Organizing Worldwide - Curious What Preferences Similar Collectors Have

I am a collector of many things(!), but mainly US mint, US Revenue Private Die Proofs, and India. However, I've been going through a large collection of worldwide, putting the used in Scott Brown albums and the unused in Vario pages in binders. My curiosity is really around the unused in the Vario pages, but this probably extends to anyone tackling a similar task of general worldwide organization. I initially started adding to the Vario pages by country, in alphabetical order. Then I realized that I probably would prefer adding states, possessions, territories to their overarching country (e.g., Newfoundland with Canada rather than under "N", Baden under Germany rather than under "B", etc.). There are other things to consider, like Ethiopia, where it had a few issues under Italian control, but also has it's own stamps. So for those I am inclined to have Ethiopia under "E", but then the few Italian issues under Italy. I know it is a matter of preference, but this will be a big piece of work to reorganize and I wanted to see what other people have done that works well before I change anything.

I have a small collection (5 thick stock books) of worldwide. One stock book is British Commonwealth, organized alphabetically. The other 4 stock books are arranged by continent. Within each continent countries go from west to east, starting in the north, more or less.
For example, for Europe I started with Belgium, then Netherlands, etc. Scandinavia is in a separate section even though it is part of Europe. That includes Finland which is technically not part of Scandinavia. Africa starts with Morocco. And so on.
This system is more satisfying than having everything alphabetical.

Each person will have his or her own preferences. Decolonialization means most territories, also, issued their own stamps. Names change, countries split. Some even re-unite.

Germany had states, then an empire, then occupied zones, then two countries with issues for Berlin by one of those, and now they are one again.

Your own "Ethiopia" example does not even mention the British issues for occupied Italian colonies. Sometimes, these cover multiple territories. There also are more general overprinted British stamps of that type that could be used in most of current Libya as well.

Also, there exist countries that had several foreign post offices (China, Ottoman Empire, Morocco). Again, these may be related to what now are different countries (Levant: general Ottoman Empire and just Salonika, currently in Greece).

Whatever solution you come up with, you may run into cases where you have to make choices. Otherwise, it does not work. The biggest issue with most solutions that are not simple "alphabetically what it says on the stamp" will mean that you must know what the current or former territory is. Will you remember that Nyasaland is under either the U of United Kingdom, G of Great Britain, B of Britain, Z of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia and Nyasaland) or M of Malawi.

And do you bisect the Rhodesia and Nyasaland stamps to place one half under the Z of Zimbabwe and the other under M of Malawi.

Mind you, Alderney and Sark, simply, are (Bailiwick of) Guernsey, as the stamps with all three inscriptions can be used throughout the Bailiwick of Guernsey and are issued by the Guernsey Post Office.

As an example, with British Empire/Commonwealth, I group within continents, then parts of continents, eg the Malayan states together, closely followed by "Borneo", which includes North Borneo, Sarawak and Brunei. Alphabetical order is simple, but too random, just as it is for organising books.

I've obsessed over this question for a very long time, to the point where the hobby stops being fun until I give it a rest for a while. :)

One can look at this in terms of retrieval -- how can I quickly find the stamp / page I'm after. Might be the only thing alphabetical order is good for, but as some have already mentioned, even that will fall apart sometimes.

I take a continental / territorial approach similar to GeoffHa and try to tell the story of how a geographic area changed political boundaries / control / rule etc etc over time. I organize areas by current boundaries (Continent, Region, Nation) and then drill down from there.

One thing I try very hard to stick to is organizing the stamps I have, rather than all the stamps in the catalogue. It keeps me sane. (I admire others who map out the whole world in detail first, but I can't do that!) So I won't worry about where I'll put British occupation of Italian settlements in Ethiopia until I actually have some of them. But they'll go somewhere in my Ethiopia section, with a write up describing the story behind them and why they fit in that section.

In addition to many more specialized collections, I also have a massive but fairly lightly populated worldwide collection in 40 volumes of Scott International albums. Everyone will collect as they prefer, one of the joys of the hobby, but I've chosen to put most subsidiary areas with the major country that now controls that territory -- all the Canadian provincial stamps with Canada, for example. If some place became its own country I don't do that.

