Worldwide collections - How do you organize them?

renden - haha, good on you!! Did you know there is a medical condition / mental health disorder for that??   Just teasing you my friend, LOL.
I do feel like having OCD myself sometimes - but only when it concerns stamps   

On a slightly more serious note - You are a stamp superstar when it comes to inventory of single stamps! I am far away from having the kind of control you have, tons of stamps yet to be organised. I tried inventorying single stamps for a few years, but had to give it up. Concluded it took too much time. So I will revert to simply counting them! Well, lately I've not even counted them, haven't done for years...so what do I do then? Let's see, well at least I know I enjoy them ! Haha, that counts, doesn't it ?

I love and willingly accept to be teased by such a good stamp friend. Luckily I do not pass the test (criteria) for OCD but do believe I have some "traits" and these helped me a lot when I was active in my career and specialties. It is the Software that has OCD  You need some OCD traits to enjoy Philately 

René

This really get me thinking. I decided when I restarted my collecting that I will collect the whole Europa. But with your system blaamand I am tempted to go all the way, but I will have a early cut of. (1970-80?)
I have to take it as a gradually change. It will require restrukturing of everything I have, including remove the whole Scandinavian collection from pre printed Lighthouse albumes to self made pages in Lighthouse Classic binders! But that is not the first thing to do. I will start with the European countries that I have not made a proper system for yet. That will be section 2 British Isles. Then I need to do Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Poland, and so on. I have used Steinar pages, but as I have stated earlier, I don't like the organization and they take to much space. And space are a key for my decision to go for blaamand's system (surely I will do some thing different, but...)
My Scandinavian (Nordic) collection are in 11 album, and that is without Aaland, Færøyane and Greenland. This take a good meter (yard) of my shelf. I guess I will be down to half or less with Blåmand's system, even with the areas that I don't have in albums.
So for a start I did put up an order from Nordfrim on three Lighthouse Grande Classic and 220 Lighthouse Grande A4-pockets pages. What I have to do now (ore after summer holiday) is to get rid of a lot of empty stock books that I have, some new and some used. I guess they will sell in my local stamp club
I have built a solid and big duplicate system for the countries that I have organized in albums. I will keep this and restart exchanging again. But I will and have to restrict myself to set up more country duplicate stockbooks from now. I see that this will require to much space, take to much time and give to little back.
The rest of the world that I previously did not collect, I have sorted on the go in small envelopes sorted in small drawers by continent, just waiting for a proper system to be taken care in.

Ok, blaamand, your system gave me only 4 hours sleep this night, it better be good
Now off to last day at work before summer holiday. On friday morning I will be flying to Mallorca. ( I have spotted some stamp shops in Palma )

Tobben

I'm a true WW collector (all countries) for the classical era (1840-1940; 1840-1952 British Commonwealth).

By "true", I mean sometimes I like certain countries/regions better, sometimes other countries -I'm unable to decide, so I keep them all.

I use the Scott Classic 1840-1940 catalogue and Steiner pages, which follow the Scott catalogue in layout.

I find it most simple to have an organization of pages that follow the country organization of the classic Scott catalogue - mostly alphabetical.

That way, I only need to remember the alphabet in order to find my current country of interest.

AS for reference information, I think Mystic Stamp's albums provide a great solution. They provide information on left facing page (the backside of previous page). Most never mount stamps on left facing side so always available.




The real issue with Scott is they organize alphabetically so people who collect regions like me have to purchase more than one. I like Gibbon's method smaller catalogs by regions. But even with Scott, you only need one set (no particular year) unless you are keeping up with new issues.

I am just getting into organizing my WW collection. I will re- read this thread and see what will work for me. So far I have not done an inventory of WW. I have little idea what I actually have. So, for now I have paused buying WwClassic.

My small country collection is on Steiner pages and inventoried. My recent Canada has been done but is not mounted. 

Like others, I find small issues with the Steiner pages. I plan on experimenting on making my own pages. That is my work on hot summer nights.

i plans to organize by continent the alphabetically . Not sure how I will organize colonial or dead countries. I certainly know I will find plenty of ideas on the Forum.

