneficial to buy a book about Danish postal history rather than a study about plate varieties on the 1905 issue.

Having said that, one thing which you should keep in mind is that some catalogues and philatelic publications which are out of print can be hard to find and/or expensive. If you come across some obscure but interesting publication at a good price, you should probably go ahead and buy it because there's a possibility that if you don't, years might pass before you find it again.

Both actually. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario IMO. You need the reference material to avoid missteps when acquiring material, but you need material to give real-world context to the written word.

When starting out collecting an area, I typically will try to acquire some bulk material or a starter collection to get the ball rolling, then start acquiring more specialized references and spend time with both before then dropping significant coin or specializing in an issue or country.

But at the beginning you really need both IMO.

The problem not being address here is that in the life of a philatelist there is a lot of starts and stops , their are many who dump money into one area and four or five years later there is a new area of interest . For some it because a revolving door of different interest and a lot of money spend in different persuits .

I just purchased at Kelleher Auctions another country collection where someone purchase 2 different auction lots from other auction houses and then bought a bunch of dealer tearsheets of valuable stamps , all of this sat around for 5 to 10 years in a collectors house ,then he died ,I bought it and now it is all mounted on Steiner pages in a binder . Again purchased it ,planned on making it into a collection ,then lost interest .....very typical of loseing or delay interest and moved on to something else .

Buying material and books for awhile then loseing interest is a big money suck to most collectors . It is what stamp auction firms see all the time . Heck I will be so bold to say 75% of collectors fall into this .

There is a third aspect to this scenario that some collectors are overlooking.

If you're interested in a certain area/type/category etc. of what some people are calling "stamps," and it seems like it's incredibly difficult to find either the material and/or some documentation about it/them, then do what I do. Create both.

Well, not really "creating" them, but more like dragging all the details about them from their ancient hiding places and presenting them to a modern audience. Just like with certain types of "entertainment," if you can imagine it, someone, somewhere probably filmed it. And there's a sequel.

All you need is near-infinite browsing time on a modern computer, a Word-like application, and some experience with using Google.

Over time, the answers that you're looking for will surface, and, if you're patient enough, you will have not only the most comprehensive collection of what you chose, but also the most significant reference work that countless generations will use in the future to identify their treasures.

This is no different than how our forefathers did the the same thing, only they didn't have any modern search tools.

Jim

[shudder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_catalog.

My quick take on this, without having a fully-fleshed out thought:

I would first make sure I had a Scott Classic Specialized 1840-1940 and a Gibbons Commonwealth 1840-1970. If there is a budget consideration, I'd look around a bit for the newest ones I could find for $25 each. That will get you new-enough versions that they'll be in color, probably no more than ten years old. If you don't mind paying a bit over $125, you can just get new ones.

Then, since you seem to have worldwide interests, I'd add a few more common catalogues, but older versions (again, if budget is a consideration).

For example, Michel's Germany Specialized 1999 is a great catalogue to have and it should only cost you a few dollars. It's one (big) volume, and shortly thereafter, they started deleting content from that catalogue. If you like Germany and German-adjacent matter, you'll also end up with a newer one, but you'll want the older one for the information, anyway.

You already know about APRL, so you can borrow items before committing to them.

As the next shiny object comes along, don't overlook the societies and study circles that have put their old journals online. You can find treasure troves of information that may never have made it into a mainstream source. They can be informative, and they can be fun to read. It's great when two crusty old English chaps get into a 1950's version of a Twitter beef, but carried out through the mails, in a quarterly journal.

As a youth, I would contemplate specialized literature, and stamps always won out. "Forty bucks? That's like, a couple thousand stamps." I'd always vote for a couple thousand more stamps. Somewhere along the line, there was an inflection point - perhaps when the desired stamps started approaching the cost of the desired literature - where the literature made more sense as a value proposition.

So, my answer is "both" but only you can know where you fit on the continuum.

As one of the above as described, I do indeed write articles for a quarterly magazine.

Interest groups, societies etc are a valuable source of information, as are their Journals etc. Well worth joining. Most have indexes to articles in back numbers, journals on websites etc.

Welcome Kobland.

it warms my heart that you've gotten a crush on Danish bicolored.

you'll want to read this thread.

https://goscf.com/t/52341&whichpage=1

in regards to buying/wasting money on literature, you'll find loads of free literature on this subject... there's a page where the nerds on this area come to play and exchange discoveries, with google translate you'll be able to hang on.

www.tofarvet.dk

in regards to the question on which to acquire first, well.

IF you want to pursue the Danish bicolored then you shouldn't worry too much about condition to begin with, unless of course you have loads of money.
try to get your hands on as many perf 14 16 and 12øre stamps as you can, those are the easiest and can often be bought for around $0.5 per stamp, and less if they are in questionable condition and in bulk lots.

search Danish auction houses, as these will have lots more to choose from than international ones.

you can only get so far from a lot of books and few stamps, you need material to learn.

The Danish bicolored stamps is as far as I know the best described field in any country. There are accurate ledgers of every sheet produced and exactly when. This means most printings can be reconstructed into sheets again from
strips/pairs and even singles.

show me some of your stamps and I'll give you some advice on where you can go from those.

@Sorsh

I live in Denmark, I have collected bicolored.

I have a link for you where all Danish BC stamp-sheets can be download for free.

https://www.kpk.dk/grupperum-tofarvede-helark/

@kobland There is a lot of good litterature, but think you will find what you looking for as Sorch mention Tofarvet.

It is beautifull stamps the Danish bicolored.



I have bought a lot of BCS at ebay and often at god prices.