Started A Worldwide Collection Recently

As the title states.... I like to visit this site and get ideas and thoughts from everyone, so I can see how I wanted to start my WW collection.

So for the past month, I have purchased the Stein pages. along with 32lb cream paper and a binder.

I have slowly started to print out each country and fill the pages with stamps and mounts

I have quite a few (a lot actually) older Scott international albums part 1 along with other albums so I thought I would try and put one complete WW album together

Its quite overwhelming as well. I would like to get the collection to the point that as I acquire other albums, I would be able to quickly go through them to see which one I am still missing.

But as for now I am still far from reaching that point.

Is anyone else by chance in the same boat as I am?

I am just starting France now, one of the things that makes France hard is all the variations.

I don't quite understand your project. If you're printing out pages to accommodate International Part Ones, a binder isn't going to do it; you're going to need a few shelves worth of binders.

Some people only print a page when they have a few, or more, stamps to add. That means that you have to keep track of the one or three stamps that would go on a page. I think you'd print out a page when you have a stamp to add.

Whichever way you go, good luck. Show a page or two when you can.

Welcome to collecting the stamps of European countries and the classic stamps of their colonies. You are lucky in as far as France is a mainstream country. Try varieties from Bulgaria or even Spain.

Greek Hermes Heads could fill one binder.

Bear in mind that you don't need to make this complicated - just collect countries on a simplified basis unless you're especially interested in them.

Not sure what you mean by French variations - France is relatively easy to collect because there are no perf or watermark problems to worry about.

I don't print album pages, but I make up my own for BC GVI-QE - I wouldn't make a page unless I had 50% of the stamps for it.

Welcome to a life time journey .

Welcome to the mix Hellow123

25 years ago I entered the rabbit hole of world wide collecting. Like you, I subscribed to the Steiner site and began printing my first album. The first year I ended up with 12 binders, mostly US, Great Britain, Australia and Canada.

Fast forward and I now have 168 Binders.

I also had difficulty with variations and watermarks at first but found that patience was my best defense. If I found myself struggling to identify stamps I would put them away, do something else and come back to them a few days or a week later.

Good luck in your Endeavours

Dianne

Merging albums into one is kind of fun. If I could restart again, this is what I would do. Keep the best of the Scott International 1 and the best binder. Make that two binders. Ok maybe three to grow into. The first couple pages for each country could either be quadrille pages or Stiener. That way if you already have a lot of stamps mounted in the scott international you don't have to remount them and the most common omissions are the first 100 scott numbers. Keep us posted on your progress.

Here are a couple of images of the album I have started.

I debated on using one of the scott international albums that I have, but I hated the fact that they are not mount friendly. So I decided that the steiner pages were the way to go.

Kind of parroting what the previous posters have said here, but what do you mean by "complete one WW album together?"

If you are as my friends describe me as a "completionist" if that even is a word; then I would suggest something less tame than France or Russia. But, if you want to complete certain countries then then there are some albums/Steiner pages that can be completely filled (especially if you are ok with used stamps) for not a lot of cash. Happy to suggest some if you'd like.

Of course if you want to just collect stamps from anywhere/everywhere; please do if that is what makes you happy!

Hope that helps?

After collecting most of my life, a collection my father started probably in the early 60's. We worked together until his death and the best "advise" I can offer is to don't worry to much about how to rather do what you can, with what you have. I do one country at a time, moving, rearranging replacing aging pages and mounting accumulated materials. This is repeated over and over with every country I collect. Depending on your accumulation activities. I have periods that I obsess over this county or that country or a certain design, subject for whatever reason without any connection to each other. Last year ago I went off no a tangent with ROC, again, which for me is difficult as I have obsessed over it since my early days but in the '70's.
I don't know if I can clear up your concerns but just keep plugging. A World Wide collection will not be built in a day, week or month. It takes a lifetime of effort. Good Luck!

Hello123, very nice! Smart adding in those scott numbers too.

I love collecting the Big Blue - here is the way I do it and it works extremely well for me ....

https://bigblue1840-1940.blogspot.c...ig-blue.html

I have 14 stamps to go to achieve completion -- using the 1969 version of the Scott International Part I.

Now, I just need to figure out what to do with my 5 leftover "feeder collections"!

Jbodo - Thats actually a great idea as well, to insert those pages for the stamps

Each to his or her own, but the idea of collecting to an album, but not actually using it, is rather lost on me. And the tons of Lighthouse stock-pages …