German East Africa goes with (South African-controlled) SouthWest Africa which all go with Namibia.
Congo Free State + Belgian Congo + Democratic Republic of the Congo + Zaire all go together.
Puerto Rico, Canal Zone, Hawaii and Confederate States (what else am I missing?) go with U.S.
Manchukuo goes with Japan since it was Japanese territory at the time.
German States go with Germany.

A lot of this is completely standard in stamp collecting.

I do have a kind of "concordance" that I keep with this world collection, so I can find places I've put with other places when I sometimes forget -- Where did I move the Nossi Be pages or the Fiume pages and Alouites and all those other tiny, short-lived places?

I have also debated reorganizing the entire massive set of albums by region or maybe nationality - all Latin America together, for example. That seems interesting but I'm not sure it's what I want to do. Would I do all of Africa together? No, I wouldn't, but I might do all British Colonies together and all French Colonies, and so on. It seems to make sense, but I'm not sure . . . . Does Indochina really belong with Algeria? Seems a bit odd, doesn't it?

Each collector does what works for them .
Me with most collectors works with what they grew up with . I started with H.E.Harris albums ,first album was 25 cents from Woolworth's , the next step was again H.E.Harris for $1.00. and three albums after that were the same layout. So that was how I kept my worldwide collection .

That was a easy blend into the Scott International albums , then specialized into the country albums of the Scott systems and thousands{ If not millions of other } collectors done the same .

I began as a simple stamp collector, grew to a set of 7-8 Big Blue Internationals, but the only page rearrangement I made was to merge the pages so that all dates for each country were in chronological sequence. I never moved to the point where I became interested to moving colonies and countries around as nationalities or independence resulted in the change of country names.

But I can appreciate the dilemma those collectors face.

I agree that every collector has to find his on way of organizing pages, and I suspect that for every ten World-Wide collectors in a room, there would be at least eleven "Best" album page organizations being promoted.

The problem from the view of the collector is how to keep track of where certain pages are located when he decides to no longer maintain a strict alphabetic sequence by the country name at the time of the stamp issuance..

If I was starting from scratch, I would consider something like the following scheme...

EXAMPLE:
Let's say that the pages Belgian Congo in Africa is originally located following the pages for Belgium. (I did not go look at my set of Internationals, so this is a hypothetical example)

It becomes the independent nation of Congo about 1960, and the collector wants to move the pages from "B" to "C". Take a photo or scan of the header of Belgian Congo (or like top 4") of the first page of the Belgian Congo pages, and print it on a new sheet of paper (either a matching album page or simply white paper, along with a note in large print that says: "The pages for Belgian Congo are now placed following the Congo."

Maybe the collector next wants to move Zaire from the "Z" section to be placed with (after) the new "Congo". Scan and print a copy of the header for the Zaire page, add the note "Zaire now located with the Congo", then insert this single page alphabetically in the album in the "Z" section.

This could be done in as fancy a manner as desired (as described), or simply a sheet of ruled notebook paper with a handwritten version of the same message.

I suppose you could also use a yellow "stick note".

I have tried former grouping colonies album pages under the current name so not scattered if all done alphabetically. Of course as a general worldwide collector, I cannot remember every variation especially for the African countries that often joined, split, and rejoined such as French West Africa.

I collect most on Steiner pages.

For French West Africa, I have the individual entities, then the general issues that appeared from the late-1930s, then Cameroun and Togo, which are in the same geographical area, but were administratively separate. I no longer have post-independence issues.

angore:

Great minds think alike.

Almost...

Democratic Republic of Congo

1997 to 1971

The easy way is to follow the Scott Catalog and make a separate binder or folder for each country ,some countries have 2 or 3 binders each with dates listed on the binder .

The 250-350 binders with Steiner Pages in 3 ring binders are totally separate from my previous WW. stamp collection , which is below .

That is a beautiful wall of shelving. I am jealous.

Mine is just cluttered.

I collect WW on Steiner pages, and stick pretty closely to alphabetic order to assist with retrieval when needed. That way, for me, there are fewer exceptions to be remembered.

Organize by continent or region. There is something about stamps and organizing by shared culture.

Shared culture? Why do you think Africa and the Middle East have seen conflict since independence?