Adventures In Albania

Over the past month or so, I got on an Albania kick and decided to acquire a few collections off of ebay to see how well I could do.

I started with 16 Albania stamps that came via my huge worldwide sort (at about a cost of 1/2 cent a piece)

My acquisitions over the past few months total roughly $65 including shipping. (I have an additional small collection on the way, not included in these numbers)

I added a total of 700 new unique stamps to my collection and 112 additional duplicates. Giving me a total of 716 unique stamps (with my 16 I already had. (all but one stamp are pre-1980)

Of these, 215 are Mint and 501 are used. - These represent 34% of Albania's total stamps through 1980, and 24% of their stamps overall.

Now - in order to see how I made out. I added up the catalog value.

Total Cat Value is: $756.05

If I take off the min value stamps (20 cent stamps) - There are 348 min catalog value stamps totaling $69.60. This leaves me with a catalog value for the remaining (non minimum value stamps) of $686.45


Well - after all that - I think I did pretty dang good. Based on total cat, I purchased the stamps for 8.5% of Catalog Value! - If you exclude the minimum value stamps, I got them for about 10%..

This doesn't count the duplicates either, which I am guessing will catalog around 50 bucks... (a lot of them are from the era where most of the stamps were above minimum cat for Albania).

Also - I ended up with nearly a complete set of (now Empty) Scott Album Pages that I could probably sell to someone who wants them.

Initially, spending 65 bucks, I was thinking I may overpaid, but, I think I got a great deal overall!

Acquiring another 700 stamps will likely be more expensive than this round... but, just as fun I think.

Anyway - here is a one page scan from one of my album pages for your enjoyment....