Good (Easy) Country To Collect Classics

I recently bought a few lots of US Classics. I was new to this and have enjoyed it to a degree.

However, the fact that some of these stamps probably can't be identified (100%) is very frustrating. Even if you get the perfs and the watermark and determine it's offset printing, then there may be three different shades of pink that basically halts everything.

To my point:

I still prefer the "classic" stamps - say pre-WW2.

Are there any "mainstream" countries where identifying the majority of the classic era stamps is easy? I would prefer to stick with major European countries (Spain, Italy, Portuagal, Germany, GB, France, Australia and Canada). Maybe Russia.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may have.

There's always Panama. It was orignally a European colony. Alot of their classics were produced by some of the best engravers in the world.

To be fair I have also begun to collect Spain (though at this point accumulate would be a fairer word). So far it seems to lack the extreme complexity of early US stamps, though I am still a newbie when it comes to Spain.

Yesterday I got a number of covers stamped envelopes from someone on this forum..
About 30 in all. I had great fun last night going through them, some of them took me over an hour to identify. Die 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,8, 9, etc... some took no time at all, the fun was in discovering there were a few nice ones in the lot..
I like mint embossed envelopes... and am slowly building up my collection. so I find it fun. one item can keep me busy for an hour..

Several of the Latin American countries are worth looking at...

I wouldn't suggest the Indian States if you want to avoid complexity but how about pre-Independence (to 1947) India? For the most part, still pretty accessible, and it might well make a useful investment for the future at the same time.

SV, I agree. A whole lot of the fun is in the chase..... But it's nice if you have a reasonable chance of identification at the end.

But my point is that there are many that simply can't be identified "for sure" - either because of color issues or there is also the type of printing (offset, etc.) and also the various Types, which don't always jump out at you. In addition, some of the early US have "soft" paper, some "laid" paper, etc.

And let's not forget the cancels which hide some of the evidence, making things more problematic.

Covers are even more difficult because you can't check for watermarks or paper type.

Tony, thanks for the idea. I'll look into India. Never really considered that before.

The Netherlands was my first attempt at going from worldwide to single country collecting..i liked the "for the children" semi postals..most stamps are minimum value and I was able to fill in all but a few stamps that were above my means...

Phil, Netherlands is cool as well. If you want to expand, they've got a ton of colonies as well.

In addition, my current pay check is being signed (ultimately) by someone in The Hague.

We have a HUGE Dutch influence in my part of the world.

What about the Nordic European countries like Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and Finland? There's definitely a few really expensive issues, but overall many are nicely engraved, not a ton of issues, and if you are going by Scott's, not too complex for the most part. The watermarks are pretty east to spot as opposed to say Mexico.

I would add Monaco and Luxembourg. These both countries have beautiful stamps.

It may not fit your definition of "mainstream" but take a look at Austria. I finally got around to cataloging an envelope I had containing about 100 Austrian stamps with the majority falling between #36 (1874) and #363 (1934) and found it to be a relatively painless process. Only a few watermarks to deal with and the coloration didn't pose a problem. The only real challenge I had was in identifying a lone newspaper stamp -- once I got to the back of the book section of the catalog it was a breeze.

Austrian stamps are beautiful without a doubt..but if you get seriously into Austria its going to get pricy..an Austria collector brought his collection to the club to show the other night..he had the B110 on granite paper($600) and the scott #380 Dollfuss mnh ($1,100)