Want To Start Collecting World Stamps

Hi All- I've been a US stamp collector for awhile and now want to move into world stamps. I would appreciate some advice on how to start.

Specifically:
- Should I start with 1 or 2 countries? Or go all in on whatever I buy. I did buy a "starter bag" of worldwide stamps and the H.E. Harris Statesman worldwide albums (there are 2). But when I go through the stamps I can't find any listing in the albums. I imagine this album is not comprehensive.
- If yes on 1 or 2 countries, any recommendations? I know its probably personal preference.
- I want to be able to buy a stamp and then put it into the matching spot of an album.
- Also, is there any particular place everyone looks for world stamps?
And advice is appreciated.

Hi JK, one question I'd ask myself is do I want to fill in as many spaces as possible, or do I want to collect each country to some level of completion? Also, what album(s) are you planning to use for this collection? And do you have a range of issue dates for this collection- e.g. from the very beginning in 1840, or perhaps either only 19th century or only 20th century, etc?

"Matching spots" in albums are a problem. If you want comprehensive albums, you're going to spend time and money and end up filling few of the spaces, at least for a long time. Maybe start with housing stamps in stock-books while you decide if you really want to collect everything.

In terms of kicking off, I'd look for a reasonable pile of older, fairly well-filled albums. Auctions offer the best value, but you could dip your toe in the water with a couple of ebay purchases.

If you're picking countries, be guided by your own interests outside philately - that should get you started.

Enjoy!

I would like to finish each country to some sort of completion starting at the very beginning. I realize that is a large undertaking. Can anyone recommend what album would be good for this? Should I pick a couple countries and focus on those only? And if so, any recommendations on what would be interesting?

Great advice. My family is from Denmark, so I think I'll start from there.
Does anyone know where I would get a complete listing of Danish stamps?

I actually love Denmark and collect their definitives and certain BOB from about 1905. FACIT is the generally accepted, authoritative catalog for Danish stamps. You can often find used FACIT catalogs on ebay. I believe FACIT is written in Swedish so at least for me it takes a bit of work to translate some key terms, but I made a laminated card I keep in the book with common terms to help me.

As you know from collecting US stamps, starting from the beginning can be difficult and expensive. You should start your journey from the middle (mid 20th century) and work outwards. The classics take experience to properly identify and value, and the moderns are hard to come by (*my personal preference is collecting postally used rather than mint).


The Scott Specialty Albums are highly regarded. I don't have Denmark but their other country albums are quite complete. Lighthouse is also very good, with an option for hingeless (for extra $$).


If you dont read Swedish, the Scott Catalog is the defacto standard. You don't need the whole set, just the volume containing the letter "D". Find a cheap one on ebay, even an old one, or try your local library.
Online, you can browse around StampWorld to get a taste of the country's stamps.
https://www.stampworld.com/en/stamp...ps/1960-1969

I strongly disagree. It may be the easiest for a US-based collector, but it's far from the standard. First, you don't really need to read Swedish to get through the listings. Second, Scott is down the list, well behind FACIT, AFA, and Michel for Denmark. Any of those are better than Scott. You may also have a strong disconnect between Scott's numbering and organization and the album publisher of your choice.
Collecting "the world" is a much bigger task than I think you may appreciate: we're talking close to 200 years of issues, hundreds of thousands of stamps. If that's what you'd really like to do, answer these questions for yourself:
1) Unused/used? MNH? Both your budget and level of patience will determine the answer.
2) How much do aesthetics matter? If you want it all to look cohesive, you obviously have to either stick to a single comprehensive publisher (Scott or Palo), or buy from a publisher that has some/most of what you want, then design pages yourself for what's left, or design everything yourself (Steiner, AlbumEasy, etc). Except for Scott, most publishers are European and concentrate on Europe, the Atlantic, and Oceana (Gibbons, Yvert, Leuchtturm, SAFE, Schaubek, Lindner). Coverage for Asia is sporadic, Africa and Latin America almost non-existent.
3) If you want a comprehensive collection, avoid everything that says "worldwide." Instead, go for albums or supplements that are country-specific.
4) A random or scattershot approach will get you nowhere and lead to discouragement very quickly: you'll have a lot of blanks, and it'll seem like you haven't done anything. Some ideas: a) pick a continent and a decade, like Europe 1960-1969, you should be able to get every stamp at reasonable cost pretty quickly; b) Denmark (or other) from 1930-1970, fill that, and then slowly creep in either direction. Either way (or something along these lines) will quickly give you something you can actually call "a collection," and not just "a bunch of random stamps."

