Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Time is a consideration as I am 66 yoa. Thank you.
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Welcome.
Here is my opinion,
1. Buy and use quality vintage hinges.
2. Be aware that many albums/lots/collections on eBay are typically full of weeds and stamps of poor quality. Good material has been pulled years ago, less-then-ethical sellers will hide stamps with condition issues in large collections/lots, less-then-ethical sellers will salt questionable stamps in eBay lots/collections.
3. Think about your objectives, is it for enjoyment or investment? If enjoyment, then view eBay purchases in that way and calculate a ‘fun factor’. If a lot is $400 will you get $400 of enjoyment from it? If so, it is a no brainer and anything that your collection will bring after you are done with it is gravy. If investment is your objective, then consider something other than eBay stamps.
4. Build relationships with sellers; just because we buy online doesn’t mean that we should forget how to build strong business relationships.
5. Be careful with trying to merge early Internationals pages with newer Internationals pages; the running changes made in the country layouts can drive you to drink.
Don
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Hi JPoole!
The 60's are the new 50's!
That's what some youngster's told me!
So, I'm in my 50's, so I guess I'm 40!
Sounds like you have plenty of time!
JR
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Roger,
Like you, my primary collection lately (other than a Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album on which I am working concurrently) is a set of International Parts I-V covering the years 1840-1963. I have concentrated on trying to find mint stamps for the albums although there are some older used stamps included for Canada, France, and Great Britain in particular where I had standalone collections which I used to feed the earlier areas for these countries. Most of my acquisitions have been through scavenging from older albums on eBay or from local stores, fortunately there are a couple of storefront dealers in the Seattle area, although lately I have bought a number of items from U-Pick albums at one dealer and from individual stamp/set acquisitions from eBay.
I just passed 15,000 stamps in the album set and am working my way through some other collection purchases which I need to integrate with a hope of reaching 20% completion by early 2019 which would be just over 17,000 different of the 85,598 spaces I counted in the albums. After that I suspect it is going to take a while to make a significant inroad to my next major milestone goal of 20,000 different! I track the number of stamps in each country by an Excel spreadsheet which has a worksheet for each album with a list of countries with the number of spaces in the album plus the number of stamps I have for the country plus any tip-ins I have added (I tend to make additions quite sparingly though).
I bought albums and/or pages through eBay and one Part 1B2 from Amos Media new after being unable to find one available through auction on eBay. Parts 1A1 , 1A2, and 1B1 were all found unused on eBay as well as Parts II and III with Parts IV and V being previously used with several hundred stamps in each album so with patience finding clean, problem free albums is definitely possible at significant discounts from Amos Media's list prices. I, also, bought new binders to replace some worn binders from older feeder collections that I used initially through eBay as well. Currently my collection is not organized chronologically by country but is in the album year sets as published by Scott which I have decided I prefer for no particular reason that I can identify.
Sounds like you have made a great start on your collection!
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As we are approaching the end of 2019 I find my expectation of reaching 20% coverage by the beginning of 2019 was quite optimistic. Just reached 19% coverage today and have a backlog of items to add which should be doable over the next couple of months and which should finally allow me to reach the 20% coverage level. I am reasonably sure that I have the stamps just got backed up with adding them to the albums as I concentrated on the Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album and needed to get some additional mounts and hinges as I ran out of the commonly used mounts and used every hinge I had, given that I had nearly 12,000 when I started on the albums that does represent something of an accomplishment. Lately I am using clear Scott mounts for most additions as they look cleaner in the album and allow me to take stamps out of the album for review much more easily plus quite a few newer acquisitions have been non-hinged by happenstance.
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Collecting worldwide is quite a challenge, even if it is "only" up to 1963, considering that there have been some notoriously difficult countries even back then, and some stamps can be quite hard to find and/or rather expensive. Some countries have already started in the 1940s to issue a whole lot of topical stamps (although the good news is that these can often be had for comparative little money). It might be more satisfying to concentrate on a few countries, maybe those that you already have got the album pages for.
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This Summer I managed to locate and buy a number of International sections on Ebay. I am currently using a 1955 volume one and plan to gift myself with sections 2-6 this Christmas. Merging the older volume one with the remainder will be a bit problematic. Several countries in my section one start on the left side of the pages, for example. I was lucky to locate sections with paper that more or less matches. The newer Internationals are now being printed on stock with a distinct yellow tone. I second all that Don said, it's good advice.
