Confessions of a hoarder
Just browsed the latest edition of Linn’s Stamp Magazine, and it gave me a whole lot of thinking. Lawrence block wrote (once again) an excellent column, and this time he focused on hoarding and collecting. Though I’m still not even middle aged (I’ll turn 35 next month), I’ve been accumulating “all-sorts” for over 20 years now. And it definitely shows. I confess being a hoarder of some sort on several frontiers.
Me and old stamp magazines
My earliest touch with stamp magazines was in the late 1980’s at local library. Few years later I was a happy subscriber of local stamp magazines; in addition I began buying random issues of various foreign stamp magazines, like The Stamp Magazine, Gibbons Monthly etc. It doesn’t take a brainiac to figure that various annual volumes year after year eat huge amounts of space.
Anyway, at one point (about 5 years ago) I got totally fed up with the situation, and started butchering my magazines. I took scissors, and cut the pages I wanted to keep – rest went down to recycle bin. These days I have about one very heavy binder that contains all the best pieces of nearly 20 decades of magazines.
I admit, I could have scanned the pages I want, but as I prefer reading paper (at least with current state of technology), I’m very happy with my scrapbook approach.
I confess, that I’m still addicted to reading stamp magazines. But more and more I’m using my resources to following digital / online publications. They are notably cheaper than printed matter, and don’t clutter up space the same way…If I didn’t have to mind the budget, I’d definitely love to buy stuff like Gibbons Stamp Monthly Archive DVD (which costs a whooping 199£).
Me and old auction catalogs
I confess that at one point I had accumulated an honorable pile of auction catalogs. And again… At one point I got totally fed up with how much space they were clogging. I managed to sell some of the better ones for few euros, but most were doomed to junk bin.
Do I regret this decision? To be honest, not. For a specialized collector, auction catalogs may be a great additional reference, but for common worldwide collector like me they are nothing but a source of wet daydreams and source of unfulfilled desires.
Me and old adverts from stamp dealers
For a long time (before the Internet), I was a very satisfied customer of several mailing order stamp shops. And of course they loved me (or my money) too. Time and again I received all sorts of special offers, bullettins etc. stuff dealers send to their customers. And for a reason or another, I never threw this stuff away.
But one cold winter afternoon, I finally did it. And all went straight to recycling bin… I do regret this a bit as very few stamp shops send anything printed these days. Pretty much everything is listed only online – for better or worse.
Me and old stamp catalogs / books
Books are something I’ve always loved; and it definitely shows also on my philatelic bookshelf. In addition of regular catalog (Michel, Yvert, SG,Scott) volumes, I do have a moderate selection of random titles.
That said, I confess that I probably do house several items that I very rarely (or never) browse or read. For example I’ve got several copies of Finnish stamp catalogs from various years. Pretty likely I could survive extremely well with the only one (recent) edition.
But I confess…If I had the money (and space), I’d definitely love to build much more extensive philatelic library for my use. I’m addicted to good books.
Me and duplicate stamps
Though my worldwide stamp collection is properly kept and organized, the same cannot be said about most of my duplicates. They are a hoarde, and in constant state of chaos.
I honestly don’t know how many duplicates I do have, but based on rule of 10,000 stamps a kilo off paper, I’d say that 80-100,000 stamps would be in the proper ballpark. I know… It’s a shocking amount… The good news is that they don’t take that much space as everything can be fitted into single large carton (but most of the time they are scattered around in smaller boxes).
This is how I keep most of my duplicates. These boxes are more or less filled with off-paper stamps.
So what do I do with them… Well, I use them for exchange to new items I don’t have. And then I sell some occasionally. And some goes to kids or charity… But, ahem…Honestly speaking most of the duplicates are simply lying in boxes and waiting for some magic moment…Who knows, maybe I’ll some day get annoyed with them, and sweep them away in single sale. But for the time being, I feel bit too attached to do such a thing.
I think I’m pretty clear case of hoarding addiction. LOL.
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wow… its just scary to know how much stamps you got there. hahaha..
LOL my wife would complain if I had a stash of boxes full of stamps like that taking up space
You’ve got to be kidding. Compared to the dealers, you’re small potatoes.
