For Worldwide Collectors.

What was/is the most challenging country for you to collect?

There are many countries that are difficult as they have many (many) expensive issues. Those countries aside, there are some that present a special challenge because they don't show up in auctions, consignment sales, online, etc.

Which country or countries have caused you to lose sleep, pull your hair out, or made you want to scream? Which lot did you lose in an auction that you really regret not bidding just a little higher? Do you look back 20 or 30 years later to a time when you had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add to your collection and could kick yourself for not pulling the trigger?

Details please!

Recently tried to organize Japan into album pages. After first day, I gave up… so many forgeries, and just difficult.

Heligoland another tough one for me.

Two areas that are a challenge to me are Malaysia states and older PRC. Hard for me to identify some PRC with lots of reprints.

Malayan states are readily available at auction, but they usually sell well, and above estimate, in my experience. Any duplicates I've sold on ebay have been popular, and most have gone to Malaysia or China.

Some Spanish colonies are often mentioned as being hard to find, and they don't turn up much in UK auctions.

I avoid PRC, for fear of filling my pages with fakes. Latin America can be challenging, especially if like me, you care a lot what condition the stamp is in; much of what's out there from the 19th and early 20th looks like it was on the front line of a revolution or civil war.

As a crude generalisation, Latin America tends not to do too well in the UK, so there are probably opportunities to be had. I had a reasonable collection of South America in leather-bound Scott albums (which drove me crazy), and which I eventually sold for a little less than I paid for it!

I specialize in used colonial Africa and have found the Spanish colonies a difficult find. There is little in the USA from the usual sources. I have found a reputable dealer in Madrid Spain that has helped me with complete sets, albeit at higher prices than my usual target.

Everyone will tell you their country is hard to collect. It depends what your goal is. If you mean to collect pretty deeply, then really anything outside of Europe, US, Australia and Canada etc will be tough to collect deeply. Most collectors with money are located in those countries. Thus, the collections of those countries show up pretty often in auctions. And if you have the money just buy. The rest of the world however, can be tough to collect deeply even if you have the money as good collections show up less. If your not collecting deeply then only the dead countries are really hard. Think colonies of the big 5.

oh yeah, I almost forgot. Machin heads! I wish I had the patience. There's been a couple lots in our club auction with about a 100 or so identified. They tend to sell well. All that work! At least now one can complete the run!

For us pre-1940 world collectors, I'm thinking that I can speak for everyone that the Spanish Colonies are really, really difficult. A lot of Scott-minimum valued stamps, but just try to find them, especially Cape Juby.

Some can be found on Delcampe, but the Spanish-based dealers ask sometimes hundreds of dollars for sets. A Scott update to true market value needs to happen!

I hear you about cape juby there's some half page or so countries in big blue that one doesn't see often… one can find New Brunswick out there pretty easily

Portuguese colonies are not easy to source.