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That Volume One is a pain in the butt, bum, heine, etc.
The most inventive way that I have seen a collector be able to use those pages that have the wrong stamps/countries on a page is to use blank International pages. He trimmed the pages to fit the space of the unwanted spaces, and glued the cover sheet over it. Unless you really looked, it wasn't bothersome as the paper color was moatly the same. it will all depend on your personal tastes.
Now, that meant he had to buy multiple copies of Volume One, but you can get them on the cheap now and then.
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Reached a new milestone this morning on my 1840-1863 International album set of 20.0% completion for Parts 1A1-1B2 and 20.6% completion of Parts 1A1-5. Collection is virtually all uncanceled stamps with a mix of MNH, MLH, MH, and a very small number of used stamps (probably less than 300).
Just realized I reached 20% on 2/2/2020, seems appropriate doesn't it?
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I have continued to make progress on adding stamps to the International 1840-1963 albums and have now reached a new milestone with 22.61% completion and 19,351 stamps in the albums. Albums remain fairly balanced in their coverage with a low of 20.06% in the Part III album for 1949-55 and a high of 27.36% in the Part IV album for 1956-59.
I am in complete awe of Antonius Ra's collection building efforts, just the physical effort in identifying and adding that many stamps to his Scott Specialty albums is inspiring! Thanks so much for making the pages accessible online!!
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I have been quite busy making additions to the International 1840-1963 albums for the last couple of months and reached a major milestone today with 25.01% completion for the albums and 21,405 of 85,598 stamps in the albums even after removing most of the remaining used stamps from the albums. So now I have surpassed 1 out of every 4 stamps for the combined albums. Getting very close now on reaching 25% for the Parts 1A1-1B2 album pages in particular but still not even close on the Part III album which is currently at 21.35% complete!
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I have continued adding stamps to my International 1840-1963 albums and now have 24,418 stamps in the albums for 28.5% completion with less than a hundred remaining used stamps in the albums. All parts now have 25% completion or better and as a new milestone Parts II and IV have reached better than 33.3% completion so now have 1 of every 3 stamps required for those two albums and 1 of every 4 stamps required for the other three parts!
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Baxter Thanks much, I Really appreciate knowing that there are people who appreciate and benefit from having my collection on line for reference. I know how much a site like this would have helped me years ago but of course there were none. I do hope any collector,
who hasn't would check it out because I'm sure it would be helpful to them.
See link below............
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Yes Mitch - good to hear from you!
Its been a while!
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Phil and Randy thanks for the greeting. I check the board out a couple times a week but there just doesn't seem to be much for me to offer. Most questions have been answered before I see them. I also have pretty much stopped looking for additions for most of the world as most of what I need is to expensive or to difficult to find. I do hope the rest of you have much luck and happiness in building your collections. I'll keep checking in and hope I can be of help from time to time.
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Mitchell: It's great to see you on here! Until your post a couple of days ago, I was a little concerned about you. Glad you're hanging in there!
-- Dave
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Dave, Thanks and I'm very glad to hear from you also. It must be 20 years or so that we have conversed on different boards and have found you to be one of the nicest participants on any of them. At an rate, I'm not done yet.
I didn't mean to take over this thread. I have had a lot to say about this subject in the past but everyone seems to have a different opinion on it. The one thing I would not do is make 1963 my cut-off date, unless it was my birth year. I like 1940 as a cut off date as it includes the classic era (first 100 years)and only requires one catalog. However there is on big problem with that year in that it does not include WWII post WWII which I feel is very important. It would have been pretty easy thing to make my cut-off year 1950 as it is my birth year and includes WWII. The main problem is the Scott Classic Catalog only goes to 1940 and you have to buy another 5 or so catalogs to include those years.
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I've been stepping up my efforts on Japan and Great Britain country collections with mint stamps as well as general British Commonwealth issues in my International 1840-1963 albums now that availability of missing Finland issues has become quite limited. That should keep me busy for a while.
Just reached 25,351 different in the International albums for 29.61% completion so making some progress there. My recent additions concentrated on the 1840-1900 time period. I managed to come up with 383 additions of mint stamps for that period. Most of the stamps came from a 19th century edition of the Scott Brown albums that was made available as a u-pick album.
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Made real progress on the British Commonwealth issues going through a couple of New Ideal album volumes picking out missing stamps for my International 1840-1963 album plus added some additional issues for Jamaica, Bechuanaland, Ireland, and the Bahamas from some selected pages bought at an online auction.
