Born Again Collector, From Basingstoke UK

Good evening to everyone on the forum.

I recently took up collecting again after finding my old GB collection.

It was great to see it again, bringing back happy memories. I hand drew it from the simple "Collect British Stamps" catalogue starting when I was around 10, and by about 16 and after collecting some mint sets for a few years, I put it aside. It had lots of holes; back then I just had to wait for old stamps to " turn up" from somewhere, and I had hardly any money anyhow, even if I found somewhere selling stamps.

After a while, I thought with ebay and all, it wouldn't take much time to fill up some of the gaps, so I set off fixing the pre-decimal commemorative sets. After a while I got to some of the se-tenant blocks, and my old album was drawn out for individual stamps, so I re-drew a page or two for the blocks on quality ivory paper. Afterwards the rest of the album didn't look up to scratch as I had just used thin lined paper, so I started re-drawing the whole album, and that's where I am now, in 1974. I guess my approach is very old school, using a fountain pen and hinges.

I'm having loads of fun, but here in Basingstoke, the stamp club closed down a few years back and I know no local stamp collectors. I'm at a very basic level, but sometimes you just need to ask someone what to do. I have a burning question right now - which I will post in the correct forum.

That's enough introduction from me. I will write more on the forum.
Dave

Dave,

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 for your welcome, Russ.

I'm not sure where I'm headed in this hobby yet. I do know it is easy, to accumulate more stamps than you can properly deal with. That happened even when I was a child, and led me to concentrating on GB.

I was thinking of maybe a British Commonwealth country, or even just sorting a massive pile of world stamps (I do enjoy sorting!), finding the best looking pile and concentrating there. I do enjoy older line engraved stamps, but also natural history subjects. I don't really know anything about postal history; Is it a kind of detective work, working out routes letters took through the postal system? I wouldn't know where to start!

GB will keep me busy for at least a year; until the gaps get too expensive for me to regularly fill up; I can't see myself specialising very narrowly - there's too many stamps out there!

Welcome back to collecting. I'm sure you will find the help you need with your questions on the forum. Your hand made albums sound like a great way to display your stamps and personalize your collection.

Welcome back to this amazing world. Am new too in this forum. Hello, I'm Ralph. Although I'm practically an amateur collector, I'm very passionate about GB and it's one of my favorites. Especially when you enter the world of watermarks. I will be here to learn a lot.

Welcome back. I collect GB stamps, I live in England and get a lot of stamps at Stamp fairs and auctions I attend. The smaller fairs often yield good results at prices that are better than the big shows. I try to collect to the level of the concise SG catalogue, with the exception of the super expensive stamps. I don't collect except in a most superficial way the Post and go labels or smiler sheets.

Hi superseahorses, welcome back to collecting and also to the forum. One of my main collections is GB, and my ambition is to find one of the green £1 seahorses one day (for a reasonable price!). This is a great forum with many knowledgeable people.
Regards
DavidR

Thank you all for the welcome.

DavidR, I still don't actually own a seahorse yet, in spite of my username, but hopefully I will get some nice ones, very soon; perhaps not the £1!

Noocassel, I hope to get to a stamp fair soon. I think the Basingstoke one has gone, but I think there are fairs at Thatcham and Farnham.

Some of the post 1970s developments in GB stamps I'm still trying to understand; mini sheets, smiler sheets, the Millennium Series etc. They all look very colourful but I'm not too sure what the theme is sometimes. I might finish GB at the end of the millennium, but there are some nice later sets and the regional definites from around 2000 I like a lot.

One way of picking up the mint decimal commemorative material is to look out for auction lots of yearbooks or presentation packs, which go for around 40-50% of face value. You can use the ones you don't want for sending letters and parcels.