Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
I have isolated items that I don't really know how to arrange in a tasteful way. Examples would be:
--one or two low-cost values from early sets where to complete them would be too expensive
--items which don't really fit into a systematic collection such as isolated overprints, perfins, etc.
--sometimes I just have a liking for a particular stamp of a country whose stamps I don't generally collect
On an album page, I could record information that I like to know about the stamp, e.g., country, year, maybe catalogue number, reason for issuance. However, it would look odd to mount a single stamp on its own on an entire album page.
Stock pages on the other hand let me put several items together, but they're not really designed for recording written information.
So I ask the question, what do other people do in this situation?
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Hi George,
I also like to collect odd little collections. I have found that using Vario pages and a 3-ring binder allows for any number of ways of showcasing these collections. I use small cards inserted in the Vario sheets with the stamps to record basic information - catalog number, printing method, perf, etc. - and typed 8 1/2 x 11 pages interspersed with the Vario sheets showcasing the stamps for more detailed information.
This seems to work well and affords an optimum of flexibility.
Terry
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12:05:43pm
However, it would look odd to mount a single stamp on its own on an entire album page.
I understand the problem, George, but think your idea about a single stamp is subjective.
I see nothing wrong with putting a single stamp on a page if it is something that simply does not fit in elsewhere.
I have one binder that is chock full of issues that are only related by the degree to which there is no relatioship between them other than my ownership and some personal whim.
Admittedly most are of sets rather than singles, but that is simply because over time I tend to find the rest of the set the item belongs to or something else that I think will look nice on that page next to the first stamp.
I almost wish I could be present the day when my albums are sold to some collector, or given away, perhaps, to see the puzzlment on his face as he looks at some page with three or two stamps from different countries or different eras and tries, for one flickering second, to figure out why I have them together and what the light penciled notation in the margin of the page could possibly mean.
But alas, I will be long gone and I suppose the moment will last only long enough for him to reach for his tongs and strip the stamps and their hinge reminents from the page.
Remember, the only hard and fast rule of stamping;
Collect what you want in the way that you want to.
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An "odds & ends collector," that's me! Long ago I decided I would collect what I wished, and mount it or not mount it as I wished. And I too faced the problem of singletons, and decided that one stamp could look just fine on an album page, especially since I was the only person who would probably ever look at it. But now, you get to look at one of them:
Today, I might go a step further, including a high-resolution detail image of the ship.
Bob
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That's pretty impressive, Bob!
I've done something similar with sets, but never thought it could work so well with a single stamp.
Thanks for the ideas, everyone. If anyone does anything different, please let me know.
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That is a great page.
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Bob's display is really nice. Unfortunately for me I have to display all my US collection in a similar manner, using single mint, single cancel, plate block/line pair (whichever is appropriate) and when available the first day cover. Obviously I'm missing many plate blocks/LP and first day covers prior to 1923 but it's been a fun challenge. This is a good reason to use the computer to accentuate the postage stamp and even add a short story about it. Thanks Bob for sharing. Perry
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Thanks for the compliments, gentlemen. I don't do album pages as such any more, mainly because they take a lot of time and I really have no need for them. I found that once I completed a page I rarely went back and looked at it, so what’s the point? However, I am always working on (or thinking of working on!) exhibit pages.
I started exhibiting in 2005. After years of believing that philatelic exhibitors were snobs who were just showing off their collections (and some are!), I learned that preparing an exhibit is the best possible way to enjoy learning about a particular collection and to enjoy the collection itself. That exhibit did well (vermeil, or “small gold” medal at Vanpex 2005), and I’ve entered a new exhibit every year since then.
My exhibit pages actually work nicely as album pages, but the resulting “albums” are not static like my old albums were. I am always considering expanding each of them and as a result keep my eyes open for new material. I haven’t actually revised an exhibit yet, but no doubt will. My exhibit last October, was a two-frame (32-sheet) overview of the Battle of the Atlantic. I’ve already got enough material to add at least one more frame, and possibly two. My latest acquisition is a real-photo postcard of the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin.
Before finding the postcard on the web site of a dealer who specializes in Third Reich ephemera, including stamps and covers, I didn’t even know that Germany had aircraft carriers. Now I know that it did, although they never went into battle. Their story is a fascinating one of Teutonic hubris and bumbling. The postcard certainly gives me another reason to expand the original exhibit.