Now up to 30.30% overall completion with 25,941 out of 85,600 possible stamps after removing most of the remaining used stamps as well (at least I think I got them all, except for two really nice early USA issues including a Scott #1). New mileposts were that I reached 10,002 different stamps in the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums for 1840-1940 and I reached 40% completion on the Part IV album.
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From what I have seen, the Scott International albums do not have spaces for all major number in the pre-1930 period. How do you handle that?
Al
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For the most part I collect to the album. If I come up with an additional item and the album has space next to the other items in the set I will add it next to the other items but this is fairly rare. Currently I have 485 tip-ins that have been added in this fashion across the eight binders that make up the album but they are not counted in my album completion totals as they are additions not part of the album requirements. By far the largest number of additions are to the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums covering 1840-1940 which as Scott states are for a "representative" collection.
I, also, don't count stamps added for open ended pages like for the India States issues where no predefined spaces are present so they are counted as tip-ins.
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Edited my response regarding handling of unrepresented stamps to the International pages to provide some more details.
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Continuing to work on my International collection and reached a new milestone for the collection of 27,662 of 85,600 stamps for the collection and 6,000 stamps in the Part II album. Now have 32% of the stamp spaces in the album set filled. Most of the new stamps are for France so the country is almost complete other than the first page for France with mint stamps. I have a few stamps in place for the first page but they will be a long time coming I suspect to reach a respectable level of completion on that page.
I have, also, added quite a few stamps for Italy and especially for the Italian colonies but still have a long way to go there. Very close now on reaching 11,000 different in the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums and have some Mexico stamps to go through which should put me over.
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Reached a major milestone today for my International 1840-1963 album collection with 28,548 out of 85,600 stamps for the album with 33.35% of the spaces filled for just over one out of every three stamps for the album set. Added stamps to the Part III album today for Aden through Indonesia from a pick book at a local stamp dealer. I, also, selected additional stamps for Israel through Poland in the Part III album but have not completed adding them to the album. Hopefully within the next week or so I will have a chance to go through the remainder of the pick book and add some additional stamps from the part of the album that I have not had a chance to examine.
I did recently break 11,000 different stamps in the 1840-1940 sections of the album, also.
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How many duplicates do you have?
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Most likely 15,000 plus total stamps (I haven't really thought about it and I could be undercounting this actually) in other International albums and the original Minkus collection which restarted my world wide collecting activities in 2006 and which was the primary source for the first 12,000 stamps in the International album set or a small number of country collections that were purchased during the phase when I was buying collections to find candidate stamps for the album set. Now I almost never buy collections as it has not proved to be cost effective for adding stamps any more plus my wife really doesn't like the proliferation of storage space required (and I have a bad tendency to want to fill in the missing spaces in those albums 
).
I do have a few standalone country collections (USA, Canada, Finland, Japan, Great Britain, France, and now Sweden) with duplicates of the International coverage that are more complete than the related parts of the International albums and these collections cover longer periods of time than the International album page set that I use.
Just remembered my original International 1840-1940 albums which have another 8,500 or so different stamps which are both mint and used that should be added to the count of duplicates. This collection had reached 9,000+ different before I started on the mint only International collection but recently I pulled about 500 stamps from it to fill missing spaces in my main International collection.
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Getting too many duplicates has been something that concerns me. Buying collections is a good way to get jump started for a country but eventually there is a point of diminishing returns.
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Reached a new milestone today of 29,000 of 85,600 stamps for the International 1840-1963 album set. Most of the latest additions have been to the Part V album which covers 1959-1963. Source of most of the additions was a pick book for the Part V album at a local stamp dealer.
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Reached a couple of new milestones today on my International 1840-1963 album set of 30,000 different unused stamps in the albums with 12,086 different in the Part 1A1-1B2 albums. Another numbers related milestone is that this makes for 35% overall completion for the albums.
Most recent additions have included quite a few additions to Italy plus several cut squares for the USA section and some isolated stamps for Canada plus a number of issues for the "A" countries in the Part 1A1 album.
Today has been a momentous day in many respects as it is my wedding anniversary and I have now been married more years than not married in my life. 
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Reached a new milestone on my 1840-1963 International albums based collection with 31,096 different unused stamps in the albums and 12,535 in the 1840-1940 albums for 36% complete in each grouping!