Thanks to Jon (blaamand ) for starting this thread, and to all those who have already contributed to it! It is interesting stuff, and for me, it is one of the biggest problems with my collecting.... picking a way to organize my WW collection, and then sticking to it.

I have been haunted for years by indecision when it comes to organizing my collection. As many of you already know from some of my older posts and newsletter articles, my Dad started me in collecting, and he was a Scott album man himself, so he pointed me in the same direction, and that is what I did for years. As a teenager, I had the Scott International Series up to Part 6 then, I recall, but I was troubled by the large, heavy, unwieldy albums, and I didn't like the fact that stamps were mounted on both sides of the page, which sometimes led to damage or inadvertently pulling them out of the album when flipping through.

So, when I became more active again in collecting around 1992, I decided to get rid of the WW collection and just collect classic U.S. I had an old hardbound Scott U.S. Specialty album that went up through about 1936 or so that had been given to me by a classmate when I was in 8th grade. The album had only a few stamps in it, but I liked it because it used single-sided pages, and it was quite finite in its scope. Sure, lots of pricey stuff could go in there, but on the other hand, I could fit my entire collection into a briefcase. I really liked the idea of a compact, focused collection and I went with that for about 10 years.

By the early 2000s, I was getting bored with only collecting classic U.S. I just wasn't that interested in using a microscope to search for "secret marks" on those early U.S. issues, and I had even less interest in postal stationery, which turned out to have a fairly large representation in my album. I was losing interest when, one night, at our local stamp club's "White Elephant" Auction, I ended up with a hardbound Scott International Junior Album that went up to about 1928 or so (no stamps). I spent the next few nights just poring over that album from cover to cover, and the siren's song of WW collecting lured me back to the fold. But this time, I was going to limit myself to pre-1930; no pursuing new issues for me.

That lasted for another 10 years or so (seeing a pattern here, anyone?), when I became dissatisfied with the fact that the Scott International Jr. album often did not have spaces for all the stamps in a complete set. So, I would buy a complete set and then only be able to mount some of the stamps in the album? Nope, that was not going to work.

Around 2010, I thought I had found the solution when I bought a set of three of the old Scott International brown-cover albums, once again covering up to around 1928 or so, but this time, including spaces for complete sets, watermark differences, etc. The only downside was that the pages were still set up for mounting stamps on both sides.

I have now worked with these albums for almost 10 more years, and I have decided that I am just not satisfied with the double-sided pages and the need to mount the stamps. I like the look of pages with spaces that need to be filled, but the bottom line is that I just don’t enjoy mounting stamps, be it hinges or other encapsulating mounts. I just do not enjoy it.

Strangely enough, I have decided to go in the other direction. I have decided that I will start using Hagner-style stock pages for my stamps. There are, of course, some downsides to this choice, but I like the upsides very much:

• No more struggling with mounts of any kind
  
• Freedom to arrange the stamps any way that I want
  
• Ability to leave gaps or not leave gaps as I choose or skip over areas that are not of interest to me
  
• Overall spending more time sorting, choosing, and arranging the stamps than dealing with mounting or printing pages or the like
  
• Ability to preserve never-hinged unused stamps in their pristine condition
  

 
The major downside to this approach is the lack of any sort of labeling or other info about the stamps where it is most needed: with the stamps! I am still trying to decide if I should type up some documentary pages to intersperse with the stock pages or do something else.

This final point is the one which still has me looking at your custom pages, Jon, which I think are superb, because they combine the needed information from the catalogue and put it right on the page with the stamps. I love the way you have done it, but I just don’t have the heart to face all of that mounting....

For what it’s worth, which is probably not much, these are my thoughts on the subject, which is absolutely the toughest one for me personally as a stamp collector.  I love the stamps, but have never been satisfied with how to organize and display my collection.

I think one other way of doing the stock pages is to have interleaving pages with the data on them. You could have all the stamp info and other pertinent data on these sheets. Make them double sided for each side off the stock pages. When you 0turn the page, you'll be presented with just stamps on the stock pages and the corresponding info on the printouts. It's not the prettiest, but could be a better idea than the small labels fitted in to the sock pages.

That's how I did my earliest Luxembourg. Just the stamps in boxes on the album page and a facing page with all the info. Then I am not re-printing the stamp page all the time when I get one stamp added. The info page is easy tp change up, as I add to the stamps. I don't have many of them, so it works OK with me.

