Where Do You Find Your "Off The Beaten Path" Stamps

Referring to the less popular/collectable countries/territories like Slovakia, Cook Islands, Cape Verde, et al. Started albums on all three of the above and a few others mostly because they are not Germany, Italy, England and the other more recognizable or classic countries to collect simply because they don't fit the proverbial mold of what many collect. Just wanted to go off the proverbial beaten path as per the subject line.

While the fun (for me) exists in searching for many of the above and a few others; the chase does seem to become difficult at times. Not a complaint, to be clear; but really want to know how folks find (or have found) material they realize they've been looking for over the years upon years? Do you just power through years of looking daily on Ebay/Hip/Delcampe, or have you sought out specialty dealers? Just hope to get lucky at a show? Auctions to fill in the not so easily filled voids?

Have found it odd that I was able to complete the Vatican City up to 1970 with almost no trouble at all in finding material, and Cape Verde and Slovakia (as examples) seems to be very difficult to find in some instances. Realize that the Vatican City probably produced a lot more stamps than it has residents; and attracted an audience for other reasons; just to be clear. Hope you see the point though?

Still find it perplexing that some stamps seemingly don't exist, at all, at any price, ever!

Curious to hear you stories, hints, suggestions or anything else.

Depends a great deal on where one lives. IMO Hipstamp is terrible for non-USA, Delcampe can be quite good, depending. Suggestions: dealers in the specific country, if not that then on the same continent. Lots of German dealers will carry Slovakia, for example. Join a club (regardless of its home base) of that country's collectors. Or, see if a specialist catalog is available and check on any dealers that advertise in there; the back of the Sakura catalog has dozens of dealer ads. Also, something often somehow unknown to people is that ebay.com does not necessarily offer the same listings as ebay.co.uk or ebay.de or ebay.fr for example.

What about trade? There are trade sites and you can ask for the countries you want.

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Cape Verde and the Cook Islands often pop up within larger groupings - Portuguese Colonies and British Commonwealth Pacific respectively. Spanish Colonies are a less common auction lot, in GB at least.

For me it was mostly trawling through ebay & delcampe and slowly picking up stamps I was chasing.

Many years ago, when I was collecting KGV stamps from the whole Empire (nothing extensive, just a simplified representative collection up to the one shilling/rupee face value) I got to the point where I was missing about 20 odd stamps. I contacted a dealer in the USA who had them all!

It is bemusing that, despite very modest catalogue values, some stamps just refuse to appear.

For low value stamps you have trouble finding, may be worth contacting a seller on Hip, Delcampe, ebay you've bought similar from & trust. Speaking personally, I have stockbooks of low value stamps from various countries I sell a lot of - e.g. Port colonies, Spain - that haven't been listed as they fall below my listing price threshold. But will provide to meet someone's want list.

Thank you all. Very much appreciate the responses. As far as trolling, Have an Ecuador/Liberia want list that I've been searching on ebay, Hip and Delcampe for 5 years or so, and have yet to even see any of them, at any price. Also check Stamps2go and Stampworld about once a week. Nada.

Even tried joining a few Facebook groups recently. I would not recommend this to anyone though. Mostly just people asking if they hit the jackpot with an inherited collection; which of course is rare and everyone here already knows that. (Or folks selling very common material at ridiculous prices.)

If anyone has had luck with trading posts/sites, would welcome that info.

Thanks again.
NSK, what is the Kosel site you linked to? Took a look and seems to be a lot of modern stamps. Trade site?

Trolling and trawling are very different things.


Nope, retail philately store/company based in Vienna.

As classic_paper wrote. A philatelic store based in Vienna. They are a bit stronger on Central Europe than most others.

A classic thread.

Finding that stamps is what it is all about. Endless searching for that stamp.

It makes us collectors, not just hordes.

HEY THAT'S WHAT I COLLECT !!!! yes ...... I collect those .......... I want that worldwide collection that nobody else has . What does that mean ? It means having stuff nobody ever seen .

I am not looking for the stuff you see in every major auction catalog , it is the collection of "off the beaten path " It is the Liberated areas of China ,it is the Japanese occupation of the Dutch Indies ,it is Tibet ,it is the New Republic ,it is the Agean Islands ,it is the Swiss B-O-B , it is the Swiss Canton issues , Argentina Department issues , there is so many areas that just don't show up in worldwide collections ,

When was the last time you saw a U.S. used Plate Number collection they sell for 5 cents each but you never seen a mounted collection of them . So there is stuff that just is never seen .....by the way the Pakistan overprints for Bangledesh is a collection area at a dollar a stamp is rare ,I only seen one collection in the past 15 years . .... The mistake most collectors make is that to have a rare stamp collection is that you have to spend a lot of money and that is not true .

Just about every collecting area has those elusive items that catalog value makes one think are common but are really difficult to find. The ones that are not deep back of the book or varieties but major listings that don't show up often. I looked for a 1950's Russian set with a catalog value of single dollars for two years. I was trying to find it long after the "scarce" ones were in the album.

I wrote about this before , it takes years of experience to know what is rare and has no bearing to the value written in a catalog .

If a collector buys three or four better " full" Scott Part I Int'l albums by the time he buys his fifth album , they will only be buying duplicates to his other albums and still have only a half filled main album . It takes years to understand which cheap stamps are impossible to find at less than catalog .