On another note, I officially retired from Konica Minolta Business Systems/All Covered on Friday after almost 15 years with All Covered so should have a bit more time to spend on philatelic pursuits (but a bit less income to use for them so a bit of a trade-off ). Worked with five different clients on my last day addressing some last minute issues and working on hand-offs of accounts to other support personnel. Last few weeks have been something of a whirlwind as I attempted to transfer knowledge about accounts to other staff members and address any last minute questions at the client sites. One of the accounts was my first visit to a client after joining All Covered so I have literally worked with them for just under 15 years. All Covered has been a good company for which to work and the clients have become almost like family over the years.
I celebrated on Saturday my first day of retirement with wearing what my wife called a Cabana shirt (something like you normally see in pictures of Hawaii?) that she purchased to celebrate the event (I think she thinks my button down dress shirts from the last 45 years are a bit lacking in pizzazz! ) She presented it to me on Friday evening after we had dinner to celebrate the retirement with my manager and his wife at our home; they provided a Mexican dinner from a local restaurant. I wore it to a local stamp dealer Saturday where I reviewed a pick book for the International album for stamps for the Cayman Islands through Crete in the Part I time period and found 105 new stamps for my albums.
My wife objected to my picture saying it doesn't deliver the appropriate effect, so here is her version.
I do plan to do some cleaning up of my "stamp room" with a bit more time available. Pictures below for why!
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Congrats on your retirement!
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Congratulations!!!! Enjoy your retirement!
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Reached a new milestone on my International 1840-1963 collection with 31,616 different stamps and 13,040 for the 1840-1940 period. Most of the new stamps were from a pick book at a local stamp dealer based on part of an International Part I album which covered Aden through Haiti. Unfortunately the dealer had sold the second part of the album so will have to look for some new source material for the next additions.
Plus managed to get some items added to my Great Britain album using clear mounts after I relocated my mount cutting device which I had put away over Christmas and could not remember where (no, this does not mean I have finished cleaning up the stamp room although a "small" dent was made in it ). Most of the items were postage due stamps for Great Britain plus issues with Tangier overprints although a nice Scott #222 was added as well.
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Congrats! Another one escapes the rat race alive!
I may have accidentally retired. I'm only 62 but with this Covid mess, I'm pretty much staying home and not looking for work. My last consult finished up early December.
My financial guy says I am able to retire if I'd like, but I'd be best to work a few more years. So if something comes my way, we will see...
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New milestone reached for my International 1840-1963 album of 32,018 stamps in the album with 13,170 different in the 1840-1940 section. Most of the new stamps were for the Netherlands and Romania plus some stamps for Russia which remains the country with the smallest number of stamps in the album relative to the number released by the country during the time period among nations which released a large number of stamps. So far I have seen very few stamps in collections for Russia where the the later period stamps are not CTO.
I have been continuing to read the APRL quarterly journal for which I received the 2020 issues when I joined the APRL. I am really looking forward to visiting the libary at Bellefonte, PA once the Covid virus issues are resolved. There were several issues with interviews of some well known philatelic literature vendors which have been very enjoyable in particular.
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Several new milestones on my International 1840-1963 albums with 33,321 total stamps (plus 879 tip-ins in addition) and, drum roll please, I just reached 14,014 different mint stamps in the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums for 1840-1940 (plus 725 tip-ins in addition). New additions were almost completely for the 1840-1940 period with most acquisitions occurring from a local collector's duplicates in Scott Brown albums up to 1929. The part one albums now have 130 of 388 collecting entities with 50% coverage and 13 with 100% coverage!
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New milestone on my album filling efforts for an International 1840-1963 collection with 34,007 different stamps in the albums reached today. In addition, I have passed some new thresholds with 5,063 different stamps in the Part III album for 1950-1954 and 4,041 different stamps in the Part V album for 1960-1963. These last two continue to contain the most difficult stamps for me to locate where delivery costs don't outweigh the stamp costs in many cases. It is, also, likely the case that the abundance of relatively low cost stamps causes issues with advertising them cost effectively as well. Of course, a side benefit is it makes locating the stamps a worthwhile challenge.
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01:19:40am
I am new to Stamporama and have got a good start into collecting WW 1840-1963 through buying old scott international albums and stamp country pages on ebay. Still missing a good number of countries. I probably have about 15,000-20,000 stamps total not counting U S A. Question is should I commit to a new 4 vol scott international and continue as I have been doing by feeding into it since I started this year or should I continue to canabalize and scavenge country stamp pages? I know about the possible problems and deficiences mentioned in these 4 vols from prior threads.
