World Largest -Biggest Stamp Collection

Now that we established why collectors loose money ,now we need to inform new collectors ,what makes value and increase their chances to have a decent return at the time of sale .

It is great to make money but the fact remains you get nothing for your time and the money you spend on supplies is another big zero .

So where do we stand at this point , the answer is to get a decent return back on the stamps you purchased ,maybe not 100% but 75% would be good instead of a 20% or even a 30% after all those years of effort . Sorry but there is a lot of 10% return on purchases too .

Collectors enjoy the hobby. What one gets out of it cannot be measured simply in dollars. If the money return is the goal, then perhaps they are in the wrong hobby. With luck and knowledge, a collection might bring enough for someone to say "I had a great time, and I am happy with the return to pass it on for someone else to enjoy."

Revcollector ---True ,I always was and still a collector but the longer I stay the more expensive it gets because I have the cheap stuff . But the hunt to expand it and pride of having a collection get more expensive.

It must be human nature to want to improve what you collect and search for and buy better items ,sort of a satisfaction of improving what you got .

FWIW I am tied for the world's smallest Saxony collection, just have the one 3 denomination, and glad to have it!

I am going at this from a family history point of view. Am buying what kiloware I can, for the countries I have ancestry from. England, Northern Ireland, Thuringia, Prussia (that is a headache to identify), and Ontario/Quebec. For my purposes that means Germany, UK, Canada, and the US. I am occasionally filling in some items of interest as they become relevant (eg Poland, Danzig). It is fun and my highest value stamp so far probably would sell for $5.

I have given some doubles to a teacher in a nearby district, and plan to give or sell hundreds more. Large collection? Hardly. Relevant collection? Yes...

Def. Stampr - I never post negative stuff about the choice of what to collect and size of anybody's collection . Because I thought I had a neat collection and it was a 2 or 3 dollar collection of mostly Eastern Europe C-T-O- 's . I was heart broken when they told me at the local stamp meeting with a room filled with members to the whole room "it was worthless "......never forgot that .

If anything , the impact of that statement changed everything

Floor trader, I didn't read anything into your post like that. If anything, we agree on the concept. I don't base anything on the $ value of anything I have. I could editorialize about those who said your collection was worthless, but doubtless you could do a better job

Let's just say that any character issues evidenced in that situation were not yours. I have been to about 3 shows, and there are two kinds of dealers: the ones who have no use for me once they find out what I am collecting, and the ones that still help any way they can.

Still scarred by a visit to a dealer's on Christmas Steps as a kid. The one on Needless Alley was fine, though.

Def. Stampr -----Agree , 1/2 of the stamp dealers at shows and bourse's were not interested in me ,once they found out I was a W.W. collector . I was about 22 or 23 ,when a club member asked me if I was going to a Rasdale Stamp Auction in Chicago ,that would be 1972 or 1973 . I started to bring girl friends with me to auction's ,then 4 years later I was bring my oldest daughter to each auction .If you ask her now, all she remembers is the bag of carmel popcorn made famous in Chicago and the chocolate candy bars from the vending machine ,three floors below in the same building at 36 S. State st.

If I buy anything from them in their stamp auction in two weeks ,that should make me their oldest long term customer some 53 years as a buyer .

I always thought that mine was larger than average and yet storing it was never an issue. I guess it falls into the area of being compact enough to remove and display and yet big enough to satisfy the average collector that prizes volume. Some people may be envious that they have a smaller one but that is something they need to deal with. As far as dollar value I guess that depends upon what it would be used for. Filling in holes or exhibiting etc.

I've only been interacting on forums since about 2018-19 so I can't speak to those who were active before that time, but I think the hobby has for a long time been loaded with those who view anyone who does not collect their preferred area as "lesser" collectors. For some it might simply be a lack of tact. In some cases, perhaps, the translation from native language to English may cause subtleties in meaning to be lost. And then in some cases the person is just an ass. Ignore any or all. Repeat as needed.

Some of it could also be the attitude that worldwide collecting is what children do before they know anything. I'm not sure exactly when that started happening, but if I had to guess it was probably there fairly early. It is interesting reading some of the older "intro to stamp collecting" books and seeing the advice on maintaining a worldwide collection as a means of (a) keeping up with changes in technology in producing stamps, and (b) as a launching pad for new areas of specialization. A shame that idea didn't win out.

Dale

You would have had a problem being a worldwide collector in 1841. But worldwide, probably, was the most popular in the early years of collecting.You only have to look at the old Moens catalogues to see one-country collecting was not the standard. This may have been the case into the 1930s and even the 1940s, when KaBe and the likes still produced worldwide albums.

At some time, in Europe, the focus changed to one-country (maybe several of them) collecting. Often colonies would be included. Stamp album producers in Europe started focussing on countries and their colonies. Worldwide albums were few and far between.

At the end of the last century, thematic collecting became popular as well.

Also, somewhere, the specialist collectors popped up. There are collectors who focus on a single set or even a single stamp.

Nowadays, you see people with too much money buying everything that is expensive and / or rare. You also have young people who pick what they like. For most of us, that may look like a complete lack of focus. To them, it brings satisfaction.

There, even, are people who collect the computerised counter stickers.

Stamp collecting has always changed. In some places quickly. In others slowly. And sometimes completely new areas were created.

Who cares how another person collects. It is a hobby, let them have fun and do it as they like. There is no wrong way to enjoy collecting stamps.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with all these posts though I have less time in stamp collecting. I collected for 2-3 years as a kid and Eastern Europe stamps were the easiest to get and looked the least like they had been run over, lol. Now I see them and think they make an important historical contribution as well as a cautionary tale. Call me a subversive, or call me anything, but I think the hobby will succeed more the more different types of collections are out there....

The day I got this stamp album ,I was no longer a beginner I was now part of "the big kid stamp group " advanced to being a serious philatelist ,it was 1960 . Never thought I would need a bigger album .

Last night looking around on the latest listings of on -line stamp auctions on Stamp Auction Network ,noticed Cherrystone Auction has for the fourth time listed their Huge Massive worldwide stamp collection . I talked about this lot all three times before on this board .
Without repeating what I said before .
Let me update what they are offering for new readers . It is a massive worldwide stamp collection of 100,000 + stamps mounted in 75+ 3 ring binders . It is lot 1490 in their up coming auction Feb. 18,2026 . So you can watch it .

How I price this huge worldwide stamp collection at Cherrystone Auctions ?

There is no standard way to price it ,so I am going to give you how I see it . Please don't show me examples from 30 years ago . This is 2026 .

First the pricing is wrong ,their opening bid is $14,000 ,it tells me they own it {that is my guess} .. Very few firms in the auction business would take a customer item for the fourth time . Like to think it came for a ride because there was other stuff they wanted from this seller .

This $14,000 opening bid will cost me and you about $17,500.00 so lets use that as our cost . 17,500 is too much for maybe 110,000 different stamps ,it is over price to me . They are up to 16 cents per stamp .

Sure they say hundreds of stamps at the $100.00 range . But understand this as 200 items at $130.00 each only leaves you $26,000 catalog of stamps over 200 items ,that would sell at maybe $3,000 at auction . I can buy those at $2,000 maybe $3,000 if those are complete sets and better countries lets use $3,000 worth . So what it comes down to is $14,000 for 100,000 + stamps . That is about twice the going price for cheap mounted stamps on album pages .