"The Most Affordable Classic Stamps to Collect"

When I was first researching the collecting of classic era stamps, I came across the website by Michel Bégin of Quebec with the above title. His site is no longer online but can be accessed through the Internet Archive WayBackMachine. I tried emailing M. Bégin several years ago but had no response. But as I once again came across the archived pages a few days ago, I decided I should mention the website here.

Bégin's purpose was to show which were the least expensive classic era countries to collect. As the website is still copyrighted I can't reproduce the data, but here are some highlights. Bégin calculated there were 436 countries that issued stamps during this time (not counting Offices). During the 19th Century alone, there were 276 stamp issuing entities. During the classic era, there were 13 countries with more than 500 issues. The US had the dubious distinction of having issued the most stamps: 902.

 Bégin calculated that 148 countries could be considered the most affordable to collect and provided several tables summarizing this information. For example, he notes that the Ivory Coast issued 166 stamps starting in 1892 with no stamps cataloging over $100 (based on 1997 catalog values). So, definitely still worth checking for Bégin's interesting statistics and comments, especially if you are considering starting an affordable single country collection.