The State of my Collection Address

It's been a while since I purchased anything new for my collection(s). The issue being about three years ago I went on a feeding frenzy of buying kiloware and in short order I had - if I recall correctly - 27 pounds of material to sort through. I'm down to 16 pounds unsorted at present. I'd put everything in gallon size zip-loc bags at about a pound each. About half worldwide and the other half United States. I've been sorting ever since - mostly the US stuff though I've managed to get through a few pounds of the worldwide as well.

This is one of 5 boxes like this I bought.




There are but two or so pounds of US left to sort. Now when I say "sort" I really mean first sort as I've sorted them so far by denomination and type (based primarily on thematic collections). Tonight I'll dig into the second to last pound of US and from there start second sorting - first the topical stuff and then everything else. I'm excited to get the first sorting done and begin filling spaces in my collections. Just last evening I browsed through my US albums and most of the few spaces I have post-1940 I found myself thinking, "I've got that.... I've got those" so before too very long I should have but a few blank spaces in my US collection for the years 1923-2000.

I know this - once all of this is sorted through and everything is in it's place I'll not tackle kiloware more than a pound at a time. From all of the sorting, however, I've come across a lot of stock material for a goodly number of topical collections (I use the free album pages from APS and sometimes I simply print their pages and sometimes I use the APS pages as a source to create my own pages using Microsoft Publisher).

Below are a pair of random pages from my US Nondenominated Postage (1975-2007) collection where I used MS-Publisher to create my own pages based off the APS free pages on the same thematic subject.





These scans are from the New Mexico themed pages from APS where I simply printed and used the pages as provided. I tend to print the title page in color and the rest of the pages on any given theme in grayscale.





The kiloware - as might be expected - contains a lot of duplication, seconds and general wallpaper but that's not to say there haven't been a few nice finds along the way. The scan below is three stamps from a sheet of 100 of the US sc#1610 with an offset printing error. I can find these in MNH condition on EBay but I've yet to see any of them in used condition. Not saying they're not out there I just haven't seen them. As for catalog value I can't say but I've seen singles of these things listed for as high as $75 for a single MNH... for what it's worth.



So as I continue to sort and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on the first sort through all that's US I'm excited to see what spaces get filled, what topical collections will blossom from out of nowhere and what remains to be seen that I haven't thought of as yet. Then it's onto sorting the WW kiloware.

This past weekend I did finally break down and place a US 2000 year set of MNH into my Liberty Album and thus catching up to as far as the album(s) go year wise. Currently keeping my eye on a 2001 and 2002 year set to keep moving forward. I'm really pleased with my US collection I must say and look forward to getting back to a place where I take one step forward in my collection and then a step backward to fill out the classic areas of the collection. Sometimes I have to remind myself that stamp collecting is a marathon not a sprint.

That's where I'm currently at with my collections - where are you with yours?