To take this thread back to the topic of how to organize 'stamp-countries' together based on regions/historical timeline versus organizing them alphabetical. Here's my new frontpage for Belgium I made this morning, indicating how 4 different Belgian sub-areas will be merged directly into my Belgium albums, following a timeline. This way I keep these related areas together rather than spread in different albums. Many might find it confusing but it feels fine to me 

I have been stamping since age 12 with Scott albums and catalogs, H E Harris prior in beginners' albums and my inventory software is in Alphabetical order. Now do I have another 60 years and change my system that works for me. No !  Even my Custom albums follow the same criteria. However I appreciate being informed by blaamand and others of their "way" of doing things. This is all "stamping" and interesting and I respect those ideas.
Alphabetical order is my way and I have no intention to change - at 68, I enjoy the ride and other's different rides. We do not drive the same cars but maybe we all drive well  Thanks also to tobben63 for his answer to my question. Also interesting. Chris Beryllium Guy, too !!
René

I don't think it was you Chris (Beryllium Guy) I was me asking how he ........ don't let me start again

Back to topic..
I think that if you are a little bit over the middle interested in history, and how borders are changing during time, Jon's (blaamand) system feels "appealing". But then again change from a system you know and are working for you it is a big step to reorganise and change system. 
By implement the stamps as in Jon's Belgian example over here, you keep the history of the area together. If you are collecting alphabetically you don't connect stamps to the area, you are "just" filling spaces in your album, and that's fine. If you look at the historical map of Europa the time we have issued stamps there has been a lot of border moving and countries has gone and new countries raised. But the people, houses and farms and towns has been the same, and they have used the stamps that the government has decided to be valid for that area.
Ceylon is Siri Lanka and will be next to each other in my stamp album, not divided by 3/4 of the alphabet and therefore in complete different albums.
This is why I like the idea of Jon, and don't want to collect alphabetically witch would be much more easy. (maybe) 

tobben63 - hahaha, I believe you just hit the nail perfectly. My ideas are indeed one's of someone above middle interested in history, and naturally not appealing to most, which is just as it should be. I'm glad we all find our different paths. And I'm also glad someone appreciate my strange ideas of keeping to regions/timeline, like you do 😊

Hi, Theresa (philatelia):

Since you mentioned in your re-intro thread that you are using Hagner stock pages, I wanted to ask you a question or two, as I am considering switching to them permanently.

First of all, if you are in the US, where do you get them? The only US source I could find was really expensive. I can get them in the UK for much better prices.

Secondly, how do you handle labeling what you have? I am looking for solutions! Would love to hear how you are doing it, to get some ideas.

With Thanks & Regards, Chris

Friends of TSF
I have issues with everything   right now
I try via my Custom pages, to satisfy my "goals" in this WW stamp collection.

Since my late dad left a big stock of old Albums+with stamps (I like to keep as much as possible as the stamps are already there) and stock books as well as books with actual Scott number under each stamp (I do check each one), I have started, with CANADA, to customize the pre -1940-1950 in my chosen Countries (History is important) - Thus, I have many sources of "where are my stamps" in my inventory (computerized) and do not intend, unless it is "special" to do Custom Albums for each Country. I am working on FRANCE right now (Custom) and have been doing for the past 2-4 months, using Scott/Maury catalogs an #s.........just finished today Inventory of the PAIX-Peace with olive branch issues....20 in all + varieties !!
I have started to put images (on page) of the stamps I am buying actively except one ( $$$$) so the scans you will see are my stamps + a possibility of filling a space here and there.
My sub-specialty is New Brunswick, Province of Canada (already put some pages in a thread) and plan on completing my Province ASAP !!
Since this is a long monologue, imagine that 40% of my stamps are not inventoried yet, thus my early plan to downsize and this is more work than inventory itself !! September 1st - I will do a giveaway of 3 South American Countries (see thread) with some $ for our TSF (not at all a competition to firstfrog2013 Mystery Boxes....which I won in July )...but TSF needs $$ and I like to contribute !
René

New Brunswick #2d (Unitrade Canada Specialized)