Time is a consideration as I am 66 yoa. Thank you.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Welcome.
Here is my opinion,
1. Buy and use quality vintage hinges.
2. Be aware that many albums/lots/collections on eBay are typically full of weeds and stamps of poor quality. Good material has been pulled years ago, less-then-ethical sellers will hide stamps with condition issues in large collections/lots, less-then-ethical sellers will salt questionable stamps in eBay lots/collections.
3. Think about your objectives, is it for enjoyment or investment? If enjoyment, then view eBay purchases in that way and calculate a ‘fun factor’. If a lot is $400 will you get $400 of enjoyment from it? If so, it is a no brainer and anything that your collection will bring after you are done with it is gravy. If investment is your objective, then consider something other than eBay stamps.
4. Build relationships with sellers; just because we buy online doesn’t mean that we should forget how to build strong business relationships.
5. Be careful with trying to merge early Internationals pages with newer Internationals pages; the running changes made in the country layouts can drive you to drink.
Don
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Hi JPoole!
The 60's are the new 50's!
That's what some youngster's told me!
So, I'm in my 50's, so I guess I'm 40!
Sounds like you have plenty of time!
JR
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Roger,
Like you, my primary collection lately (other than a Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album on which I am working concurrently) is a set of International Parts I-V covering the years 1840-1963. I have concentrated on trying to find mint stamps for the albums although there are some older used stamps included for Canada, France, and Great Britain in particular where I had standalone collections which I used to feed the earlier areas for these countries. Most of my acquisitions have been through scavenging from older albums on eBay or from local stores, fortunately there are a couple of storefront dealers in the Seattle area, although lately I have bought a number of items from U-Pick albums at one dealer and from individual stamp/set acquisitions from eBay.
I just passed 15,000 stamps in the album set and am working my way through some other collection purchases which I need to integrate with a hope of reaching 20% completion by early 2019 which would be just over 17,000 different of the 85,598 spaces I counted in the albums. After that I suspect it is going to take a while to make a significant inroad to my next major milestone goal of 20,000 different! I track the number of stamps in each country by an Excel spreadsheet which has a worksheet for each album with a list of countries with the number of spaces in the album plus the number of stamps I have for the country plus any tip-ins I have added (I tend to make additions quite sparingly though).
I bought albums and/or pages through eBay and one Part 1B2 from Amos Media new after being unable to find one available through auction on eBay. Parts 1A1 , 1A2, and 1B1 were all found unused on eBay as well as Parts II and III with Parts IV and V being previously used with several hundred stamps in each album so with patience finding clean, problem free albums is definitely possible at significant discounts from Amos Media's list prices. I, also, bought new binders to replace some worn binders from older feeder collections that I used initially through eBay as well. Currently my collection is not organized chronologically by country but is in the album year sets as published by Scott which I have decided I prefer for no particular reason that I can identify.
Sounds like you have made a great start on your collection!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
As we are approaching the end of 2019 I find my expectation of reaching 20% coverage by the beginning of 2019 was quite optimistic. Just reached 19% coverage today and have a backlog of items to add which should be doable over the next couple of months and which should finally allow me to reach the 20% coverage level. I am reasonably sure that I have the stamps just got backed up with adding them to the albums as I concentrated on the Smithsonian Stamp for Every Country album and needed to get some additional mounts and hinges as I ran out of the commonly used mounts and used every hinge I had, given that I had nearly 12,000 when I started on the albums that does represent something of an accomplishment. Lately I am using clear Scott mounts for most additions as they look cleaner in the album and allow me to take stamps out of the album for review much more easily plus quite a few newer acquisitions have been non-hinged by happenstance.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Collecting worldwide is quite a challenge, even if it is "only" up to 1963, considering that there have been some notoriously difficult countries even back then, and some stamps can be quite hard to find and/or rather expensive. Some countries have already started in the 1940s to issue a whole lot of topical stamps (although the good news is that these can often be had for comparative little money). It might be more satisfying to concentrate on a few countries, maybe those that you already have got the album pages for.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
This Summer I managed to locate and buy a number of International sections on Ebay. I am currently using a 1955 volume one and plan to gift myself with sections 2-6 this Christmas. Merging the older volume one with the remainder will be a bit problematic. Several countries in my section one start on the left side of the pages, for example. I was lucky to locate sections with paper that more or less matches. The newer Internationals are now being printed on stock with a distinct yellow tone. I second all that Don said, it's good advice.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
That Volume One is a pain in the butt, bum, heine, etc.
