Toyempires collecting journey and stamp related musings

Thank you for all the replies. Fairyfoot, I think you hit the nail on the head Although I enjoy the look of a full page of stamps, the feeling of completion when I mount that final stamp to complete a set or mounting a large number of single country stamps like I recently did with 1910ish to 1945 Austria It is "the hunt" that I enjoy the most. Which explains why the allure of a "mixed country box lot" or "mixed glassine" lot often proves to be irresistible and why I suspect I enjoy trades so much.

I just signed up for Crazyquilter's round robins as again the prospect of "a hunt" showing up in my mail box is so appealing and just joined ISWSC mostly for their swap circuits. I have even justified biding on a lot of stamps which clearly had much I did not need with the thought of adding to my trade stock.

I have never done sales circuits as my collection is so young (I just started less than 3 years ago) that I can easily find things I need in purchased lots and collections and thus the single selection style of sales circuits seems unneeded at the moment. But I suspect I will look forward some day to receiving them in the mail as well.

Perhaps the real reason the South African album gave me pause was that it would not have required much hunting to complete it? On the other hand when one collects the world as I have decided to do (probably so the hunt would never end ) the near completion of one country is really just a drop in the bucket and as a collector is not completion something you are suppose to be aiming for???

, looks like this is turning into a real philosophical musing on my part now Perhaps in my case its the journey that's important and not the destination.

When I first got back into collecting about 5 years ago, at one of the first stamp shows I ever attended I purchased a HUGE Minkus World Wide album. Despite it not having anything of great value it was chock full of stamps. At the time I felt like I had won the lottery. What I have noticed though is, to this day, I have not been able to remove one stamp from it. Not a single stamp. Which is funny because I've purchased more than a few albums since then and have had no qualms about tearing into them and even .... YES ... tearing out whole pages without any remorse!
But that Minkus..... I just can't bring myself to disturb it. I honestly feel like I'd be "desecrating" something complete. Well almost complete. At least more complete than anything I had at the time.

oldtriguy1960, and Butterfly, I see your point some collections are just so well put together or where obviously greatly loved by their previous owners and thus pulling them apart would be a crime. In the cases of such collections you become a caretaker until such time as you pass it on to the next collector who will hopefully under stand its significance as much as you did. I have purchased over the last few years several collections but have never as of yet been "found" by a collection such as those you gentlemen are in possession of. I agree that the intro page idea is wonderful it creates a wonderful history or "provenance". I find that I am now hoping that I may someday be lucky enough to come into such a collection myself. I am still trying to decide a cut off date for my US collection and am also undecided if I will use my Minkus Supreame world wide pages or purchase a dedicated album for it. On one hand its my home country and thus deserves some love on some level. On the other hand I find the stamps of many other countries more interesting.

Lots of nice stuff in that collection. Lots of room to add to.I guess it's up to each individual collector what he/she wants to collect. I have never and never will tell someone what they should collect. There is no such thing as "you should collect ........" Some specialize in one country or even one set of stamps. That's fine and some of these collections turn out to be masterpieces and win awards and well deserved. I on the other hand collect anything that resembles a stamp. The reason is, over the years I had a thing for Box/junk/mystery/closeout sale boxes. Usually most were Bankers boxes and contained stamps and philatelic items from every corner of the world. I don't specialize in any one country but I try to get at least one page from every stamp issuing entity if possible. I don't actively go hunting for "wallpaper" stuff but I have tons of it. (from where? take a guess) I have no cutoff for any collection and I am not going for completeness in any area. My philosophy is simple. Have fun with your stamps and that's what it is all about. Happy stamping.

So I have made a determination that both pleases and scares me a little regarding how my collection is going to evolve. My initial plan 2 years ago was to collect the world to 1952 or so however this started feeling a bit limited almost from the start and I expanded out the cutoff date to 1970 within a few months of returning to collecting. In the last few months I have purchased some country collections with stamps going well past 1970 prompting a rethink on cut off dates. I have decided on the following collecting strategy.

When I come into a decent amount of stamps from a particular country (most likely from buying a country collection or box lots)I will take a look at that countries stamps and decide what year I will collect that country to based on how much I like the post 1970 stamps.

Since getting the reprint Minkus pages for each such country is expensive I will most likely use either new Scott Specilalty pages (like the thicker paper used these days) print Steiner pages or use other suitable albums, might even splurge on a hingeless album at some point.

This means that my collection is likely to get very large over time, possibly involve the purchase of higher dollar stamps to fill spaces and in many cases certain spaces are likely never to be filled. A bit scary but also exciting I have decided I am OK with it.