Stamp Identifications?

The photos probably work fine for simple i.d. shots. If you wanted to play with settings (I hate reading the manual) you might find a setting that lets you choose fluorescent or incandescent ambient lighting, which would color correct for you.

Don't feel you need to go that far for these posts, but if you're the kind of person who likes playing with that sort of thing, it is pretty neat to see the results.

Simply for what its worth.

I've no idea of prices in the US, but here in Australia you can find an excellent new flatbed scanner for around a hundred (Australian) dollars. Once you work out how to use the blasted things (always a nightmare with a new scanner, I find), they're a godsend. I've been using them for 15 years or so, and I can't imagine how I survived without.

Scanners aren't pricey and are probably the best way to quickly get quality images of stamps. The thing is that I recently spent a fair amount setting up my camera outfit, so it will work for now. Not a professional, I'm only taking pictures of the stamps to either share here or put on-line for personal use. No aspirations of trying to make it as a stamp dealer.

If you've invested some do-re-mi in a camera, it will definitely have an easy setting for color balancing. It is the cheap one that won't have the optional settings.

You'll like the results.

This is probably wandering off-topic for a stamp forum, but since we are discussing still how to take pics of stamps, maybe not...

I have an Olympus E-410. Great entry level camera, which has given me a chance to take some really nice shots (see here if interested: http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lotspeich

I am using the iPhoto software that came with my Mac. Anyway, I will mess around a little with color balance and try to get better imaging of stamps with the camera. My next lens will probably be a macro lens, which should open up some opportunities for detailed images of stamps as well (maybe get a photograph of grill work?). Always fun to see hobbies combining...

You might be interested in taking a look at the Olympus Digital School's E-410 white balance tutorial.

http://www.olympusdigitalschool.com..._/index.html

Maybe this internets thing isn't a fad, after all?

Hmmm...

The links that I posted for these images are now dead. I don't understand why. I use Picasa (part of Google) to host my images -- maybe I broke one of their rules and they killed the link?

Does anyone on here know why the images would no longer show up?

It takes some effort to post images on here (SCF) and if the links to images are going to expire, I need to either figure out what I am doing wrong, or it really is not going to seem much worth the effort.

For now, I just received more Taiwanese arimails from the 1930s-40s and was going to post images here, but will post them some other time, perhaps...

Fixed it...

The Picasa setting needs to be public. Or that is perhaps how it was set when I initially pasted the link from the Picasa site.

More flights over the Great Wall:


#C13 Republic of China (Taiwan) 1932 30c Junkers F-13 perf 14


#c39 Republic of China (Taiwan) 1941 $2 Junkers F-13 Unwatermarked, perf 12½

I'm curious why these Taiwanese stamps so prominently feature a landmark from mainland China?

They weren't Taiwanese when they were issued: they were issued by the Republic of China.

In fact, Taiwan wasn't even part of China when these stamps appeared. It was a colony of Japan.

Sorry: I was using "Taiwan" in the common sense. We discussed earlier the difference between People's Republic of China (PRC or "mainland China") and Republic of China (ROC or "Taiwan"). The 1932 stamp above pre-dated the Japanese invasion of Taiwan (true?), at least so I understand based on my very limited knowledge and reading, while the 1941 stamp would have been issued when Japan had control of Taiwan. So, were these stamps even used for postage on the island of Taiwan or throughout all of China?

Initially, I assumed that they were used on the island of Taiwan (mainly because they are listed in catalog as Republic of China (Taiwan). Hence the confusion over the Great Wall as topic.

If this reveals my ignorance of mid-early 20th century Pacific Rim politics -- blame the California public schools!

As I understand it now from your post Tony, these stamps are Chinese and not Taiwanese. It would be fascinating to learn a little about how postage was handled during the Sino-Japanese War and in World War II, at times when government control was shifting so frequently.

I can see we need a short history lesson here:
1895 - Japan invades and colonises Taiwan
1911 - Qing Dynasty overthrown, Republic of China (under the KMT or Nationalist Party) declared
1945 - Taiwan returned to Republic of China after end of WWII
1949 - Republic of China overthrown, People's Republic of China declared
1949 - Republic of China (KMT/Nationalit Party) government retreats to Taiwan

So, yes, these stamps were 'China', not 'Taiwan'.

The history of exchanges of mail between the Japanese-occupied parts of China, the Government-controlled parts and the Communist-controlled parts is beyond me, I'm afraid. From what little I know, mail was still generally exchanged across the lines.

One of my (but by no means the only) philatelic blunders:



Received this several years ago from an auction in London. I fired back a furious email saying I hadn't bid on this, and I only collect Indian States anyway. The auction house replied, gently pointing out that I'd bid on the correct Lot number, but from the previous auction

Oh well, I suppose it might have been worse ...

Thanks Tony...

I'll try and do some more reading on the history. I knew there was something fishy about a Taiwanese stamps featuring a German plane flying over the Great Wall!

By the way, in this most recent purchase set, I picked up another copy of the small 1882 Jind stamp you were kind enough to send me.

Good news about the Jind stamp! I don't remember if Scott goes into the detail of these, but there's a scarcer version of that stamp on a much thicker paper (Gibbons prices it at £20, against 30p for the one I sent you). It's also known on laid paper - with a watermark of closely-spaced parallel lines; that one is priced about 5 times the value of the one I sent you. And these also occur perforated ... Altogether quite a complex little (little) stamp. And that's without going into the real detail of the different printings, in sheets of 25 or 50, and with different marginal markings