eBay Users' Stamp Club meeting Sep 11-13 “What are your biggest headaches in collecting?”

[sheryll*net]

*** eBay Users' Stamp Club ***

 Please join us on this thread for our monthly meeting on “What are your biggest headaches in collecting?” from any time Friday Sep 11 till midnight PDT on Sunday Sep 13.

What are your biggest headaches in collecting?

• Storage space?
• Cost of material?
• Difficulty finding info?
• No time?
• Always outbid?
• Too many collections?
• What else?

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• Anne will have a display in the balcony of herbal remedies for headaches.
• I will be showing pages from my first 100 collections.
• Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, beta blockers, antidepressants and triptans will be provided, with a spoonful of sugar to help them go down.
• There will be a “Have a Whinge” area in the balcony where members can vent about their pet peeves of collecting. Asbestos suits provided!

See you there!

Sheryll and Anne
eUSC 2014-5 Co-Presidents sheryll*net (Sheryll in OR) and abt1950 (Anne in NJ)

[billsey]

My #1 has pretty much got to be space... I've got an awful lot of material biding its time in the garage, hoping for a stint in the 'big house'. 🙂

Of course, finding (and affording) those last few items to complete a country pulls up a close second...

[r342]

Great Topic Sheryll,

One of my biggest headaches in collecting stamps is when I buy large collections that are supposedly catalogued, usually a significant portion of the collection is misidentified and I have to re-catalog it. This most often occurs with the older issues of the collection.

Another pet peeve of mine is that usually a significant portion of stamps that I purchase in large collections are damaged in one way or another.  This is often the result of hinging, but it also can result from other factors.  That is why I  always recommend to never ever never hinge a stamp (even used/cto ones).  The hinge often causes damaged and can reduce the value of your stamps.

In 1962 the Immate of Yemen was overthrown.  The Iman's Royal Government and many of his followers fled to Northern Yemen and were supported by Saudi Arabia.  Those who overthrew the Royal Government were known as the Yemen Arab Republic(YAR).  A civil war ensued and lasted until 1970 when the YAR took over all of Yemen.

The civil war in Yemen began a very interesting chapter in philatelic history.  Both sides had postal systems and issued their own stamps.  The Royalist(Kingdom) issued stamps with the help of Bruce Conde an American Soldier  of Fortune and a close friend of the Iman Al-Badr.

According to Carlson R. Chanbliss's excellent book the Standard Catalog of Yemen and South Arbdia(2007), some of the Royalist Issues are questionable since they were not officially authorized by Brue Conde the philatelic agent of the Royalists although  Conde admits he "did not have exclusive rights for the issue of all Yemeni Royalist Issues".

One Yemen Royalist Sets Michel  251a-253a and Block 34(the Souvenir Sheet) have both authorized and unauthorized stamps within the same set according to the Chanbliss Catalog!  This John F. Kennedy set and its companion Souvenir Sheet are pictured in my next post.

This leads me to another collecting headache which is trying to determine which stamp issues are genuine in all respects.

Fortunately, the joys of collecting stamps far outweigh the drawback of collecting in my opinion!

r342 Randy

[r342]

[lloydstamps]

At the moment, too-large sets of new-issue stamps from major countries: 18 Star Wars stamps from Britain, 20 Pets next year from the U.S., 10 Charlie Brown Christmas stamps next month from the U.S., etc. I can't produce and sell my first day covers for these huge sets at a reasonable price.

[rfaux]

Of course time and money are always a problem.  I make what time I can and deal with whatever money I am able to use - not much else to do about it.

I do wish I could spend a little more time on the hobby during growing season months.  but, I do not foresee a change in that unless I change my career.

My biggest frustration has more to do with the isolation from other collectors.  Some of it is my fault.  Some of it is location.  some is time and money (again).  And, since the hobby is such a big one, there are numerous people within the hobby that collect in a way that doesn't make it easy to relate to what I do. 

But, still a hobby and still worth it.

Rob

[bjornmu]

Mi biggest headache will have to be No Time. I keep accumulating stuff that doesn't get sorted, even single stamps I buy which should have been put in the album where it belongs. Followed maybe by Too Many Collections: I have a few collections I've started but never really continued with so I'm probably better of just selling it all. I have some boxes of stuff bought 20 years ago which I still haven't opened.

[abt1950]

hello everyone,

Sorry I'm late to the party.  I've stocked the balcony with a few bottles of feverfew, ginkgo balboa, Passion flower, lavender, and a few other obscure headache remedies.  There's also a stock of substances that will make you not care about having a heading.   Since everyone seems to be having time-related problems,  I made a stop at Harry Potter's and borrowed a couple of  Time Turners.  they allow you to be in more than one place at the same time. So put your collections in different rooms ( you don't want to rum into yourself) and go too it!  I also scrounged up a Tardis and a time machine.  Very useful for getting those hard to find early rarities.

Seriously,  I'm facing a lot of the same challenges that everyone else has.

 Money is tighter since my husband retired and prices have gone up.  I think a lot more before I spend.  My Egypt aand Luxembourg collections are at the stage where I'd have to spend big bucks to fill the holes.  Most of the Luxembourg stuff I wouldn't buy without a certificate. Egypt especially seems to have become more expensive for the unusual things like essays that I really enjoy.  I'm glad I bought what I bought  when I could.

I'm really missing the lack of social contact with other collectors.  When I first started collecting, I was blessed with a real brick and mortar stamp shop a few miles away.  I used to hang out there at least one afternoon a week.  I saw a lot, learned a lot, and bought a lot. The original threaded stamp board was active back then too.    Strange how a solitary hobby like stamp collecting can be so social.  I haven't found any real  substitutes since then.

