Specialty Catalogs for Colombia

You may be jumping in too fast.
My advice, would be to follow the Scott catalogue, and purchase Mr. Bill Steiner's CDRom of Worldwide Album pages  ($39 as I recall)
which you can print off,  page by page,  as you secure the stamps.
You can adhere the stamps via mounts, or hinges, as is your preference.

You'll end up with a collection, that mimics the Scott catalogue, and will be easily understood by most collectors,  if you begin to flyspeck, you can add your own pages later
or just mount the stamps with pencilled notes.

If you decide at some time hence to sell your collection (Heaven forbid!)   then most collectors will pay a premium for a nicely set out album.

I use pretty mundane 4 ring Binder Cases  ($4.50) from Officeworks and buy "slip cases" to prevent dust deterioration.

Ultimately, it's your journey, just take this as one option.
Colombia will end up with about  2 full binder cases that weighs around 5 Kg, and will be a pleasure to handle.

PS: Employ this forum as your query forum, if you have a Colombia oddity, that you do not recognise, we have South American specialists
here that will generally answer most queries.

If you want a more detailed catalog than Scott, I recommend Michel (in German).

Hi Jerry B

Many thanks, i wont be there until Jan but the good news is i have someone coming out in September to Australia so have asked her to go up and check for me, though i will email today first.

I did also find a few links that are useful , for new and current issues that can be bought

www.4-72.com.co/index.php?searchword=estampillas&searchphrase=all&Itemid=201&option=com_search

As well as this one that nicely covers recent issues ( 2010 on )

www.fiaf-filatelia.com/philately/2010/issues_2010_colombia.html

All good, as they help build up my image database .

I know Atlanta reasonably well, i used to work for NCR based there and i still go via Atlanta as Delta goes to Bogota direct from there. Nice place but cold in Winter ( especially as we have Xmas by the beach here !)

Tired In Syd

Hi Jerry

Thanks, i will make sure i get that one. The person in Colombia is actually my fiancee, we should be getting her final Visa grant to come to Australia for good very soon. So we are frantically buying everything we need there for life out here ( including catalogs etc !)

I had a good 6 hour run at it today i have a dining room table with masses of Colombian Stamps assembled and i am working my way through them . I am getting some variations in many of the issues, not knowing the print techniques used its hard to say if they qualify as a variety or error. I might take you up on your offer to scan some in and post them up to get your opinion?

I agree about your comment on the usefulness of the postal system there , it seems to have degenerated ( and this is the country that has multiple issues featuring their Post Office) Not even sure if i can mail order recent issues , how do you go about ordering current material from there ?

Anyway a great start today , stockbooks out and being populated and noting the gaps and quality in what i have . Least its the best way to de stress .

I worked at NCR for a long time , it was a great company but sadly lost its mojo and thus i went to another large US IT company a few years back. Thats a bit better but you cant ask too much these days from any company

Hope you have a great Sunday

Cheers

Tiredin Syd

Rodney:

Colombia will end up with about 2 full binder cases that weighs around 5 Kg, and will be a pleasure to handle.

That may not be enough. I already have 5 3-ring binders for Colombia.

Jerry B

Hi Jerry and Rod

BTW its James.
Jerry i just started when AT and T spun back NCR , what happened after was far worse though. When i started they had some 1200 employees here , now i think they are around 200 odd as the core ( maybe more they did a few acquisitions recently but that was by debt i believe)

Thanks for the thoughts on my fiancee, its been 7 months now of offshore processing , we should be close now otherwise its yet another trip there for me. Will see but for now i have my whole dinning table occupied with my sorting ( 2.3 meters by 1.2 meters ) so there is upside Of course that means i cant vacuum there either so extra time for me! Yes she is in Bogota and will be going to the places you recommend on my behalf to bring back the items with her. Plus we plan to be there in January in any case as i am in NYC for work every Jan anyway.

Rod , i found the Scott pages you mentioned on ebay , so my bids in so Scott plus SG is what i have . But i am finding ( as Jerry alluded to , a lot of varieties in paper , print , perfs and shading that i need to work through . I figure i have about 6 thousand or so from Colombia , of all different types so i am sorting these out and have elected at this point to settle on stockbooks for basic sorting at this point. My intent though is to design my own ( hence why i need the catalogs) and to print the pages off containing reference numbers etc. Will take some work , but its the only way that i can scale and by using Hawid mount strips i can really make it look good. Plus i end up with a electronic version , perfect for insurance reference. I googled the Steiner pages, thanks for the reference i do like the way the pages are set out and it has clarified what i want to do.

Hi James
It is easier buying direct from Chirokmd than bidding on eBay.  I am not sure if the eBay sections are 2015 and/or complete.
One reason you should have Barriga and Temprano catalogs is they list varieties that Scott, Michel or SG do not.  At one time Yvert and Tellier was pretty good but I haven't seen one lately.

A hint to sorting the pile.  First sort by face design disregarding paper color, perforations etc..  Put each group of face different into glassine envelopes or something similar.  Once done, group the glassines by issue date. Once you get a catalog(s) start identifying the stamps in each glassine.

If you have that many Colombian stamps I am making a trip to Australia to see what you have   I wish I had a pile like that.

Yes AT&T is great with communications but they should stay away from software.  When I did consulting work at Bell Labs in the 1970-1980's they brought in the consulting firm I worked for to do software. Recently I have been sending letters to AT&T corporate complaining about how they fouled up Yahoo.  I get responses but it is only lip service.  Like they did with NCR, I think AT&T also killed Yahoo.

You can buy stamps from Alvaro Barriga and be confident in the fact you are getting genuine stamps. I have stamps that I want to buy but since Alvaro does not have his US bank account anymore I have to send US dollars to a cousin in Bogota and he will go over to the store and pay Alvaro in Pesos.  I do not use credit cards on line so this is the only way.  I believe he does use PayPal.  

Personally I prefer Showgard to Hawid open top mounts.  See this write up that I created a while back:
thestampforum.boards.net/thread/304/tips-using-stamp-mounts

I would have thought that getting papers to emigrate to Australia would be easier than the US.  Our nephew went to Toronto and got a resident visa almost immediately.

Jerry B

Hi Rod

Thanks, i had 6 good hours on the weekend in a straight run that paid big dividends. Sadly work is getting in the way at the moment .
I am hoping that buy doing one country i can go deeper than i would normally . I have a rule, i can only collect if i have been there So that limits my countries by definition ( plus gives me incentive to travel more

Are you going to the stamp show in WA , I believe its this weekend? If so and you happen to meet a dealer that has Colombia/ Latin America stamps can yo let me know their name in Oz?

Hope the weather is better your way , we have had 159mm in two and a half days .

James