The most inventive way that I have seen a collector be able to use those pages that have the wrong stamps/countries on a page is to use blank International pages. He trimmed the pages to fit the space of the unwanted spaces, and glued the cover sheet over it. Unless you really looked, it wasn't bothersome as the paper color was moatly the same. it will all depend on your personal tastes.
Now, that meant he had to buy multiple copies of Volume One, but you can get them on the cheap now and then.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Reached a new milestone this morning on my 1840-1863 International album set of 20.0% completion for Parts 1A1-1B2 and 20.6% completion of Parts 1A1-5. Collection is virtually all uncanceled stamps with a mix of MNH, MLH, MH, and a very small number of used stamps (probably less than 300).
Just realized I reached 20% on 2/2/2020, seems appropriate doesn't it?
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
I have continued to make progress on adding stamps to the International 1840-1963 albums and have now reached a new milestone with 22.61% completion and 19,351 stamps in the albums. Albums remain fairly balanced in their coverage with a low of 20.06% in the Part III album for 1949-55 and a high of 27.36% in the Part IV album for 1956-59.
I am in complete awe of Antonius Ra's collection building efforts, just the physical effort in identifying and adding that many stamps to his Scott Specialty albums is inspiring! Thanks so much for making the pages accessible online!!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
I have been quite busy making additions to the International 1840-1963 albums for the last couple of months and reached a major milestone today with 25.01% completion for the albums and 21,405 of 85,598 stamps in the albums even after removing most of the remaining used stamps from the albums. So now I have surpassed 1 out of every 4 stamps for the combined albums. Getting very close now on reaching 25% for the Parts 1A1-1B2 album pages in particular but still not even close on the Part III album which is currently at 21.35% complete!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
I have continued adding stamps to my International 1840-1963 albums and now have 24,418 stamps in the albums for 28.5% completion with less than a hundred remaining used stamps in the albums. All parts now have 25% completion or better and as a new milestone Parts II and IV have reached better than 33.3% completion so now have 1 of every 3 stamps required for those two albums and 1 of every 4 stamps required for the other three parts!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Baxter Thanks much, I Really appreciate knowing that there are people who appreciate and benefit from having my collection on line for reference. I know how much a site like this would have helped me years ago but of course there were none. I do hope any collector,
who hasn't would check it out because I'm sure it would be helpful to them.
See link below............
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Yes Mitch - good to hear from you!
Its been a while!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Phil and Randy thanks for the greeting. I check the board out a couple times a week but there just doesn't seem to be much for me to offer. Most questions have been answered before I see them. I also have pretty much stopped looking for additions for most of the world as most of what I need is to expensive or to difficult to find. I do hope the rest of you have much luck and happiness in building your collections. I'll keep checking in and hope I can be of help from time to time.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Mitchell: It's great to see you on here! Until your post a couple of days ago, I was a little concerned about you. Glad you're hanging in there!
-- Dave
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Dave, Thanks and I'm very glad to hear from you also. It must be 20 years or so that we have conversed on different boards and have found you to be one of the nicest participants on any of them. At an rate, I'm not done yet.
I didn't mean to take over this thread. I have had a lot to say about this subject in the past but everyone seems to have a different opinion on it. The one thing I would not do is make 1963 my cut-off date, unless it was my birth year. I like 1940 as a cut off date as it includes the classic era (first 100 years)and only requires one catalog. However there is on big problem with that year in that it does not include WWII post WWII which I feel is very important. It would have been pretty easy thing to make my cut-off year 1950 as it is my birth year and includes WWII. The main problem is the Scott Classic Catalog only goes to 1940 and you have to buy another 5 or so catalogs to include those years.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
I've been stepping up my efforts on Japan and Great Britain country collections with mint stamps as well as general British Commonwealth issues in my International 1840-1963 albums now that availability of missing Finland issues has become quite limited. That should keep me busy for a while.