I used to have an old Facit Sweden catalogue, which, from memory, had at least some of the information in English. Not sure about its other Nordic catalogues. Gibbons publishes Scandinavian catalogues in English.

If I were you, I'd look at Danish collections in auctions. Don't necessarily jump in straight away - get a feel for what's out there and what price it commands. And don't be a slave to printed albums or pages. You can make ones better attuned to your needs yourself, whether on the computer or with pen, ink and ruler (others will know that this is a regularly retailed obsession of mine).

For what it is worth: After probably 20 years of avoiding the world I realized how much I missed it .. returned with a plan to collect a limited amount from lots of countries - might be a 1 to 4 sets ... or a certain number of stamps .. .or could be even just 1 stamp ... and it's just stuff I like from early days of that country to modern times ... I learn about the stamps and sets I collect and can mount them or save in nice stockbooks ... it creates a very nice eclectic look at the world.

Jkjoller, you might want to look at a country like South Vietnam, Indonesia or Laos. Very inexpensive, relatively speaking; not a lot of stamps (at least for S. Vietnam and Laos) and no real varieties and so forth to complicate anything. That might be a good introduction to something outside of what you collect now. I actually collected almost all of S. Vietnam mostly buying those stamps as add-ons to orders for other areas where I just didn't want to pay shipping for one or two items, so I would find some of one or more of those countries to toss on to the order to justify shipping costs on small orders.

In regards to albums, I mostly use Steiner pages. They are plain and follow the Scott catalogs almost to a "T" but you can print many pages from many countries very inexpensively. If you really want to specialize in color/shade/perf varieties for a specific country then a specialty album or maybe even creating your own album/Vario pages is probably the way to go. You might learn more creating your own albums to start as well.

I look for worldwide stamps mostly on ebay, Hipstamp and Delcampe, but also on Stamps2go, and a few other specialty sites.

Everyone's suggestions here are good ones, but you ultimately get to decide. Just do what you enjoy and appreciate though. That's the main reason for any hobby!

Hope that helped.

If you are looking for album pages, check out Album Easy's website.

I highly recommend Saar for a one Country focus. Just about anyone can complete the Country at the basic level. Beautiful stamps as well. And if you want to go deeper there are endless varieties of the earlier overprints.

Collecting the World ---- There is no correct way ,each person does it different .

The goals you set for yourself changes overtime, what works for you at the beginning ,gets boring over time and you start going in other directions .

What I tell you to do will not work or be liked by 95% of the people who read this board .

There are many pit falls that most people fall into trying to collect the world , some of those pitfalls are buying too much stuff and you become a accumlator and not a collector , you spend too much on supplies and have a great collection of albums and binders ,catalogs ,dealer cards ,envelopes and other stuff .
Another pitfall is trying to do what others are telling you what to collect .Stay away from buying material that gets "in style " look for areas that are not this years hot topic .

Worldwide stamp collecting has changed over the years ,the way it was in the 1950;s when I started is a different
animal and has changed over the years.

My collection started with buying 100 stamps for 10 cents from approval dealers , plus trading with other collectors on a front porch across the street . Then it was buying 10 cent packets of different countries to put stamps on each page in my album ,then it was 25 cent packets from the store .

Now that worldwide collection is coming close to a decent size worldwide collection . Even today I still want to open up that 25 cent packet of stamps that a beginner collector has and spread out the stamps on a table to see what is there.

To try and give you good advice, I need to better understand why you want more countries.
For years you focused on the USA and might have ignored other countries coming your way. How did you get suddenly interested in them?
You do have an interest in the USA, why not go from there?
One entity that is linked to the USA is NYC UN. I believe it isn't expensive, less attractive to other collectors than it used to be, so less competition, and relatively not so many stamps, around 1000 for each UN NY, Geneva, and Viena.
Another option that is still linked to the USA - is entities that belong to the USA (like Marshal islands) or were ruled by it (The Philipines, Allied forces in post-war Germany, and so on)