New To This Board And Excited To Find This In My Stamps Collecting Journey!

Hello to all! My name is Greg. I've been collecting stamps for about 5 years. My main focus is topicals, especially of the British Empire. I own about 800 sets. MNH is also a preference of mine.

In an effort to expand my horizons, I decided to join this message board.

The hobby itself is very exciting! I enjoy these "mini" forms of art very much so.

I plan to look around the forums in the coming days. So, with that said, a bit about me -

I am 45 years old. Before I started stamps, I was an avid comic book collector. However, I soured on the hobby due to modern issues, with too many variant covers.

As a child, I collected stamps also for a few years. Mostly CTO, as so many of us had the option of obtaining easily.

After selling my comics, I brain-stormed, and decided to get serious, and collect stamps again, with absolutely no regrets!

Another reason? Well, simply put, the hobby is VERY relaxing as well. There is nothing like playing meditation music, and looking through, or working on a collection of material!

I look forward to meeting more collectors, and having a chat when I can.

Thank you all! God bless!

Greg

Welcome to the community! I remember the explosion of comic book variant covers.

Although I welcomed you over on the bird thread, I'll say it again here!

You know, you could easily build a 'comic book covers/art on stamps' topical using modern material.

Thanks for the warm welcome to both of you!

As for the comics themed collection that you mentioned... I actually considered it, but decided to move on totally from comics, even on stamps, at least for now.

However, it is on the "back-burner" for perhaps down the road!

Greg

Those "back-burner" collections sneak up on you... one day you'll find something great at a show or on-line that fits the collection you were contemplating, and before you know it, it's taking all your spare cash...

I have an album full of horseshoe crabs on stamps, even though I never considered it a proper collection. It just happened.

Horse shoe crabs? Very unique! I have about 15-20 crab sets myself. Actually, its a nice topic! But yes, I know what you mean about sudden topics to collect suddenly becoming available!

For instance, I'm considering crabs (ironically), birds and fish from Taiwan (Republic of China). They look intriguing!

I frequent Hipstamp often, which is where I found a dealer stocking many of these. I think I'll go for it soon!

Crabs are an excellent topical! Lots of good stuff. There's one engraved stamp from the Ivory Coast, I think about 1971, that I particularly like. I have to look up Taiwan and see what they've issued. An enjoyable topic.

I used to choose very small topics and then do very extensive collections... I have entire albums dedicated to praying mantises, sawfish, oarfish, whales fighting giant squid (!), giant silkmoths and insecticides. To flesh out these collections I include cinderellas and postmarks, among other odds and ends.

Do you collect modern material in addition to the older things? I often put "cut off" dates on my collections (unless they're very tiny subjects) because of the glut of material these days. I'm a completist at heart and need to reign myself in somehow...

Yes, I love my crab stamps!

I don't collect much old, mostly mid-60's to current, so I am the opposite of what you desecribed. However, I am REALLY considering collecting older material soon. Its all so nice!

Your small topics idea is very intriguing! I may go that route myself soon!

(I had to delete my initial response to this post because of a technical problem with images, but I'll try again.)

I once saw a philatelic exhibit someone had put together entirely on Superman and nothing else. He had postmarks, covers and cinderellas in addition to stamps I'd never seen before. Picking one comic, or publisher (DC? Marvel?) or character might be a good small topic.

I've done individual books and movies (including Godzilla, that I tried to post images of unsuccessfully... maybe I'll try again later). The usual response to seeing these collections is "Cool, I didn't realize there were so many stamps...!" Sometimes a topical seems small and manageable until you start digging into it and discover it's a lot larger than you expected.

Let us know what you start (if and when you start something new)!

Interesting! You'd think it would be hard to aquire a lot of material for some ideas. But then, if you figure in the sheer number of stamps in the world, I guess I can see ways to make it work!

Yes, I'll let you know on any new projects! Like I mentioned in another post, I'm thinking of moving into collecting China Taiwan. They have interesting topicals, to say the least!

I love coffee so I started collecting coffee on stamps. Growers, roasters, espresso machines etc. Another topic ham radio on stamps. Not real easy to find but the ATA check sheets help.
I'm a worldwide collector which can give a person lots of topic to consider.

Coffee on stamps sounds cool! Ham radio? Wow... amazing! ATA - American Topical Association, right? I'll have to look there for sure. I am a worldwide collector also. Basically, if it appeals to me, I buy it. No real "rules" which is the best part about collecting!

I love hearing about original topicals!

I once started collected advertising labels (poster stamps) for hot chocolate... but it was actually inspiring me to drink too much hot chocolate! Here's a coffee related cinderella:

Impressive! Coffee sounds unusual, but hot chocolate? Wow! Yes, these ideas all sound great! Gives me motivation to think on things!

Here's a goofy advertising label for hot chocolate featuring... a woolly mammoth! (I posted this on the prehistoric elephants thread, too).

Now THAT is unusual! Thanks for sharing these nice pics! Do you have any other unusual stamps? It seems off-beat, but a great idea!

Also, on a related subject - I do not care to ever sell any stamps, but do Cinderella stamps ever become valuble? Just curious.