Sweden : Stamps

This is likely the most valuable stamp in my entire collection, which I bought quite by accident.  

The story:  Once a year, my local club gets circuit books from the Royal Canadian Philatelic Society.  Several years back there was a book of early Sweden and I picked up this stamp for $5 CAD.

The stamp:  It's 1862 3 ore "Lying Lion" stamp, Facit #14.  There's two types for this stamp.  

Type I (Facit 14A) was issued in 1862 and 709,000 were printed.  Catalogue value used is 5500kr ($592USD)

Type II (Facit 14B) was re-engraved in 1863, removing an engraving error in the top right corner.  10.5 million of the Type II stamp were printed.  CV is 130kr ($14USD)

Wouldn't you know it, I have a type I !  

Now I really need to get the cheaper Type II to fill the page.  But I haven't found one in nice shape -- at least not as nice as the type I.

madbaker... Nice work 

-k-

Thanks Keijo!

And thanks for the feedback Falschung. I know 'how' to post them bigger, but wasn't sure how the whole page scans would turn up for everyone. I hate, hate, hate, scrolling sideways!

I think I'll post up like jkjblue does on his blog. medium size images of whole pages that link to larger images, plus close ups of whatever seems interesting to me.

Oh yeah, and lovely North Borneo example. I have the 10cent Orangutan on my 'must have' list!

Hi madbaker,

Even if you don't decide to pursue postmark collecting, I hope you'll consider adding to our postmark calendar thread -- you've got some great candidates in your collection!

Note to Falshung: I put the images in via the 'insert image' button and the 'bbcode' option and I can't for the life of me make a frame come up to resize the picture. The best I can do is link to a very large picture using BBcode then set the max-width = 80%. That's 80% of whatever window you have open. So they'll fit on a low res screen, on my iPad, or on my widescreen desktop computer. But the widescreen image is huuuge!

Madbaker, I have to say I love the look of that quadrille page.Are you planning to move the rest to similar pages? Something about quads makes everything look like an old collection to me.I find there's more room for expansion as well.Thumbs up my friend!

Here's a couple of posts for firstfrog2013 - some Sweden stamps on quadrille pages.  

First, the set of Provincial Coats of Arms which were issued in the 1980's.  They are designated "Privatpost" because they were sold at a reduced rate and had restricted usage.  This series was valid to send a letter within the Nordic countries.

One of the advantage of DIY album pages is you can pull together these multi-year series onto one page.  These would be split across 5 pages in a pre-printed album.

The Privatpost stamps have unlimited validity - like the much more recent "Permanent" rate in Canada or "Forever" rate in the USA.

One more tidbit.  According to my catalogue, purchases were limited to two 20 stamp booklets per household.  I wonder how deep the discount was?

 



There's a couple of legible postmarks there too.  I'll remember them next year.

Mark

Finally (for tonight) is a fun set from 1997.  The stamps depict Swedish elk in various formats, from road signs to cartoons to cave paintings.

The triangular stamps were sold in a hexagon, but I mounted them so I could see the designs without hurting my neck.

Note the "Brev" denomination. In 1997 Sweden adopted fixed value stamps (aka Permanent or Forever) for domestic delivery.  By 1998 the Brev stamps were valid to abroad as well.

On best scenario over 30%.

You might enjoy reading this www.stampcollectingblog.com/swedish-discount-postage-stamps.php

-k-

Thanks!  I forgot about that.  It'll help with supplement pages if I get deep into postmarks.  

Here's another fun set to mark my 50th post.

From 1910 - 1919, the higher value stamps featured King Gustav V's portrait looking forward.  While the Oscars thrill me more, this set is also quite attractive.  And now that we're in the 20th century, quite affordable*

* not counting the 5 ore with crown watermark, CV $30 and not to be found in my house.  
* also not counting is the 55 ore or 80 ore, CV $6000 each.    You know, the 30 ore brown looks just fine.

Here's the page:




And a close up:



Mark

OK! Back again with some more of my Sweden collection. It's time for a fun issue, the 1920 - 1934 Standing Lions.

This is way more specialized than I typically get but my Facit catalogue has lots of detail and I seem to have accumulated several copies of these stamps. So I tried to go as deep as I could with the issue. True specialists, have mercy on me!

I'll take a couple of posts with this because I'm slow and it's Christmas and I need to give up my stamp room to my sister and her husband for a couple of days.  A thorough cleaning and an air mattress are required.

Before I show some pictures, a few words about the Facit specialized catalogue:

• I love their way of organizing for the most part (Finnish definitives are odd but that's for another post.) I prefer it over Scott.
  
• Stamps are listed by date of issue. Airmails and semi-postals are interspersed in the main listing.
  
• They give major catalogue numbers to "face different" stamps. New colours, major re-engravings, new denominations get major numbers.
  
• Perforation varieties get capital letter suffixes, listed under the main catalogue number.
  
• Watermark varieties, shades and other details like constant plate varieties get lowercase suffixes.
  
  

I'll break this down a bit as we go through the stamps in this series.

First, let's look at the 5 ore stamps. A brown-red stamp, perf 9 3/4 vertically, Facit 142A, was issued beginning on Oct 1, 1921. A perf 13 version (142E) was issued a year later.

Does anyone know why the perf 13 coils were issued? They exist for many of the stamp in the series. I can only assume a different printer who owned a different machine did a print run or two. But that's just a guess.

Here's a picture of 142A:





Sweden also issued a 5 ore green stamp beginning in 1925. They exist as perf. 9 3/4 coils (143A), perforated on all 4 sides (143C) and perf. 13 coil (143E) I don't have a perf 13 example but I have the other two:







But that's not all! The stamps I've shown so far are actually the third (brown-red) and fourth (green) issues of the 5 ore stamps. They are both listed in the catalogue as "Type II." The "Type I" stamps were issued in 1920/21 but the plates were quickly re-engraved and the Type II stamps came out a few months later.


The Type I stamps are listed as Facit 140 and 141 and are more scarce than the Type II stamps. 9.6 million Type I brown-red coils were printed compared to 272 million Type II. 12.6 million green Type I coils were printed compared to 1.1 billion Type II coils.

I don't have any Type I stamps to show you, but here's how you can tell them apart:






The image is of the Type II stamp. In the Type I stamp, the top line of the '5' tapers narrower to the right. Also, the bottom line of four on the lion's back paw is shifted slightly to the left.

Here's how the Type I is shown in the catalogue:



Lots of words and not many pictures here. Next time I'll increase the image proportion!



Mark

Here's the rest of the Standing Lion issue. The high values. Not super high, but high for this set!

The 25 ore value (Facit 147) was issued early on, in 1921. Only one type here, the perf 9/34 coil.



Facit 147 - Perf 9 3/4 coil

And the "high value" is the 30 ore brown, Facit 148, issued right at the beginning in May 1920. It exists as a coil and perf 4 sides.



Facit 148A - Perf 9 3/4 coil



Facit 148C - Perf 9 3/4 on 4 sides

And that's the Standing Lion series. Three posts to share what fits on one page in my album. Whoo boy.

Mark