Stamp Collecting 2024

[gonefishin]

Originally Posted by steve B

I have a full set of catalogs, and my wife collects France, so I'm pretty good with France. Not quite as good as with US or Germany.

China is not usually as complex, I have an older specialized catalog, but it doesn't get into many varieties and stuff like that.

My stamp collection arrived, and it far exceeded my expectations. There were 2 albums of US Stamps contained in 2 Scott Binders, ranging from 1947 forward. I'll try to get some pictures posted in the next few days, but I think there are some really nice stamps in the collection. There was also a home made (looks like an accounting binder) album that contained stamps for about every country in the world. Most of that collection ranged mainly from mid 1800's to around 1930's, with a few later stamps. Unlike the US collection where the stamps are stored in like individual sleeves, the world stamps were all hinged. There is a nice mix of used - unused mint in the binders.

Since Steve is familiar with France, I thought I would start by adding the France Stamps from the world binder. There are several other French territorial type stamps, but the ones pictured here were in the French section. Anything - anyone - could tell me to educate me on the French stamps is appreciated.

Thanks and enjoy.

[gonefishin]

CORRECTION - I meant to say 1847 forward - my bad!

[philliesfan]

Well I made my friend an offer and I am waiting for him to check if the seller accepts my offer. They wanted a little more than what I wanted to pay but hopefully they will consider my offer.
Bob

[gonefishin]

A big thanks to Steve for his insight on the France stamps. Here is the Germany portion of the album.

There may be an expert out there on Germany!

[steve B]

That's a nice assortment, nothing too expensive, but fun stuff and in some ways almost "complete" (By the US catalog, by the specialized german one no. And even they don't list everything. )

The last group, the upper left three are from private posts run within cities.
The big one is a meter imprint.
The bottom few are revenue stamps, but I'm not sure for what exactly.
For some, the stamp went on the document, other schemes had half the stamp going on the document, the other half retained as a reciept, which cleverly parts the stamp preventing it's reuse.

[gonefishin]

Again, thanks Steve - much appreciated. If there are any other countries you might like to check out, let me know - I probably have them.

The U.S. portion of the collection is quite extensive and contains some pretty nice stamps. 150 stamps from the 1800s including #1, Columbian Expo, Trans-Mississippi expo, etc. In addition, probably about every stamp from the 1900s included in the first book. The second book contains mainly back of the book, Revenue, cut squares, Confederate States, etc. with the vast majority being 1800s and early 1900s.

I've been learning a lot this week researching the stamps! Some countries I've never heard of and some countries no longer exist.

It's been entertaining.

[steve B]

The 1800s US official stamps are my main thing.

I collect them in some depth, plate varieties, cancels, pretty much anything I can afford.

Which is odd, because I avoided them for years. Many are in bad shape, and are still expensive. But I started trying to get the ones with the specimen overprint, figured the 1 and 2 cent were possible and not expensive. ALong the way to that, I got a few really good plate varieties, and just kept going.
Eventually found and example of a 3c post office printed on an experimental press that hadn't even been described for 80 years. So long missing the experts had figured that none actually existed.

Long fun and slightly strange journey. It did get me out of the mindset of having to have things complete. Some are so expensive They were never going to be ones I had. There are some varieties that were described in the 1930's, but haven't been seen since, and may have been someone misinterpreting what they had. The writers then weren't fussy about facts.

I have a solid maybe for one of them, and a couple shaky maybes for another. But todays standard is finding two with an identical flaw. so more searching.