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Collecting stamps on a budget

As a worldwide collector I have few practical guidelines that keep me on my (somewhat limited and small) annual budget.

Published on September 10th 2009 | Read more.... | 9 Comments »

Setting a value for worldwide stamp collection

I know I’ve written in the past a long post about the value of stamp collection. But since the topic is amongst most read (and also amongst most requested in private comments) it is IMHO worth a revisit. This piece tries to provide a very simple, fast and somewhat accurate way for non-philatelist to get a rough value estimate for average quality collection containing used worlwide stamps.

Published on September 1st 2009 | Read more.... | 13 Comments »

Damn unsoakable stamps (or if you can’t soak them… )

I felt somewhat sad after reading the latest “Editors Forumn” column at Scotts Stamp Monthly. The topic of post was non-soakable stamps, or more precisely what do to with them. I acknowledge the column was written mainly US stamp collectors in mind, but the suggested solution (collect non-soakable issues on covers) is IMHO the “wrong” one.

Published on August 27th 2009 | Read more.... | 49 Comments »

The numbers game

One of the favorite rants among stamp collectors is the number of new issues. The current flow of new postage stamps is simply too much for many; especially if compared to actual postal needs… Below is a chart describing the number of annual postage stamp sets issued between 1840 and 2008 worldwide.

Published on July 27th 2009 | Read more.... | 3 Comments »

Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt7) – Summary

Reason I did write this series was personal need to find out detailed information about the cost structure (and other benefits/downsides) of each storage alternative for my personal stamp collection. I admit, the results of this comparison did bring up some interesting surprises.

Published on July 25th 2009 | Read more.... | 30 Comments »

Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt6) – Stock cards

One of the most intuitive ways to arrange and store a worldwide stamp collection is to use stock cards (also known as “dealer approval cards”). As I’ve seen a collection with over 20k different stamps organized this way, I can say this method works.

Published on July 24th 2009 | Read more.... | No Comments »

Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt5) – Stock pages

So far I’ve focused on “old school” methods for stamp collection storage on this series. Let’s take a look of some of the new (”only” 50 years old) and intuitive ways.

Published on July 23rd 2009 | Read more.... | 26 Comments »

Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt4) -Blank stamp album pages

Blank album pages are…well, blank…something a collector can fill anyway desired. The most common blank stamp album pages are not totally blank, but they have grid of grey dots as well as black page border. These are usually called quadrilled album pages.

Published on July 20th 2009 | Read more.... | 1 Comment »

Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt3) – DIY stamp album pages

Many stamp collectors will try and use DIY stamp album pages because they want to either save money, take part in exhibitions, or they are not happy with commercial offerings. Anyone wishing to enter the path of DIY album pages needs to make some long-term decision and be prepared to pay them accordingly.

Published on July 16th 2009 | Read more.... | 22 Comments »

Storage for worldwide stamp collection (pt2) -pre-printed (commercial) stamp album pages

As stamp album pages are a lengthy topic, I have decided to split this post to 3 parts. This first part covers pre-printed (commercial) album pages, the second will cover DIY (printable) album pages and third one will focus with blank pages. Let’s begin with pre-printed (commercial) stamp album pages.

Published on July 14th 2009 | Read more.... | 12 Comments »

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