Quickest way to separate loose stamp?

Does anyone have a quick and efficient system of separating 1000's of loose stamps?
Maybe by dimensions and then by pairs or multi vs singles and then by country/date of issue? Then mint vs used/hinged?
Anyways any suggestions are welcome!

Comments

  • 12 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • I like to begin sorting by political affiliation, so I know which ones to throw away. I used to do it by colors but started stressing out trying to figure if one was greenish blue or blueish green. Seriously, if I must, I'm inclined to believe most collectors would first organize by country followed by perceived attractiveness of the people's image on the stamps....oh, there I go again. Where are those meds?
  • Maybe you could start by selecting your countries of interest first. If not by country, then by topic. I would then sort through those categories by date of issue...
  • One trick I've heard suggested is, after separating by country, then sorting by denomination, at least for commemoratives. This can help cluster issues of the same timeframe together, and makes it easier to try to identify or catalog them afterwards.
  • Use empty egg cartons. They take up less space. For British issues, it's easy to sort by country, then king or queen.
  • Phil is right. Denomination sorting generally organizes the stamps in a general time frame.
  • I haven't had that experience ....I'm a new kid around the blocks
  • You two make quite a pair...
  • Large groups: definitely by country or area. i sit at a 6' table, put North and South America piles in their respective corners then the Caribbean in the middle to the right.

    Do similar with Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa. Then Australia and Oceania.

    Now you still might have large piles but put all but one in individual large zip-lock baggies and just sort the one to smaller
    divisions.

    If i see a lot of duplications going on, I might pull a few out for a "grab bag auction item" on one of the sites.


  • first country, then denomination, that's my method. I only collect US stamps now, so denomination gives you a general idea of year.
  • I'm still stuck with the thousands of nuts, bolts and screws in my shop... at least the stamps have pages with pictures to correlate.
  • Rene, an old-timer once told me, if you can't put 2 tractors back together and have enough parts left over to build a third, you ain't a real mechanic.
  • Ted, LOL, so true, so true.
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