What Do You Do With Your "Official" Overprint Stamps?

Hi,
I'm trying to find homes in the Scotts International albums for various stamps with "official" printed on them.

First of all, I "assume" these are regular postage stamps that are free for official use. Is this correct?

Today I was working with Columbia and Costa Rica stamps with the official overprint. Of course the Scotts albums have no space allotted for "official" stamps for these countries.

So what do you do with these? Do you put them in the regular postage space for that stamp, or create a separate page, or put them in a glassine envelope for another day?

Thanks all!
Mobilman44

Officials are considered 'back of the book' stamps, which Scott generally denote with an "O" prefix. Are you sure they are not at the end of the sections, after airmail and postage due, etc?

Some countries have relatively few officials and others have boatloads.

I guess I didn't answer the other part of your question...some countries use overprints or perfins to create officials, while others create specific designs that are only used for officials, and not for general postal use. Or, a combination of both.

I have a bunch of official and service official and when I find one I pluck it out and put in in a small 3 ring binder especially and only for "service / official" stamps! Just like an album for only air mail another for postage due, surcharge etc.

Thanks all,
No, for these countries there is no "official" spaces. For some countries there are of course.

Ha, I guess I just want a space for every stamp I have..................

This is your chance to be wild, flagrant, independent, and reckless.

When you see a picture of a stamp in your album you know you can never afford, smack an Official over it. In two weeks, you will forget what's underneath, and that Mozambique purple bisect triple-overprint-one-inverted will become just a fleeting memory.

Mobil
I collect Costa Rica and have the Steiner's page from the stampalbum web and I do have the official stamps section and it's listed in Scott catalog. If you have Scott album, it's there for sure. Daniel

Timbres,
I have Part 1, 2, and 3 of the Scott's "big blue" albums and I actually have different copyright dates of each. None of them have spaces for stamps with the overprint "official" for the two countries. I believe Scotts country albums have them, but the Big Blues do not.

The older Internationals, at least, have spaces for just a few of the many Costa Rica officials, but not for the Colombia officials.

I should have actually checked before posting my earlier answer that was Scott-related but not International-specific.

The "Officials" are found in Big Blue, but definitely less than the similar non overprinted regular issues. Also, the '69 editors cut out the Officials pages and spaces for a number of countries- Liberia comes to mind.

- One of the realities of a selective 35,000 space album for some 80,000+ stamps issued during the 1840-1940 era.

They may need to be put on an additional blank page- or some other solution.

If I were in your shoes, I'd add a new page for them.

Hi

It is a pet peeve of mine so please spell the country of Colombia correctly. Thanks.

Colombia only has 13 Official Stamps and they should be at the back of the album, probably right before Postal Tax.

Ecuador has a lot more and most of those I place on a stockcard as they are Seebeck reprints.

Venezuela has 28 Official stamps and they also should be at the back of the album.

Jerry B

JBCEV80,
Yes, it is ColUmbia. Thankfully, I spelled it correctly. I guess we all have those words that are near and dear to us that way. Mine - for the last 40 years has been "Mobil Oil Corporation". When folks say and/or write it as "Mobile" I just cringe..........

Its me again...........
Yes, its a sad fact of collecting using a regular album. You will always end up with variations and types of stamps without specific spaces in the ready made albums. I'm narrowing these "extras" down and will eventually add pages to the countries involved.

As we have seen time and time again on this forum, if you are collecting worldwide - even "just" through 1955 or so - it takes an awful lot of pages and binders to accommodate all of the issues and variants.

If I knew then what I know now (mainly how deeply I've fallen back in love with the hobby), I would reconsider printing out my own pages and making up my own albums. Of course I would only print the pages I could use (ha!)

Big Blue has its limitations as far as often not offering enough spaces for a specific country. But if one pulls back the focus, and looks at trying to fill 35,000 spaces, it is one tough challenge, accomplished by few. .

Columbia/ Colombia.....

Columbia is much more common in the U.S., ( Columbia University, Columbia Sportswear etc), but if one is referring to the country in South America , it is Colombia.

I have made that mistake myself.