Compared to coin or stamp collectors the community of passport collectors is a small one. Nowadays you can collect anything, I started once with coins but was never into stamps. Because of my interest in history and travel I explored the interesting world of travel documents. I started with the documents of my parents I found in the basement, some visits at a local flea market were also successful and I extended my collection. There are many old obsolete passports and you have to focus on your collection topic otherwise you might have quantity but a collector should focus also on quality. So my core focus is on Germany + former East Germany, Switzerland and collective passports and visas. From time to time some passports out of this focus get my attention because of a beautiful passport picture or other interesting aspects.
I am never greedy and always have my limit on the price I am willing to pay for an item. If I get it – nice and if not – I let it flow. There will be another chance. Of course in time your collection will have only a few gaps open and to fill these gaps you have to be ready to pay more as it`s then the rare items you are looking for and they always more pricey.
Today I am very lucky and happy to get many offers and inquiries via my website which is well established in the collectors community. Beside this there are other sources where you can find your items of desire.
- Delcampe has listed around 650 passports
- Ebay has also a few hundreds
- Collections sites just a few
- Auction houses – sometimes
- www.passport-collector.com has always something to offer
As said earlier the passport collectors community is a small but fine one. I am glad to know the high share of collectors and they know me. The Top 3 collectors should have a amount of 20.000+ passports and that would be enough to establish a museum. It is hard to predict how many collectors of passports are out there but my estimate would be maybe 200. Too low? Too much? It`s really just a guess.
I do have 130+ readers on my newsletter, the high share are collectors but not all. Our community is always happy to get net fellow collectors.
So, when do you start your collection?
I hope you enjoyed this brief introduction. Visit my website and sign up for the newsletter to learn more about passports, their history and collecting.
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