Just reached 25,351 different in the International albums for 29.61% completion so making some progress there. My recent additions concentrated on the 1840-1900 time period. I managed to come up with 383 additions of mint stamps for that period. Most of the stamps came from a 19th century edition of the Scott Brown albums that was made available as a u-pick album.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Made real progress on the British Commonwealth issues going through a couple of New Ideal album volumes picking out missing stamps for my International 1840-1963 album plus added some additional issues for Jamaica, Bechuanaland, Ireland, and the Bahamas from some selected pages bought at an online auction.
Now up to 30.30% overall completion with 25,941 out of 85,600 possible stamps after removing most of the remaining used stamps as well (at least I think I got them all, except for two really nice early USA issues including a Scott #1). New mileposts were that I reached 10,002 different stamps in the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums for 1840-1940 and I reached 40% completion on the Part IV album.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
From what I have seen, the Scott International albums do not have spaces for all major number in the pre-1930 period. How do you handle that?
Al
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
For the most part I collect to the album. If I come up with an additional item and the album has space next to the other items in the set I will add it next to the other items but this is fairly rare. Currently I have 485 tip-ins that have been added in this fashion across the eight binders that make up the album but they are not counted in my album completion totals as they are additions not part of the album requirements. By far the largest number of additions are to the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums covering 1840-1940 which as Scott states are for a "representative" collection.
I, also, don't count stamps added for open ended pages like for the India States issues where no predefined spaces are present so they are counted as tip-ins.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Edited my response regarding handling of unrepresented stamps to the International pages to provide some more details.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Continuing to work on my International collection and reached a new milestone for the collection of 27,662 of 85,600 stamps for the collection and 6,000 stamps in the Part II album. Now have 32% of the stamp spaces in the album set filled. Most of the new stamps are for France so the country is almost complete other than the first page for France with mint stamps. I have a few stamps in place for the first page but they will be a long time coming I suspect to reach a respectable level of completion on that page.
I have, also, added quite a few stamps for Italy and especially for the Italian colonies but still have a long way to go there. Very close now on reaching 11,000 different in the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums and have some Mexico stamps to go through which should put me over.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Reached a major milestone today for my International 1840-1963 album collection with 28,548 out of 85,600 stamps for the album with 33.35% of the spaces filled for just over one out of every three stamps for the album set. Added stamps to the Part III album today for Aden through Indonesia from a pick book at a local stamp dealer. I, also, selected additional stamps for Israel through Poland in the Part III album but have not completed adding them to the album. Hopefully within the next week or so I will have a chance to go through the remainder of the pick book and add some additional stamps from the part of the album that I have not had a chance to examine.
I did recently break 11,000 different stamps in the 1840-1940 sections of the album, also.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
How many duplicates do you have?
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Most likely 15,000 plus total stamps (I haven't really thought about it and I could be undercounting this actually) in other International albums and the original Minkus collection which restarted my world wide collecting activities in 2006 and which was the primary source for the first 12,000 stamps in the International album set or a small number of country collections that were purchased during the phase when I was buying collections to find candidate stamps for the album set. Now I almost never buy collections as it has not proved to be cost effective for adding stamps any more plus my wife really doesn't like the proliferation of storage space required (and I have a bad tendency to want to fill in the missing spaces in those albums ).
I do have a few standalone country collections (USA, Canada, Finland, Japan, Great Britain, France, and now Sweden) with duplicates of the International coverage that are more complete than the related parts of the International albums and these collections cover longer periods of time than the International album page set that I use.
Just remembered my original International 1840-1940 albums which have another 8,500 or so different stamps which are both mint and used that should be added to the count of duplicates. This collection had reached 9,000+ different before I started on the mint only International collection but recently I pulled about 500 stamps from it to fill missing spaces in my main International collection.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Getting too many duplicates has been something that concerns me. Buying collections is a good way to get jump started for a country but eventually there is a point of diminishing returns.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Reached a new milestone today of 29,000 of 85,600 stamps for the International 1840-1963 album set. Most of the latest additions have been to the Part V album which covers 1959-1963. Source of most of the additions was a pick book for the Part V album at a local stamp dealer.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Reached a couple of new milestones today on my International 1840-1963 album set of 30,000 different unused stamps in the albums with 12,086 different in the Part 1A1-1B2 albums. Another numbers related milestone is that this makes for 35% overall completion for the albums.
Most recent additions have included quite a few additions to Italy plus several cut squares for the USA section and some isolated stamps for Canada plus a number of issues for the "A" countries in the Part 1A1 album.
