1 Year Into Becoming A Philatelist, My German States Collection

As some of you know I started this habit a year ago. This site has been absolutely invaluable to me. Words can not do justice to the appreciation I have for this community. I present my Schaubeck Altdeutschland album. It in itself was a recommendation for this forum and I couldn't be more pleased. WARNING: I have Saschen #1 filled, yes it is a forgery, lol. Also there is 2 in baden. About1/3 have been expertised and Mecklenburg 4 has a cert from germany. Sorry less talking more pictures.

Nice collection. IMO you're ruining the album's aesthetic—a big part of what you pay for with Schaubek and the like—with the double-stacking and additional black (not clear) mounts.

Well done - you must have got lots of enjoyment. Agree about the mounts. You really need clear mounts on these printed albums so that the underlying text is readable. The additional material would look better on a separate blank page of stock-page, rather than damaging the design of the Schaubek leaf.

Yup, ill get clear ones eventually. I used old Dennison hinges to put them on so it won't be a problem to remove. Thanks CP

That's my next project G. The album does have blank pages in the back. Once I finish the album I'll use that for extras. The color varieties I'll do the same clear mounts on the pages themselves.

A experience philatelist will tell you two things . First stop using that album to hold your duplicates ,it screws up the clear mounts . Second remove all those damaged stamps ,set a standard to your own album and remove the poor quality stamps that lowers the eye appeal of those nice pages .

Impressive collection. I'm always curious to know how did you assemble this? Purchasing singles one by one or purchasing larger lots? I assume at least some of the latter due to dupes. And what type of outlet, ebay hipstamp, or private auctions?

Also I must be going crazy but all the mounts I see except a couple are clear. And the ones that aren't are empty space not covering anything. Arguably having extra stamps which don't fit in spaces is somewhat aesthetically displeasing but I'm not sure changing those to clear would solve that. It might even look worse because they don't have outline like the other ones.

The schaubeck album comes with all the clear hingless mounts already installed so that's why you see them on blank spaces. The black mounts I used for bremen #1 are additions because I wanted to present both horizontal lined and vertically lined paper as well as having a type 1 and type 3 in vertical. I will definitely change them out asap to clear mounts. The duplicates that you are seeing are different colors. Unfortunately the album only has one spot per value but some stamps have as many as 5 color variations and to old germany collectors color can change value 10 fold. I plan on adapting the book by adding clear mounts for the multiple color variations on each page. As far as putting together this collection it was started witha few singles that I got in worldwide collections I had purchased on ebay. From there I started trying to look for groups of stamps. After attaining mostly lower value stamps I started purchasing individual higher end stamps that I couldn't attain in groups. More recently I had an opportunity to purchase an older aps members collection of a few states as a whole. I purchased the bremen collection first and went through each stamp diligently with the stampforgeries.com site and realized that I had all genuine stamps. Plus about half had been expertised. I quickly scooped up the rest of what I was able to get. So eBay and a private collector.

Bubba , we got a failure to understand each other . You use the phrase "1/3 have been expertised " that means a lot of different things to me ....does that mean the experts found defects on the stamps ? does that mean the experts found them to be fake ? or did the experts find them with fake cancels {a lot of German States are worth more used } . Did the experts found them to be cut into reducing their value ?............I am puzzled because a lot of these stamps are cheap how can you have $25.00 to $40.00 cert's for cheap stamps ..........please help me out .....- Dazed and Confused .

Paul, often by 'expertized' collectors in Europe don't mean they have gotten the full certificate. They instead have just the mark added to the back. The collector might have sent it in for that purpose or a previous collector might have done it. Traditionally that process is much, much less expensive.

floortrader,

In German collecting, expertization generally means only that an opinion has been issued that the stamp is what it purports to be -- IOW, its not a forgery and if used, the cancel is not a forgery (though if the stamp is particularly rare in any condition and someone has added a forged cancel, you'll sometimes see a cert issued despite the forged cancel, if only to note that the underlying stamp is genuine).

They don't generally do a lot of condition analysis like the US agencies do, noting every thin, short perf, etc. The certs generally just note that a stamp and cancel are "echt," or genuine, and whether it's MNH, MH, MNG, etc. You'll rarely heard the term "expertized" used unless it came back good on all fronts.

Sorry guys the holidays and work took me away for a little. When I said expertised I meant exactly what was just said. Just signed on the back. Whether cancels are legit our not really is above my knowledge and I'll let the experts decide when needed. Some are obvious like the Hamburg cancels with the round circle and astrex on either side of the date. That was done by the fellow who purchased the existing supply of unsold stamps. Heavier lines on the early year and lighter lines towards the end on the 3 and 4 line cancels. Unless the stamp is of extreme value getting a certificate probably isn't necessary IMO.

Bubba, I'd suggest not messing with the page layouts. Leave out the variants, mounts, etc. As I and others have mentioned, you spent good money for this specific album, and you're devaluing that. Use Vario pages or a stockbook to organize all the other types, and then mount them on matching blank pages at the end, like an appendix. I guarantee that you'll like that better than your current slapdash (IMO) approach.

Have to agree with this.

I only admit damaged stamps to one of my collections when the postmark is the primary factor.

Is the Saxony #1 real? Do you have cert for it? It looks like a beauty but that usually makes me suspect.

Oops: just read original post—forgery
Sorry I missed that

Great collection regardless: enjoy viewing it