No doubt some among you raised your philatelic eyebrows at my mentioning a postcard in a philatelic exhibit. In national-level exhibitions, my exhibits fall into the Display Class, which allows such items as postcards, photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, etc. I actually have more postcards than stamps or covers in my Battle of the Atlantic exhibit, but it didn’t seem to bother the judges: I still got a vermeil medal, and I wouldn’t change my way of creating exhibits even if the judges didn’t like it: I don’t exhibit for them, or for other collectors. I exhibit for me!
Bob
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To possibly add to Bob's idea, a map of the location could be used for a single stamp of short set of stamps.
Joel
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Maps are great! What I like to do is find maps contemporaneous to the period. I have a cover mailed to Mexico City from my hometown, Silver City, New Mexico in 1895:
To help tell its story, I scanned a portion of a page from a 1908 Dutch atlas given to me by a friend, showing Silver City:
I was fascinated to find Silver City in that atlas, since it was a small community then and is still a small community. But it was literally "on the map" starting in the 1880s because of the mining of huge deposits of silver and, in nearby Piños Altos, gold. The cover was posted by the Azure Mining Company which, I learned only recently, produced turquoise that is still known as the highest-quality turquoise ever found.
I'm not sure that I can actually consider myself a philatelist or even a stamp collector. Stamps and covers for me are just artifacts that help me to learn about history; to tell their stories, I find that all manner of collateral items help. Someday I'll tell you about my "toy" submarine!
Bob
(Message edited by Bobstamp on January 10, 2011)
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Bob,
It is your keen ability to tell the story and your desire to learn,that in my opinion make you a great philatelist and collector.
Alyn
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Another interesting thing about maps is, a particular cover from a period of time from a country that no longer exists. As an example, a cover postmarked Saigon 1970, is it from a dead country? Also, covers from countries once part of the S.S.R., are they now considered dead countries?
Joel
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Bob,
Me thinks today is someday. ;)
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My odds and ends consist of letters/postcards from long gone relatives. Besides the story of the stamp I like to show the personal aspect of collecting. My uncle was a marine at Guadacanal and Iwo and having letters he sent home (free mail) is exciting to own. My grandfather was in jail in a small Minnesota town and I have a postcard of the town in the 20's. My daughter went to the town several years ago and retrieved the story from the still existing newspaper. I also have a letter written by my great great grandmother ... unfortunately it's in French but, my mother's side was French Canadian.
It's all in the perspective of how you want to collect and how you want to display. Bob says he rarely looks at his displays after completion, well, I'm the opposite ... how can I improve the display and what would I do if I get more collectible of that stamp. Therefore I look at all these pages over and over. I have completed over 500 pages (some containing two, possible three stamps based on how much I've collected). Of course the older stamps prior to 1923 I basically only collect a mint single, a cancel single, and whatever collectible that is interesting to me ... not necessarily of any value.
Stamp collecting is fun. I never look at value. If I like something I go for it. If it's out of my price range (as most of the older stuff is) I dream a little and let it go.
Perry
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Perry said, "Bob says he rarely looks at his displays after completion…"
What I meant to say was that I rarely looked at album pages after creating them. The same was true of proprietary albums when I used them. I had nice Denmark and Ireland collections housed in Lighthouse albums, but rarely went to them just to look at completed pages. The pleasure was in completing the pages, then they were just pretty pages, and sometimes, if the stamps weren't very interesting to me, not very pretty pages. Eventually I stopped using such albums entirely and went to making my own pages, but even then I rarely went into them.
My "completed" exhibits, however, do get my attention. I always find errors after they are exhibited, and I'm forever obtaining new items that would fit within the exhibits, so they are dynamic in the sense that I want to "renovate" them. Someday. Problem is, I'm always working on new exhibits! Because there is a some crossover between my web site and my exhibits, I often go into the exhibits to scan material and refresh my mind about its story.
I am in complete agreement with Perry. I rarely consider the catalogue value or street value of stamps unless I just can't afford them, and even there the bar has gotten a lot higher over the years. I recently bought a cover for a lot of money, twice as much as I have ever paid for any philatlelic item. I would tell you how much I paid, but then I would have to kill you. I mentioned it to my son, and his comment was along the lines of, "So, there goes that part of my inheritance!"
What I no longer do is spend money on stamps or covers that could star in a TV show titled "The world's most boring and ugly stamps." I quit collecting Canada when I was faced with the prospect of having to buy used postage due stamps of the Centennial first, second, third, and fourth issues, just to fill blank spaces in my album.
Bob
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An interesting and fun group of responses!
Bruce
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I find it easy to arrange systematic collections like year sets, topics, long definitive series, etc. However, I was wondering what people do about odds and ends?
