Are You A Space Filler Or A Hoarder?

Both, but mainly space filler.
Filling Scott specialty pages worldwide to 1965 or so.
Once done here, the remaining duplicates I fill spaces in a set of Scott Brownies that go to 1938 or so.

After this any better remainders 'hoarded' until enough to send to auction in about 5 years or so.

Lower value remainders I fill Scott blues which when fairly full I will send to auction in about 20 years. Only sold 1 set of Scott blues about 10 years ago to pay a semester of daughter's college.

Just bought a used set of blues 2 years ago. So in between the 1st sale and the repurchase I hoard.

What an interesting topic!

Man, I think I'm both :-} I want stamps in the little squares in my albums--I'll tell you what: even ordinary, plain common stamps look good when they're ranged together in a coherent collection.

I tend to hold onto stuff with the intention of trading my extra material--but it tends to get stuffed into little envelopes which keep piling up and never seem to get sorted. But I'll work that out later. Right now, I try to buy and trade for bundles of whatever looks good. I'm collecting worldwide, so, with the exception of Iron Curtain, "dunes," and a few other categories which don't interest me, I'm open to all of it.

I have bought specific items, particularly for a few countries which are filling in quite nicely for me (Germany comes to mind. And Philippines older stuff), so I do go after specific items as well.

Looking to build a United States state/local 21st Century Taxpaids collection. Mostly cigarette these days, but the going is SLOW! Hard to get these things, despite people in every state buying packages of cigarettes with them on them. I think I'll have a MOST interesting collection once I get more material. I'm working on an expandable album to account for past and future issues. Unsure if anyone even catalogs the new stuff anymore :-P

Josh

I would say... none!

I'm specialized in special countries and periods, but I'm not a space filler. I prefer taking my time, choosing my stamps one by one.

You only cover two areas about the philatelic community ,the Space Filler and the Hoarder .

There are two more ,both small areas .

The EXPERT ,who spends his time ,money and effort into a very small area of the hobby .

Then the SPECIALIST, these type of collectors goes beyond the album and the general catalogs , their playground is perforations ,watermarks ,unlisted items ,color shades and useages .

When you start to research the history of Philately ,step back and read about these early leaders of the hobby you start to understand how they collected .
We have the records today of what they had and what they collected.

They had what I would call SPECIALIZED collections.

Space filler. I was sort of a hoarder in the past, but that's all gone now. Today, I provide any extras to a young collector and I no longer buy collections, I only buy individual stamps that I need for my collection.

I'm a space filling, flyspecking, variety and cover seeking sorter and organizer. Definitely NOT a hoarder - my view is that those lazy duplicate stamps goofing off in glassines should get off their flat little back sides, move out of my stamp room and get a J.O.B. filling an empty space in someone's stamp album!

I'm a wannabe space filler, but in actuality I'm a hoarder. Feel free to send me stamps!
:-)

I have Acquired piles of stamps sorted them into stock books plus a few albums and country pages. I then fill spots in my albums. Collection ends up with few complete pages and small sets missing the high denomination

Always wanting to have an album with spots for all the stamps I come across I was pleased to discover Steiner and learned to put a cutoff on my collection (1970 for most)

That led to understanding why people specialize. With over 50 Scott specialty albums with printed Steiner pages I have too many blank pages and not enough complete pages.

I do like getting all my stamps into the albums and selling off the extras, but time and buying creates a horder looking backlog.

That's really why I do things the way that I do. I only collect MNH and only a dozen or so specific countries. I buy what I need to fill a space, nothing more. I don't have a lot of extras to dispose of and the ones that I do get, I have people that want them so they all go away relatively quickly. That means that my countries are well represented and if I were to ever run out of stamps to collect, I can just add another country and start working on that.

I am not really an accumulator but I find covers like this (do not collect covers) and do not want to throw them away. It also included a bunch of stock transfer forms with stamps attached.

For some countries, I am a space filler. For most, I am more of a story-teller. I look for stamps that represent the history of a country without any attempt at completion, even of sets. For a few areas, I take deep dives into contained historical moments such as pre-Protectorate Morocco, pre-UPU Ethiopia/Djibouti, and the postmarks of pre-unification German Confederation.