November 11, 2023
I had always planned to go back to
collecting the world after my retirement, because I assumed I’d have more time,
and I did have a small collection back in the 70’s. I had a copy of an old edition of a Scott
Junior International that my parents had found at a yard sale for me—it had
been creamed, so there were only common stamps in the album, but I was familiar
with the Scott album(s).
Collecting the world certainly does
not have to be expensive. There are, I’m
sure, literally hundreds of thousands of world collectors around the world who
buy kiloware, and other bulk stamps to fill albums, and they have, I’m sure, a
great time doing this. But trying to complete
a BB can be an expensive journey.
Perhaps the best way to start is to
purchase the largest BB collection you can afford. On his blog post to Filling
Spaces, blogger Bob said “As others have noted, it makes the most sense
to jumpstart the process by purchasing a collection already in progress,
presumably the largest one can afford, and ideally in a loose-leaf album in
good enough condition to not require remounting.” I seeded my BB collection
with 3 different BB’s that I purchased on eBay, and started with 11,204 stamps
for $455, or about $.04 per stamp. It is
never going to be that inexpensive again!
I began to accumulate quite a bit of
material. For example, I can see in my
records the purchase of at least 10 separate BB albums. I also began to
purchase country collections and then ultimately box lots in auctions. A good example would be receiving 5 large
boxes once, containing around 30 different albums (and most of these are still
in boxes, after I took what I needed for my BB).
So, I sold a few of the BB’s that I
had purchased on eBay, but that wasn’t going to sustain my purchasing
habit. So, in June of 2019, I decided to
sell my duplicates, and those stamps that did not fit into my BB online. I realize that I am collecting to the BB
differently than most do. Other
collectors have asked me if I keep empty pages for the extras that I find that
do not have a space in the BB, and I do not.
I decided to collect the BB only, and any extras, and any duplicates
that I accumulate, I decided to sell.
I did not have a lot of inventory to
begin with, but I started by taking out every stamp out of each album that I
had accumulated with Scott C.V. of $1 or higher, and ended up with, IIRC, about
3 red boxes of inventory. I checked out
eBay, Stamps2Go and HipStamp, and after looking at the costs for each, and the
ease of using their bulk loading files, I opted for HipStamp, and I’ve been
selling on Hip since June of 2019.
Selling on HipStamp takes up more of
my time than collecting stamps for my BB, BIG TIME. With a flat bed scanner, I can scan stamps in
8- 102 cards at a time, and I can scan 100 stamps to be posted online in about
45 minutes. But first it takes time to
break down whatever collection I’m working on, inserting the stamps into the
102 cards, and then posting each one to my inventory list. I could do without an inventory list, but to
list 100 stamps online with HipStamp’s “bulk lister”, the stamps all need to be
in a text (CSV) file, so keeping the inventory list is an outcome of listing
the stamps.
I could post some numbers showing how
it has worked for me, but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll explain that all of my
purchases either from dealers, online or at shows, or from HipStamp, eBay or
others, or from auctions are now made from my PayPal account from my Hip
sales. If I go over my PayPal account, I’ll
pay my checking account back from my PayPal account when I’ve sold enough. This is how I’m able to afford my BB
completion journey.
I’ve continued to accumulate
inventory, and now I’m working out of 12 red boxes, and I have an entire corner
of my stamp room filled with material that I haven’t had the time to list
yet. So, the process of accumulating to
complete, selling off the rest is an unending, entertaining, and sometimes
overwhelming spiral.
And here is the link to my HipStamp
store:
https://www.hipstamp.com/store/coopertown-worldwide-us-classics
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