I have isolated items that I don't really know how to arrange in a tasteful way. Examples would be:
--one or two low-cost values from early sets where to complete them would be too expensive
--items which don't really fit into a systematic collection such as isolated overprints, perfins, etc.
--sometimes I just have a liking for a particular stamp of a country whose stamps I don't generally collect
On an album page, I could record information that I like to know about the stamp, e.g., country, year, maybe catalogue number, reason for issuance. However, it would look odd to mount a single stamp on its own on an entire album page.
Stock pages on the other hand let me put several items together, but they're not really designed for recording written information.
So I ask the question, what do other people do in this situation?
Login to Like
this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Hi George,
I also like to collect odd little collections. I have found that using Vario pages and a 3-ring binder allows for any number of ways of showcasing these collections. I use small cards inserted in the Vario sheets with the stamps to record basic information - catalog number, printing method, perf, etc. - and typed 8 1/2 x 11 pages interspersed with the Vario sheets showcasing the stamps for more detailed information.
This seems to work well and affords an optimum of flexibility.
Terry
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
09 Jan 2011
12:05:43pm
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
However, it would look odd to mount a single stamp on its own on an entire album page.
I understand the problem, George, but think your idea about a single stamp is subjective.
I see nothing wrong with putting a single stamp on a page if it is something that simply does not fit in elsewhere.
I have one binder that is chock full of issues that are only related by the degree to which there is no relatioship between them other than my ownership and some personal whim.
Admittedly most are of sets rather than singles, but that is simply because over time I tend to find the rest of the set the item belongs to or something else that I think will look nice on that page next to the first stamp.
I almost wish I could be present the day when my albums are sold to some collector, or given away, perhaps, to see the puzzlment on his face as he looks at some page with three or two stamps from different countries or different eras and tries, for one flickering second, to figure out why I have them together and what the light penciled notation in the margin of the page could possibly mean.
But alas, I will be long gone and I suppose the moment will last only long enough for him to reach for his tongs and strip the stamps and their hinge reminents from the page.
Remember, the only hard and fast rule of stamping;
Collect what you want in the way that you want to.
Login to Like
this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
An "odds & ends collector," that's me! Long ago I decided I would collect what I wished, and mount it or not mount it as I wished. And I too faced the problem of singletons, and decided that one stamp could look just fine on an album page, especially since I was the only person who would probably ever look at it. But now, you get to look at one of them:
Today, I might go a step further, including a high-resolution detail image of the ship.
Bob
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this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
That's pretty impressive, Bob!
I've done something similar with sets, but never thought it could work so well with a single stamp.
Thanks for the ideas, everyone. If anyone does anything different, please let me know.
Login to Like
this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
That is a great page.
Login to Like
this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Bob's display is really nice. Unfortunately for me I have to display all my US collection in a similar manner, using single mint, single cancel, plate block/line pair (whichever is appropriate) and when available the first day cover. Obviously I'm missing many plate blocks/LP and first day covers prior to 1923 but it's been a fun challenge. This is a good reason to use the computer to accentuate the postage stamp and even add a short story about it. Thanks Bob for sharing. Perry
Login to Like
this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Thanks for the compliments, gentlemen. I don't do album pages as such any more, mainly because they take a lot of time and I really have no need for them. I found that once I completed a page I rarely went back and looked at it, so what’s the point? However, I am always working on (or thinking of working on!) exhibit pages.
I started exhibiting in 2005. After years of believing that philatelic exhibitors were snobs who were just showing off their collections (and some are!), I learned that preparing an exhibit is the best possible way to enjoy learning about a particular collection and to enjoy the collection itself. That exhibit did well (vermeil, or “small gold” medal at Vanpex 2005), and I’ve entered a new exhibit every year since then.
My exhibit pages actually work nicely as album pages, but the resulting “albums” are not static like my old albums were. I am always considering expanding each of them and as a result keep my eyes open for new material. I haven’t actually revised an exhibit yet, but no doubt will. My exhibit last October, was a two-frame (32-sheet) overview of the Battle of the Atlantic. I’ve already got enough material to add at least one more frame, and possibly two. My latest acquisition is a real-photo postcard of the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin.
Before finding the postcard on the web site of a dealer who specializes in Third Reich ephemera, including stamps and covers, I didn’t even know that Germany had aircraft carriers. Now I know that it did, although they never went into battle. Their story is a fascinating one of Teutonic hubris and bumbling. The postcard certainly gives me another reason to expand the original exhibit.
