Whatcha Been Stamping?

Got all of this from a friend today.

Probably nothing special.

The quality isn't that good either.

There are also a few stamps in the album.

Many have already been removed.

The pages are tattered.

I'm going to completely disassemble it to save what's still okay.

Confusion, and “a dog from every village,” as we say.

This sends me all over my collections and albums, that's how I love it.

Got 160+ German Field Post covers this evening. A quick look suggests that they range from 1940 to 1945. 

The best part is that more than 90% have the original letters. In one case, 28 letters to or from the same two individuals. There are a number of other sets as well as many stand alone items. Mostly letters, but a few postcards and some postal stationary here and there. 

I'm looking forward to organizing and curating this interesting mess. 

If it was posted to Colnect please let me know so I can see who added the image to our catalogue.

Thank you very much for that, Alex (vikingeck).... it will be great!

Today, I went to the stamp market, bought about 30 used stamps, mainly Scandinavian (Finland & Iceland), but also a Luxembourg card and 3 British used (from FDC) British Country minisheets: "Celebrating" England, Scotland and N. Ireland (I'm just missing  Wales!). Not a bad day!

Chris @beryllium Guy,

Thank you very much for this needle in a haystack set of Nicaragua stamps. They arrived safely and I liked the cruise brochure you used as the stiffener. Actually read some of the content.😀

I received two stamps in this registered letter from India. It took 47 days to receive it. But that was ok because the estimated delivery date from eBay was correct. I like the India Post logo.

A few events have converged to focus my collecting efforts this week.

On Wednesday, a club member brought his Netherlands collection to our weekly coffee meetup. It was stunning. 90%+ complete White Ace album up to 1980 or so. I saw many, many stamps in person that I'd only seen in pictures or catalogue listings. And they were all in great condition. F-VF+ as they say in the catalogue. Beautiful.  He brought his French Colonials a few weeks ago (Minkus album in that case) and it was equally gorgeous. 

I've also been making up packets to give away for our local philatelic charity. They get so much material donated that it's tough to stay on top of it all.  One of their big projects is to make free packets of 15 all different stamps which are given away at libraries, stamp shows, little free library boxes, etc.   What strikes me from this work is just how common the common stamps are. I'm pulling from hundreds and hundreds of the same stamp. When there's so many stamps available, we are selective about damage, cancels etc.  If we wouldn't want to collect it, it doesn't go in the packet.

I just now added 2 pages to my original Rhodesia posting in my Oranges and Other Citrus fruit thread.

A whole new adventure for me this evening, Got a PM from tobben63 a couple of days ago about an early Missionary letter from Samoa in a Norwegian auction house. I was intrigued and interested and placed a bid 24 hours ahead of the sale. Torbjorn pointed out I could watch it live and by accident I hit the bid button and discovered I was active bidder on a GB lot …..Wow ! Relief when I was outbid on something accidental which I didn’t want ….but realised I could now bid if necessary on the Samoa.

Well my prepared bid was soon beaten and I had to go live. I was hitting the bid button as things got active and came out of the exercise the winner but at double my starting bid. A dangerous game as I was unfamiliar with Norwegian Kroner , unfamiliar with online live bidding and confused as to which bids were mine and which were opponents…. very interesting !

I’m finally taking the time to prune the duplicates from some areas that require a bit of time. As I’m currently focusing on selling all of my Japan, Vatican and Austrian duplicates, culling those duplicates from my Hagnar pages is now a priority. To keep me from getting sidetracked, I’m not going to update my wishlists! I have a very naughty habit of going shopping whenever i spend too much time focusing on empty spaces!

I’ve almost finished the Vatican, but i decided to just keep the entire accumulation of Roman states because I need to learn quite a bit more before deciding what to keep and what to sell. The regular Vatican issues are easy as there are few issues that require perfing or watermarking or other checks. Austria needs the most work. I’ve finished perfing a bazillion early issues, but I still have all the commemoratives from 1980 forward to cull. There are thousands of duplicates there that need a new home! Japan is almost done. All the duplicates are pulled except for the early definitives. today I dove in and started on those. I’ve found quite a few perf varieties, too. I’m also making up auction lots with the 2010-2020 issues. OMG I have so many stamps that need a new home! Sheesh!

Here’s a page i just finished;

I’m not sure why pics seem so much blurrier once i upload them - 


And some of the duplicates culled - most of which will go into penny lots so watch for those if you enjoy puttering on early Japan. 

Oh my, philatelia! I see a Yokohama bota cancel as well as a roman-letter double-ring with Meiji Year cancel on the top row. Is the date legible?

You’re in luck! I have penny lots of old Austria almost every week on Ebay. Keep watching for more soon

Not much time for stamps lately but in the moments I have had I have been sorting through some collections to dispose of.
Including:

Finland: (Mostly 1920-1970) Mint, some used
France: Small collection M&U 1930-1960
Cinderella: Delandre Collection of around 600 Poster stamps.
Cinderella: Great Britain including Poster Stamps, Test & Sample stamps, revenues and more.
Cinderella: Various Worldwide including some 'classics'.
Topical: Remainders of a Flag Collection. 
Ephemera: Interesting selection of items from Exhibitions mainly (but not only).

+++more to come too !! 

I will be offering many of these stamps and Cinderellas here first at TSF before going elsewhere. There will be sales, an auction or two and some giveaways.

This apart, I have been to visit a friend's Stamp Store in Tel Aviv and met other philatelic buddies on the same day for lunch and chat. Clubs are not good here, in the main, so meeting collectors in small groups is much more interesting, at least in my experience.

I recently joined a group of JNF/KKL collectors and we hope to arrange a meeting in the near future.

Still checking out any Philatelic events/shops in England & Scotland for July. The list is small, very small !!! 

Londonbus1