Hello Everyone! New Member From Ohio Usa.

Hello Kyle here from Ohio USA. Hope everyone is well. I'm a worldwide collector. Been collecting since 4 years old (39 now). I know many limit their collecting to certain countries or topics but I love stamps so much I just have never been able to limit myself so I collect any stamps from anywhere even revenues and some covers. I have focused most heavily on USA and have what I feel is a nice collection displayed in 2 Minuteman albums (80% complete to early 90s). I have many thousands different WW stamps but mostly in baggies, glassines, and stock cards and I'm an amateur because I haven't catalogued any other then my USA. I have made 20 or so very neat vario sheets for a few different countries but the stamps aren't catalogued and I'm ready to take my WW collection to the next level. Before I go any further I'd love some advice on how people go about this the best way. I'm thinking maybe I should try to print album pages for the stamps I have offline so they look better, then use binders and I can catalogue them all so as I acquire more stamps I can limit the purchase of duplicates, then maybe I could use my few stock pages and 70 or so vario pages for duplicates already owned. Anyways if anyone has any advice on these topics I'd love to chat. I struggle with advice and have no one to discuss stamps with and would love to make some friends who love philately. I don't know anyone personally who collects stamps except my father and he doesn't spend much time on it anymore and my dedication to stamps has far surpassed his. Look forward to some replies. Take care.

Welcome to the forum!

You might want to take a look at the Steiner album pages as an option for your worldwide needs. Yearly subscription for the service, and you can download and print to your heart's content.

Lance

Welcome.
Don

Welcome - many good people are on this forum and willing to offer advice.

I have been doing this more than 60 years and still am unsure in certain areas, so my first advice is - take your time. The world can be overwhelming so peck along at a learn-as-you-go pace.

That said, you might want to pick just 2 or 3 countries to start and focus on and see what works - the use of stock pages, stockbooks, albums, self-made album pages, etc.

First to address, though, is to make sure you have a decent catalog for you areas. Plus regular supplies - tongs, magnifier, per gauge, glassines and stock pages.

Good luck.

p.s. Be sure to make time to get to the Colopex show May 31-June 1 in Columbus. You will meet a lot of good and helpful collectors there - https://www.colopex.com/colopex

KyleB,

Collecting for the enjoyment of collecting, whatever that might be, is the name of the game. Don't hesitate to ask questions especially if you need basic information and especially more advanced sources of information for any possible topic. You should be able to find folks on this board a little further along on their collecting journey glad to share experiences.

My personal bias is a used stamp loses the story of its journey in the postal service when it is removed from the cover it transported to its destination. Collecting postal history adds a whole new aspect to your journey in our hobby. Sounds like you are a perfect candidate to become a postal history collector?

Wishing you many enjoyable future days in our hobby. Russ

Thank you all for your replies. Centerstage, I will definitely plan to attend Colopex, it is 40 minutes down the road from me. Russ I'm curious to learn more about postal history collecting. It sounds interesting and fun. I do like collecting just about anything to do with this hobby.

I also highly recommend Steiner pages!

Get the Steiner pages, a laser printer, a pack of acid-free 8½ by 11 inch paper, and an adjustable paper punch (for 3-hole and/or 2-hole binders). Get some ordinary office 3-ring binders. Print only what you need.