No doubt some among you raised your philatelic eyebrows at my mentioning a postcard in a philatelic exhibit. In national-level exhibitions, my exhibits fall into the Display Class, which allows such items as postcards, photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, etc. I actually have more postcards than stamps or covers in my Battle of the Atlantic exhibit, but it didn’t seem to bother the judges: I still got a vermeil medal, and I wouldn’t change my way of creating exhibits even if the judges didn’t like it: I don’t exhibit for them, or for other collectors. I exhibit for me!
Bob
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08:15:16pm
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
To possibly add to Bob's idea, a map of the location could be used for a single stamp of short set of stamps.
Joel
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this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Maps are great! What I like to do is find maps contemporaneous to the period. I have a cover mailed to Mexico City from my hometown, Silver City, New Mexico in 1895:
To help tell its story, I scanned a portion of a page from a 1908 Dutch atlas given to me by a friend, showing Silver City:
I was fascinated to find Silver City in that atlas, since it was a small community then and is still a small community. But it was literally "on the map" starting in the 1880s because of the mining of huge deposits of silver and, in nearby Piños Altos, gold. The cover was posted by the Azure Mining Company which, I learned only recently, produced turquoise that is still known as the highest-quality turquoise ever found.
I'm not sure that I can actually consider myself a philatelist or even a stamp collector. Stamps and covers for me are just artifacts that help me to learn about history; to tell their stories, I find that all manner of collateral items help. Someday I'll tell you about my "toy" submarine!
Bob
(Message edited by Bobstamp on January 10, 2011)
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re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Bob,
It is your keen ability to tell the story and your desire to learn,that in my opinion make you a great philatelist and collector.
Alyn
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this post
08:56:03am
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Another interesting thing about maps is, a particular cover from a period of time from a country that no longer exists. As an example, a cover postmarked Saigon 1970, is it from a dead country? Also, covers from countries once part of the S.S.R., are they now considered dead countries?
Joel
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this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Bob,
Me thinks today is someday. ;)
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re: How to arrange odds and ends?
My odds and ends consist of letters/postcards from long gone relatives. Besides the story of the stamp I like to show the personal aspect of collecting. My uncle was a marine at Guadacanal and Iwo and having letters he sent home (free mail) is exciting to own. My grandfather was in jail in a small Minnesota town and I have a postcard of the town in the 20's. My daughter went to the town several years ago and retrieved the story from the still existing newspaper. I also have a letter written by my great great grandmother ... unfortunately it's in French but, my mother's side was French Canadian.
It's all in the perspective of how you want to collect and how you want to display. Bob says he rarely looks at his displays after completion, well, I'm the opposite ... how can I improve the display and what would I do if I get more collectible of that stamp. Therefore I look at all these pages over and over. I have completed over 500 pages (some containing two, possible three stamps based on how much I've collected). Of course the older stamps prior to 1923 I basically only collect a mint single, a cancel single, and whatever collectible that is interesting to me ... not necessarily of any value.
Stamp collecting is fun. I never look at value. If I like something I go for it. If it's out of my price range (as most of the older stuff is) I dream a little and let it go.
Perry
Login to Like
this post
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
Perry said, "Bob says he rarely looks at his displays after completion…"
What I meant to say was that I rarely looked at album pages after creating them. The same was true of proprietary albums when I used them. I had nice Denmark and Ireland collections housed in Lighthouse albums, but rarely went to them just to look at completed pages. The pleasure was in completing the pages, then they were just pretty pages, and sometimes, if the stamps weren't very interesting to me, not very pretty pages. Eventually I stopped using such albums entirely and went to making my own pages, but even then I rarely went into them.
My "completed" exhibits, however, do get my attention. I always find errors after they are exhibited, and I'm forever obtaining new items that would fit within the exhibits, so they are dynamic in the sense that I want to "renovate" them. Someday. Problem is, I'm always working on new exhibits! Because there is a some crossover between my web site and my exhibits, I often go into the exhibits to scan material and refresh my mind about its story.
I am in complete agreement with Perry. I rarely consider the catalogue value or street value of stamps unless I just can't afford them, and even there the bar has gotten a lot higher over the years. I recently bought a cover for a lot of money, twice as much as I have ever paid for any philatlelic item. I would tell you how much I paid, but then I would have to kill you. I mentioned it to my son, and his comment was along the lines of, "So, there goes that part of my inheritance!"
What I no longer do is spend money on stamps or covers that could star in a TV show titled "The world's most boring and ugly stamps." I quit collecting Canada when I was faced with the prospect of having to buy used postage due stamps of the Centennial first, second, third, and fourth issues, just to fill blank spaces in my album.
Bob
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06:31:06pm
re: How to arrange odds and ends?
An interesting and fun group of responses!
Bruce
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