"Some Day " Stamp Collectors

You ask what is the most popular stamp collecting area for most collectors .

The answer is the -----"SOMEDAY " STAMP COLLECTOR .

Having been a collector who has spend 25 years on stamp chat boards and viewed hundreds of stamp collections from the West Coast to the East Coast at stamp auction viewing rooms ,I come to the expert opinion and this is support by other people in the business . That we have a lot of collectors who are planning "SOMEDAY " to have a nice collection .

We got a lot of old time members here who would fit into this group .

They are still in the process of buying material after 10 years of talking about stamps but someday they are going to show much better stuff than what you and me have to show ,

Then others are waiting for the right album and the right paper to mount their material but some day they will find those right combination to show their material .

Then there are those who been purchasing material for years and got all the supplies they need but just can't find the time to start ,you know kids ,job, and waiting for retirement then their ready someday .

As for me I am waiting for this whole group to drop dead ,so I can buy their unoranized collection at a stamp auction so I can start working on it .

Don't laugh ,I just bought a huge Saint Pierre Miquelon collection which was stamps on album pages from three different albums ,plus a pile of new issues which has been in these government issued glassines for ten years , then a hand full of stamp auction lots which were purchased over 3 to 7 years still on the auction cards never removed but cost hundreds of dollars .

So someone was going to put this all in his collection and make a nice Saint Piere album . I wish he could stop by my house and see his album completed sitting on my desk so I didn't put it on the side for "SOMEDAY "

Are you saying that you do not have any "someday" collections? I think you are probably right that this could be the most common kind of "collection." I think that most any collector with years of experience is going to have one or more of these kinds of "collections." I know I do, one in particular that I am thinking about. But I think this is just natural, that we develop an interest in some area, begin to acquire material, and end up spending more time on some of it than others. The "problem" -- if there is one -- would be to never follow through on any area. I have several areas that I consider more or less finished, and others that started working on, but are unfinished, and few where I have collected material but have yet to really get started on working it into an organized collection. Isn't that just the way it works?

...which raises a question: when is a Collection deemed to be finished and complete? Isn't there always something else to do, some day?

If I buy auction lots, it's because they interest me here and now, so I usually sort and integrate them shortly after they arrive. Where in the past I've bitten off more than I can chew - eg a large pile of duplicated and chaotic Portuguese material I picked up a while ago - I've got better at recognising that I won't deal with it and dumpingit back on ebay.

Often the journey matters more then the destination. Not everyone's journey goes according to plan for a multitude of reasons, but if even part of the journey, such as acquiring the stamps, brings temporary joy, what else to life is there but that.

Oh, I totally agree with you @floortrader. I'm seeing it more and more in auction listings. Lots with material that a collector built up over many years of buying but never began processing when, alas, the clock stopped.

Now, there is plenty of pleasure to be had in the purchase phase. But I have an extra thrill when I see folks make progress on the 'forming a collection' phase.

And I take your comments about paper and layout decisions personally. I am mired in the design phase of my own collection.

I take inspiration from your posts and how you get on with it. I'd rather take action, but for now, I take inspiration.

Guilty as charged!! So is there any hope for us someday collectors? Has anybody successfully broken out of this cycle?

I feel I've fallen into the retirement trap. Hoping to retire in a couple of years so scooping up material while I have good money coming in so I have something to do when I have more time and less money. I'm about two years behind, just now getting to box lots I purchased 2 years ago....and some material even older than that.

One thing which I've found helps a lot is buying singles/sets instead of feeder albums. Processing feeder albums is time consuming, also requires a lot of space and creates a lot of waste (and even more work to eventually liquidate/dispose). For the longest time I thought it was the best way to build a collection, just because it was cost effective (on a per stamp basis) but I think that was a mistake and probably cost me more money from all the duplication. Purchasing sets/singles has the advantage that it forces me to catalog what I have and what I need, instead of just purchasing more or less blindly.

I totally understand keeping stamps in their auction cards. When you spend a decent amount of money on a single or set, easy to keep track of in the cards instead of getting lost in the shuffle in an album.

I do really believe that all of us are "someday" collectors in one way or another when building our collections. When I was younger and didn't have the income necessary to build up my collection the way I wished I could, I'd tell myself "someday" I will (fill in the blank.) I used many of the excuses @floortrader listed...kids, job, waiting for retirement, etc.

Then, suddenly after retiring from the military, I began to build the collection I had always wanted to. Now I have a decent collection of U.S. & Canada and am working slowly on Mexico. I continue to expand my collection on a regular basis with singles, sets, and lots when they include whatever flavor of the month I'm interested in.

I struggled with the paper and layout aspects for my collection, then just decided to do it keeping in mind that I could change the layout if I didn't like it. Now I have 57 albums filled with pages that I designed, printed, and filled with stamps. In my work as a software engineer and web developer, I built a simple website to keep track of my collection and update it almost daily. Anytime I'm away from home, I simply hit my website to see if I already have something I may be looking at. I couldn't be much happier considering where I was when I started 50 years ago with an H.E. Harris Explorer album.

Do I still have "someday" moments? Definitely, but as time goes by I (as many of us do) just keep chipping away at filling those empty spaces.

I have some countries in a Specialty album with a high percentage of the more common stamps. I have finished putting all my stamps from glassines, other collections and stock pages in.

I then look at it and ask if that is the goal for other countries? ie "someday" I will get all my WW album buys, mixes and other stamps organized where they belong.
Do I want to spend notable money to add and thus have something more interesting? Why aspire to "someday" get all my current stamps into these albums? What am I really trying to achieve with a plan just focused on processing volume?

I then think I should sell everything. Clear the clutter, get rid of all the someday to do's, raise some cash and focus on a small collection that can be completed and reviewed with pride before moving to another small collection building block. As a kid I did that to some sort within a price range...shifted from WW Citation hole filling to completing a Liberty for ~ the 1920+ years before moving to a Harris Canada.

I too have to plead guilty to this. Have a huge backlog of stamps and albums that I am about to organize. Someday. Drives my wife crazy