Topical Collectors: What Do You Do With The Rest Of The Set?

I often have to get a set in order to get the one stamp I want. I'm sure many topical collectors have the same problem.

I feel as though I should keep a set together but I don't like how that looks in my album. Right now I have a pocket at the back of the album where I keep them but a really have no use for them.

What do other topical collectors do?

Karen

Karen,

Thanks so much for asking this question! It has been on my mind for awhile and I just keep forgetting to ask. I'll be curious to see what others say.

There was an announcement in the American Topical Association's magazine about a new ATA online store that is going up soon. They mentioned that this would be a good place to get rid of the other stamps from sets. It will be nice to be able to shop by topic!

Aimee

Indeed. I try to buy only the one stamp I need from the set, and thanks to online auctions and my dealer, who is very helpful in that respect, in most cases that is possible. In those cases where the complete set has to be purchased I put it in the back of the respective album with an identification of the set and a paper copy of the missing stamp.

My dealer told me that when he buys topical collections the biggest challenge is to identify the stamps. You never know where your collection will end, you may want to sell it yourself one day, or your kids will. My approach makes this task easier for a potential seller and buyer of the respective collection.

Klaus

So far I have just kept everything but I am thinking I should sell / trade the extras to other topical collectors who might want the other stamps. Or just sell off in a mixture.

that is a great question. At the moment, my topicals are still in envelopes or stock books - not in a nice display yet (yes, I am intending to ...)I kind of thought of presenting a mix .. noting that many topical stamps are found in sets and including some as examples .. but maybe that won't look so good.

great question - am not a topical collector but have have been thinking about a few areas in recent times - have always baulked given that you usually need to purchase full sets to get one stamp

The one topic I do collect are the martial arts on stamps and they are quite often only one stamp out of a set etc. What I have done with some of mine in the past is just trade off the excess stamps I don't need, where I can anyway.

I try to avoid buying sets just for a single stamp but keep trying for the individual releases.

Chimo

Bujutsu

One tougher - what if the one stamp you want is part of a se tenant block? I hate to separate them in that case but the other stamps may be very distracting to my topical theme.

Scouter,
You're absolutely right! So far I have been able to avoid the problem by obtaining the single stamps of the se tenant or else a se tenant that has a partner that is as at least closely related, but I know of some in my topic that are going to be a problem if I can't get them as singles. It would be a sacrilege to separate a se tenant but... what to do... what to do...

K

Scouter wrote




Tougher still - what if that stamp is part of a souvenir sheet, with no perforations?


Klaus

G'day all!

I keep the rest of a set in a stockbook;if the stamp I want is part of a minisheet or similar, I put that in with the collection, rather than break up the sheetlet. The reason for that is mainly one of resale should that ever become necessary (hopefully, only my heirs may want to!) - I don't think there is a big market for single stamps out there, since I rarely find them, although some online sites may have some; and living in Australia, I really hate paying a lot of postage for a single stamp... To make things easier for my heirs, though, I have marked in the computerised inventory of my collection whether a stamp in the main display books is part of a set or not, simply by putting an asterix to the set numbers (or in that column if no numbers are available).

Why not sell the leftovers here on SCF?

I'm not a topical collector (yet) but I will occasionally buy small lots that include 1 or 2 stamps on my want list. I try to sell or auction the remainder of the stamps on the Forum.

This is a problem faced by all thematic collector, early days during starting collection,i used to buy full set, but these days I have gained some control over my heart to buy each and every thing.
I wait patiently and I already started getting the results, I am getting the singles one way or other, either through exchange with friends or through auction. I had written this problem in my blog last April .
http://ourelephantss.blogspot.in/20...llector.html

There is an opportunity to greatly expand SCF's traffic and participation. If we opened a new thread/section for set remainders, and made it simple, we might get a LOT of new members.

Something like this; List 200 topical subjects by number. A typical post might read "Have France 44, 53, 78, 103. Want 39, 48, 101."

Note, these are not catalog numbers, they are topical-category numbers. Each post refers to only one country on the "Have" side, and those are, in fact, the "unwanted" portion of a set of, say, 6 French stamps. Since the OP doesn't care much what new topicals he gets, he only specifies categories, not a country on the "Want" side (i.e., 39, 48, 101).

Such a simple system would be easy to Search too. We could become a major clearinghouse for TOPICAL swaps. And IMHO, charging full "support" for this specific function would make it unworkable, maybe $5/year would be acceptable for the Topical area...

What is a topical category number?