I’m sure you’ve seen their chaos. What I love about stamp collecting is that I can collect endlessly, and then “hide” my habit, because each specimen is so small. The hours I spend organizing, weeding, rearranging and displaying and then stashing my hobby far outnumber the wonderful hours spent in the hunt. But then, it’s all wonderful.
@Tsung… Actually my wife is a collector too, and loves to sort trough the boxes every once and awhile to make up mixtures either for gift, sale, exchange… I guess it makes me one very happy stamp dude
@Carol… I’ve seen some stamp dealer homes / estates. And I admit that I’m light years away from their situation. I don’t know if it’s sad or hilarious to see there’s actually very little room for living besides sleeping. Just loads and loads of stamps all over the place (for sales stock or similar I think). Yes, every collector dreams about such house, but I don’t think I’d like to live in one, LOL.
And yes… I do love sorting, organizing etc. every bit as much as You
Keijo – One of the pleasures that I garner from stamp collecting is the notion of putting chaos to order. That is what we do… We acquire, however, many specimens of our hobby then sort, catalog and store. I love all of this.
One of my friends started a sizeable Ebay stamp business, Ruby Stamps. Perhaps you have seen it online? Their office is a stamp collector’s dream. Boxes and boxes (presumably filled with stamps and collateral material), shelves cluttered with stamp books and catalogs, stamp album pages spread around the office, and stamps all over the floor like confetti.
If one of us were cut loose on their warehouse, well, we might meet our match!!! HAHA
Regards
Dell from California
@Dell – I’m drooling like Homer Simpson… stamps all over the floor like confetti…hmmm…
I have considered offering them $25 to allow me to “vacuum” their floor!!!!
BTW as a high end stamp dealer, Ruby Stamps also have a lot of rare material – which is really fun to look at since usually that stuff does not pop up in kilo ware and similar sources.
Which leads me to stamp museums… there is an excellent stamp museum in Washington DC, BTW, including a remarkably complete world wide collection that they exhibit on rotation – great way to actually see some of the items that we are really looking for
regards
Dell from California
@Dell …I had very similar thoughts about providing cleaning services “for free”. LOL.
Washington museum… Are you talking about Smithsonian National Postal Museum, or something else? I can’t even count the hours I’ve spent browsing Arago-website. Well, it’s definitely one of those places I hope to visit some day.
Yes, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum. Excellent resource and a blast for those of us bitten with the stamp collecting bug….
Dell from California
Thanks Keijo!…I have to go step by step, like a baby learning to walk!!!
Warm regards,
Fred.
I am shocked to know about duplicate stamps.How we know that we have trapped.I also have sent lots of genuine stamps swap with duplicate ones now i am feeling cheated.How can we identify them?most of them comes from Hungary,Poland,niger.etc.
Hi Kamran,
Are you talking about CTO/Cancelled-To-Order stamps? Or something else..? Please, be more specific.
Keijo-san
I’ve just ad a quick thought as regards what you said about hoarding, and about being more likely these days to go hunting on the Internet for interesting articles/sites and blogs. What I want to ask is, do you keep a record of url addresses of those? Perhaps you use Delicious? It is a social bookmarking site that allows for people to share each other’s links. But then again, would we have the time to explore them all? I would venture to guess that there are as many interesting tidbits about stamps to read as there are stamps to collect.
Best wishes
William
@William… I do keep track of interesting stamp related links. And trust me when I say that there are at least equally many stories as there are stamps
Most of the time I just store links to my browser bookmarks (and what a hoarde they are), but “best of the best” I also try to push on my StumbeUpon page.
Is hoarding anything like compulsive buying/collecting?
I’ve found myself doing this in the past and frequently find myself tempted to do so, but have a system for keeping it under control.
Before I expand my collecting to another theme or country, I study the subject and have to convince myself that it is worthwhile. 99 out of 100 times I conclude that it is not and accept satisfaction with what I have going on at the moment.
Bill
To quote Simon Garfield, author of “The Error World,” trying to collect every stamp is like trying to visit every page on the internet.
@Bill… I guess hoarding could be labeled as some kind of disorder at least
But seriously speaking, I agree that if it becomes non-controllable behaviour then there it is a problem. Personally I just simply “refuse” to buy anything new at times, and stick to decision no matter what.
Keijo…it is controllable if you got nothing to eat next morning…
So true…
You just have your style. I have my style. Store duplicate stamps in buckets