Time is also a big issue, as is a lack of focus.  I've got too much stuff that I bought back in the day that I still need to work on.   Some small collections and a few larger country collections too.  I work on one thing for awhile and then something else catches my eye---ooh,  shiny!  Pretty!   I think I'm moving away from being a true specialist and becoming more of a space filler with a few special interests.  it's a scaling down of my ambitions in some ways.  At the same time, I find myself focussing more on the aesthetics of stamps, even ones I used to consider kind of  boring.  it's amazing how nice even the ugliest stamp can look in a good scan when posted online.  Art and history go hand in hand on stamps.  I loved that link when I was a kid and appreciate even more now that I have more knowledge.

The stamp desk is still covered with clothes and other stuff. We had to empty the stamp room closet out recently to access pipes.  Time to put it all back (and get rid of most of the clothes)  and start stamping again.  

Why did I buy two lots of Japanese kiloware a few months ago?  Oh yeah---pretty!  Shiny!

Anne in NJ

[sheryll*net]

Great to see you here, Anne! And others who have posted.

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Isolation is a factor for me too, Rob. In a country of 320 million people there is no one I converse with online or in person about New Hebrides.

Lack of Material at stamp shows means I have had to flyspeck dealer boxes of the common overprints.

Lack of Money stops me from buying any big ticket items.

To keep interest up at stamp club meetings I have started collections of cheap available items.

When does this become Too Many Collections? Possibly when Lack of Space becomes the biggest headsache.

Spreading Oneself Too Thin then leads to Perceived Lack of Time to write up the New Hebrides, causing Long Break Since Last Competitive Exhibit.

At least I am getting to touch stamps and covers regularly, certainly every day!

Sheryll

[jaywild]

My biggest gripe back when I was buying was the theft of items that passed through the New York Post Office that dealt with registered items from Europe. I must have lost half a dozen really valuable items. Of course eBay refunded my money, but those items were real jewels that had been obtained inexpensively (because they were misidentified) and I sorely missed receiving them.

I repeatedly told sellers in Europe—“DON’T send the item certified or registered or insured.   And don’t decorate the envelope with pretty stamps. Send the item in a plain cover with a meter stamp if possible.” THOSE items I always got. The registered pieces always attracted the notice of the thief, who was caught eventually (although another one cropped up quickly) but among the stuff they caught him with there were no stamps or covers. Not recognizing that these things had value he simply threw them out. But some sellers are deaf to the requests of others, and sent the stamps with fancy stamps and registered and certified and insured, so they ended up in some Bronx dumpster instead of my collection.

I had one item sent from Belgium—registered despite my request—stolen. Someone had carefully peeled the flap away from one side of the envelope and removed the contents, then resealed it clumsily, so I got the cover but no contents. Again, since it was a stamp, it surely ended up in the trash, because these crooks can only understand currency (i.e. something that can be spent at the crack dealer’s) as being worth their time.

[rbpuzzles]

I share a lot of the same headaches as most of the others here. Lack of much extra cash, and time to spend it, especially since getting married. Luckily selling off my Spanish collection bits at a time in order to focus on Sweden and Denmarkallows me some money to spend without digging into the bank account. Also, buying much of the stuff online does save time i woul dotherwise spend traveling to stamp shows. But, like others state, I miss the face-to-face aspect.

i also don't have any stamp collecting compatriots around here and am seriously thinking about joining a (sort of) local stamp club, just for the interaction. I could never do this before since I always worked nights, but recently I made a change to a regular day time job, so now it's possible.

Along with these, I'd say another big headache is a lack of patience on my behalf. Since I don't have all day to sit and play with stamps any more, like when I was a bachelor, I have to work my stamp activities in between all the norml routines of life, and sometimes it only amounts to 15 minutes at a time. For me, that isn't even enough time to get comfortable in a chair and pull out the things I want to work on, so I tend to get a little frustrated. And this is suppose to be a relaxing hobby...............

[rfaux]

Anne,

I understand the move to/from specialization to generalization when resources change (time or money).  But, in my case, I am finding I move more towards specialization of other sorts rather than back to the space filling mode.  For example, I started doing things like this:

It only cost five dollars.  I was curious about the OAT marking and I was trying to find different, but less than $20, covers to go with the Prexies in my collection.  And, it was only one thing - so I could concentrate on it rather than a batch of things.  Have I made a page for it yet?

[the.philatarium]

Hi, everyone!

Boy, I can commisserate with everything that's been said here.  

The only thing different I can add to this is my frustration with trying to procure philatelic books and catalogs, and the lack of affordable, reasonably accessible reference materials online.

For those of you who live in a city that has a philatelic reference library, or a stamp club with its own facility that has reference materials, you are indeed blessed!  There isn't really anything like that here in Los Angeles, at least that I know of.  (And if you do know of such a place here, please let me know ... )

I know the APRL (APS library) has a great collection, but it's still about $20 in total to get a book temporarily in hand and then returned back.  And then sometimes it's not what it turns out I was looking for.

I've managed to cobble together an informal network of collectors online who have different references.  (And we had that at one time here on the old EUSC.)

But in this day and age, when the enjoyment of stamps themselves is really enhanced by the tools of the 21st century, access to reference materials harkens back to the 20th (or earlier).

On a more upbeat note, it's great to see posts from so many familiar names!   Feels a bit like a reunion!

-- Dave

[sheryll*net]

Nice cover, Rob!

I like Prexies too. They make great multiples - one of my Too Many Collections...

[rbpuzzles]

Dave, the Pomona public library use to have a nice stamp section in their "special collections" room (downstairs). I haven't been there since I lived in CA. 20 years ago, but it might be worth a looksee. You couldn't check the books out, but they did allow photocopies at that time.