Zen of Sorting Mixtures

I find sorting mixtures of stamps to be very relaxing.  While it obviously satisfies that part of me that likes to go through boxes of "stuff" looking for the best items, it's also just a calm, repeating task where my mind can wander ... while also being a test of my memory and appraisal skills.

For world mixes, I will add country piles alphabetically in about 3 rows as the countries come into play.  A general mix will have all the usual suspects: Australia, Canada, Germany, GB, Japan, Switzerland, Scandinavian countries and a few others, about 20 main piles.  I typically have extra piles for Africa, Other Asia (not Japan or Hong Kong), Latin America and Other (general).  I also have a pile for postmarks, or a pile for regular postmarks and slogan postmarks if enough slogans appear in the mix -- despite the decades of articles about how interesting postmarks are, I almost never sell an actual batch of them even though I have hoarded pounds and pounds of them and never get tired of looking through them myself.  

Right now I have a 5 pound world mix going, and when that's done, I expect about 4 ounces in each of those other piles, which get sorted down into smaller batches.  I started selling mixtures back in high school, and as a business it's all about buying large quantities of general mixes and breaking them down into smaller amounts that would sell at higher prices per pound, followed by the bulk common mixes that probably nobody will ever buy.  Donate these or make a crazy bulk offer someone will go for.

Some of the countries are worth sorting into subgroups.  For most countries, the split is commemoratives and high-value definitives -- if there are enough of any category to be worthwhile -- and an "other" pile for the more common stuff.  If there are a lot of older issues, pre-1960 or so, those can be good mixes.  For GB, I will do a pre-decimal mix, and then a few Machin mixes (newest iridescent issues, syncopated perfs) and maybe a pile of castles if they're in there, or a pile of pre-QEII issues if it starts to add up.

As I watch the historical figures and castles and flora and fauna pass by in a stream of clip art, it's hard not to think of far-off places and topics.  As the numbers pile up, I wonder how this particular distribution ever came to be -- why so much of this country, why so many recent issues from the Netherlands but only 1960s issues from Belgium.  I think of numbers, math puzzles, cities I will never see in person, other planets, and it calms my mind and stops it from constantly indexing and nagginag about all those other things I could be doing.  I'm pretty sure that sorting mixtures brings down my heart rate a bit, and keeps general anxiety at bay for a while.  And putting 6,000 stamps into piles does involve 6,000 arm movements.  The arm can get sore after a few hours.  Which makes me wonder whether it also counts as a tiny bit of actual exercise.