One constant issue that lifelong philatelists have with their collections and an issue about which their families have much to say is about the amount of space that a stamp collection takes up. For many collectors, a lifetime in philately means they have assembled their early worldwide collection (which often runs to many volumes), several more specialized collections (often running many volumes each), some volumes of covers, more volumes of philatelic items that they wonder why they ever bought, and usually several boxes of newer stamps and covers that await sorting and mounting. The average lifelong collection that we buy runs to nearly forty volumes and boxes, and the most common comment that we hear is that the collector doesn't know how it got to be so big and found it daunting to prune it down to a manageable level.

 
As you can imagine, as we have heard the same complaint from so many of our clients, we have developed some guidelines for helping collectors keep their philatelic holdings more physically manageable. Collectors whose wives are always moaning that their burgeoning stamp room is threatening to drive them from their home are not happy philatelists. First, collectors need to know how to prune. When a garden gets overgrown it chokes off the growth of what is desired, and a good gardener is always trimming back the species that are less of interest. In our hobby, many collectors hold onto the bulky and unimportant collections of their youth. They hold on to the old first day covers that they collected as kids. They keep their early forays into UN and the mistakes they made the time they signed up for Postal Commemorative Society junk. When we do stamp closet consults we are usually able to winnow out half (or more) of the collection by selling off philatelic area that the collector hasn't looked at in years or that never really interested him in the first place.
 
Since nearly every collection conforms to the 90/10 rule, whereby 10% of the volume of your stamps comprise 90% of the value, most of what you get rid of when you prune your philatelic garden is mainly bulk. But, this pruning can be very liberating and cause the rest of your collection to grow partly from the additional funds that selling unwanted stamps can bring. Further,there is renewed interest when collectors force themselves to carefully evaluate what they have assembled and make serious choices about where they want to go in the years ahead.
 
Since every collection and every collector are different in terms of size and goals and means, trimming down is a very individual matter for which only the most general rules can be given in an article like this. Several times a week clients ask me for advice about issues in trimming or expanding their stamp collections. I would be happy to help you with your issues in this regard so email or call me if you would like to enter a discussion of how we can help.