Birds Perched, Birds Flying, Birds Aground

Yes, I'll keep you posted on what I do next! Very nice maximum card as well.

Hello, and Good Evening! Since no posts were put into this topic for awhile, I thought I would share a beautiful birds set from Liberia - one of my personal favorites!

Feedback welcomed!

gnstamps80, gorgeous!

Yes, very nice! I like the vibrant colors involved. My favorite Liberia set, for sure.

Madagascar #288 (Y&T #323) features a Long-tailed Ground Roller (Uratelornis chimaera) with a face value of 8F (there was also a multi-color 15F of the same design, later overprinted as the first stamp of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, but I'll limit this post to the 8F).

First here is the stamp as issued and a trial color die proof (in umber), with a close-up.




Plate proofs (trial color essays) are fairly common for the 8F (not so much the 15F). Here are the standard colors that are usually found:

Very nice detail on this one, Nils! What year was it issued, out of curiousity?

Issue date for this stamp was 9/20/1954. Here is a first day of issue postmark on a postcard for the 8F, and a proper FDC for the 15F (albeit a bit beat up).

Very nice! Interesting material. Question for you, Nils - I'm guessing you areas of collecting have changed over the years, into this specialty now. Do you have much other material, that perhaps you discontinued? I read that many collectors sell also. Do you do this with unwanted material? Just curious.

Yes, I have a lot of "closed" collections, but I never sell them off. You never know when your interest in a particular collection might come back!

To be honest, I really hate selling. I've dabbled with it in the past when I've had unwanted material, but it's more of a pain than anything else. I just occasionally sell or trade to another collector if I find out I have something they want that I can part with.

At the moment I have a fair number of extraneous proofs of the French community that I end up with when buying lots and collections where I only want one or two pieces. I should sell them to recoup some of my money, but I dread the thought of getting into that aspect of the hobby. It's not enjoyable.

Oh, ok. I see. I don't like selling either. I'm into other collections as well, outside of stamps. I mentioned comics. I also collect and play video games. Cool stuff. I just might be a lot of stockbooks, or a small stamp collection myself. As you know, my collection is small. Plenty of room to grow! Second question for you - do you use stockbooks? I like the 64 page basic black pages stockbooks, then a slipcase. I'm almost into my 4th.

Yes, if you remember, we had talked about those stock books a little while back in this thread. I'm a big fan of them (especially the older ones that don't have the "clingy" plastic interleaves they use now).

I've switched to the 'fancier' Lindner albums. I can coordinate by size (useful when collecting proofs, sheets and covers) and show the back of each item. They also protect the entire stamp from daily wear-and-tear.

I get mine from Palo Albums and they just e-mailed their customers that prices are going way up due to tariffs. They were already expensive! Sigh. But I've always believed that if you're going to put the time and resources into a proper collection, you might as well display it nicely!

Yes, very true! And yep, after I posted this, I remembered the stockbooks talk earlier. Sorry about that!

gnstamps80, it's all good!

Did you get the lot of 33 that you were waiting for in the mail? I've got some things finally arriving from Germany today... Germany is far and away the slowest delivery (to the U.S.) at the moment. Glad they finally got here!

Nice material, Nils! I have in most of the 33 sets. I'm waiting on a shipment of 8 sets from the Netherlands. So far, I'm very happy with what I received! Never ordered from Germany myself. In fact, this order I'm waiting on is only my second one not in the US. On a side note - the dealer I'm waiting on is named Postbeeld. Supposedly a very large dealer in stamps. Do you know if they are a good, reliable source? I'll keep you posted!