Today has been a momentous day in many respects as it is my wedding anniversary and I have now been married more years than not married in my life.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Reached a new milestone on my 1840-1963 International albums based collection with 31,096 different unused stamps in the albums and 12,535 in the 1840-1940 albums for 36% complete in each grouping!
On another note, I officially retired from Konica Minolta Business Systems/All Covered on Friday after almost 15 years with All Covered so should have a bit more time to spend on philatelic pursuits (but a bit less income to use for them so a bit of a trade-off ). Worked with five different clients on my last day addressing some last minute issues and working on hand-offs of accounts to other support personnel. Last few weeks have been something of a whirlwind as I attempted to transfer knowledge about accounts to other staff members and address any last minute questions at the client sites. One of the accounts was my first visit to a client after joining All Covered so I have literally worked with them for just under 15 years. All Covered has been a good company for which to work and the clients have become almost like family over the years.
I celebrated on Saturday my first day of retirement with wearing what my wife called a Cabana shirt (something like you normally see in pictures of Hawaii?) that she purchased to celebrate the event (I think she thinks my button down dress shirts from the last 45 years are a bit lacking in pizzazz! ) She presented it to me on Friday evening after we had dinner to celebrate the retirement with my manager and his wife at our home; they provided a Mexican dinner from a local restaurant. I wore it to a local stamp dealer Saturday where I reviewed a pick book for the International album for stamps for the Cayman Islands through Crete in the Part I time period and found 105 new stamps for my albums.
My wife objected to my picture saying it doesn't deliver the appropriate effect, so here is her version.
I do plan to do some cleaning up of my "stamp room" with a bit more time available. Pictures below for why!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Congrats on your retirement!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Congratulations!!!! Enjoy your retirement!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Reached a new milestone on my International 1840-1963 collection with 31,616 different stamps and 13,040 for the 1840-1940 period. Most of the new stamps were from a pick book at a local stamp dealer based on part of an International Part I album which covered Aden through Haiti. Unfortunately the dealer had sold the second part of the album so will have to look for some new source material for the next additions.
Plus managed to get some items added to my Great Britain album using clear mounts after I relocated my mount cutting device which I had put away over Christmas and could not remember where (no, this does not mean I have finished cleaning up the stamp room although a "small" dent was made in it ). Most of the items were postage due stamps for Great Britain plus issues with Tangier overprints although a nice Scott #222 was added as well.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Congrats! Another one escapes the rat race alive!
I may have accidentally retired. I'm only 62 but with this Covid mess, I'm pretty much staying home and not looking for work. My last consult finished up early December.
My financial guy says I am able to retire if I'd like, but I'd be best to work a few more years. So if something comes my way, we will see...
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
New milestone reached for my International 1840-1963 album of 32,018 stamps in the album with 13,170 different in the 1840-1940 section. Most of the new stamps were for the Netherlands and Romania plus some stamps for Russia which remains the country with the smallest number of stamps in the album relative to the number released by the country during the time period among nations which released a large number of stamps. So far I have seen very few stamps in collections for Russia where the the later period stamps are not CTO.
I have been continuing to read the APRL quarterly journal for which I received the 2020 issues when I joined the APRL. I am really looking forward to visiting the libary at Bellefonte, PA once the Covid virus issues are resolved. There were several issues with interviews of some well known philatelic literature vendors which have been very enjoyable in particular.
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
Several new milestones on my International 1840-1963 albums with 33,321 total stamps (plus 879 tip-ins in addition) and, drum roll please, I just reached 14,014 different mint stamps in the Parts 1A1-1B2 albums for 1840-1940 (plus 725 tip-ins in addition). New additions were almost completely for the 1840-1940 period with most acquisitions occurring from a local collector's duplicates in Scott Brown albums up to 1929. The part one albums now have 130 of 388 collecting entities with 50% coverage and 13 with 100% coverage!
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re: Best way to build WW 1840-1963 album
New milestone on my album filling efforts for an International 1840-1963 collection with 34,007 different stamps in the albums reached today. In addition, I have passed some new thresholds with 5,063 different stamps in the Part III album for 1950-1954 and 4,041 different stamps in the Part V album for 1960-1963. These last two continue to contain the most difficult stamps for me to locate where delivery costs don't outweigh the stamp costs in many cases. It is, also, likely the case that the abundance of relatively low cost stamps causes issues with advertising them cost effectively as well. Of course, a side benefit is it makes locating the stamps a worthwhile challenge.
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